A two-day drive through three Massachusetts stories: the 1692 witch-trial landscape of Salem, the still-unsolved Borden murders in Fall River, and the folklore-dense Hockomock Swamp at the heart of the Bridgewater Triangle.
Accusations that began in Salem Village in February 1692 ended a year later with 20 people executed and at least five more dead in jail. The Witch House and the Old Burying Point carry decades of visitor reports of cold spots, footsteps, and voices. The last conviction was cleared in 2022, when Massachusetts exonerated Elizabeth Johnson Jr. after an eighth-grade civics class petitioned for her.
Begin in Salem with the Witch Trials Memorial and the surviving streets where the 1692 panic still shapes the city's identity.
Visitor access
Salem Witch Trials Memorial, 24 Liberty Street, Salem, MA 01970
Andrew and Abby Borden were killed here on August 4, 1892, and Lizzie Borden was acquitted on June 20, 1893. Dr. William Dolan described 18 head wounds and an additional neck wound on Abby, and 10 wounds on the fleshy part of Andrew's head. These are wound descriptions, not a count of distinct blows.
Roughly 200 square miles of southeastern Massachusetts named as a cluster of strange reports by one cryptozoologist in the late 1970s. The swamp at its center was called the place where spirits dwell long before he got there.
Finish north of Fall River at the Hockomock Swamp, the wetland at the center of the Bridgewater Triangle.
Visitor access
Hockomock Swamp WMA parking, West Center Street (Route 106), West Bridgewater, MA 02379
