Salem · The Nineteen Who Were Hanged

In 1692, in the village of Salem, Massachusetts, a group of girls began having fits and named the people they said had caused them. Within a year, more than two hundred people had been accused, nineteen had been hanged on Gallows Hill, and one man had been pressed to death under stones for refusing to enter a plea.

The court accepted what it called spectral evidence — testimony that a ghost had done the harm. A person could be convicted of a crime committed by a shape only the witness could see. No physical evidence was required, and much of the testimony came down to old grudges between neighbours.

The governor dissolved the court after a little over a year. The colony later declared the convictions unlawful and reversed them, though the last of the names took more than three centuries to clear. Salem keeps a memorial and a museum on the site, and the town still speaks of the trials as its own fault rather than its misfortune.

Bureau note: the mechanism was never the devil. It was a court that stopped requiring proof.

Historical Mysteries / Salem · USA / 1692