Haunted Footsteps Ghost Tours & Salem Historical Tours

03/06/2025

Sarah Remond (1824-1894) was born in Salem and raised in a free black family at Hamilton Hall. Her parents, John and Nancy, ran a catering business at the hall and were committed to the abolition of slavery, the women's suffrage movement and the desegregation of Salem's schools. In 1835 she passed an examination to enter Salem High School but was forced out by a segregationist school committee. She would receive a private education in Newport, RI. In 1853 refusing to sit in a segregated balcony at Howard Athenaeum "The Old Howard" an opera house in Boston an altercation occurred. Sarah refused to be intimidated and sued, she was awarded $500 (under $19,000 today). In 1858 she spoke at the Women's National Rights Convention and was a member of the Salem female anti-slavery movement. Later that year she sailed to England and was an invited speaker on the abolishment movement and suffrage movement. While there during the US Civil War she worked on raising awareness for Britains Union blockade of the Confederacy. Continuing on with her education she enrolled in Bedford College of Ladies (University of London). Moving to Florence, Italy in 1866 entered medical school and became a doctor. Sarah is buried in Rome, Italy.

Plaques remembering her exist in Salem, London and Rome.
Sarah Remond of Salem was an International Woman. The "Old Howard" burned down in June 1961 an historical marker located in Boston's Center Plaza.

03/03/2025

We’re searching for HOMEOWNERS who live in spooky/spine-chilling/obscure/or downright creepy houses across the United States!

Do you own a spooky home? Does your house have spooky decor, a haunted history, spooky stories, or alien encounters, and in dire need of a renovation?

Whether you want to show off your spooky home, or you are in need of a HOME RENOVATION, email [email protected], or fill out our application here: spookyhouse.castingcrane.com

02/27/2025

Rev. Jacob Stroyer was born into slavery in the 1840’s on the Singleton plantation in South Carolina.

His father had been taken from Sierra Leon and enslaved when he was a young boy. His mother was born into bo***ge in South Carolina. During the American Civil war, Jacob and several other slaves were sent to work on fortifications on Sullivans Island at Charleston, South Carolina. After the war, he attended school in North Carolina where he learned to read and write.
In 1872 he traveled to Worcester, MA. to study at Worcester Academy. He authored an autobiographical narrative, My life in the South, in the 1870’s. He later worked as a preacher at the Methodist church in Worcester, MA His move to Worcester, MA was likely due to his meeting the Reverend. T. Willard
Lewis, pastor of Worcester’s Laurel Street Methodist Church, who first went to South Carolina as missionary in the 1860s to minister to Black Methodists. Lewis may have used his connections to help Stroyer move to Worcester to continue his education.
In 1877, at the invitation of the minister of Salem’s South Church, in Salem, MA, Jacob came here to preach. He ministered for the next 25 years to Salem’s African American community as founder and pastor of the Salem Colored Mission. Jacob Stroyer died in 1908. His funeral was attended by hundreds of people including
the mayor of Salem. He is buried at the Greenlawn cemetery in Salem.

02/26/2025

REV250 is here...
February 26, 1775 on this day 250 years ago the North River in Salem was the site of what could have been the start of the American revolution. British army Lieut. Col. Leslie (1731-1794) was sent to Salem to investigate if weapons were being stored in Salem. Salem militia minutemen were on standby led by Capt. John Felt (1754-1796) and Col. Timothy Pickering (1745-1829) who prevented Leslie and 300 British soldiers from crossing the North River. With church bells ringing to alert citizens, Rev. Thomas Barnard (1748-1814) left his Sunday service pulpit asking Leslie to retreat in peace. Cannons were being stored here but the Salem residents were able to hide them and Leslie reported back he found no weapons, however, two months later the weapons were used in the shot heard round the world, the battle of Lexington and Concord. Capt. John Felt (1754-1796) and Col. Timothy Pickering (1745-1829) are buried at Broad Street Cemetery in Salem.

02/24/2025

The Moving Spirit of Love by artist Ai Qiu Hopen at Charlotte
Forten Park 289 Derby St., celebrating Black History Month.

Charlotte Forten Hall - Salem State University - has been named to honor the first African-American woman graduate in 1856. Charlotte Forten Grimke (1837-1914) graduated from the Salem Normal School (today SSU). As a teacher in the Salem Public School system she valued education for all. She went on to teach freed slaves through the Port Royal Experiment in SC, became an author, had several poems in anti-slavery publications (The Liberator, The Evangelist). In 1896, she was a founder of the National Association of Colored Women.

02/21/2025

Salem is magical. Congrats to everyone who was chosen for the Essex Heritage Photo Contest Winners. Many of the photos awarded were taken here in Salem (Rick Matthias "Aurora at Salem Willows").

02/18/2025

Robert Morris was the first Black Lawyer to win a jury trial. Born in Salem, MA 1823. His sister Harriet was the first African American to attend public high school in Salem. Morris went to work as a waiter/assistant/copyist in Boston (age 13), his passion for civil rights led him to a legal apprenticeship and on Feb. 2, 1847 was admitted to the MA Bar Association. Robert Morris died in 1882, one of his pallbearers was Patrick Collins (1902 Boston Mayor) who referred to Morris as his mentor. Collins was introduced to him as an impoverished Irish immigrant through the Church of the Immaculate Conception (Boston).

02/16/2025

Did you give your heart away this past weekend for Valentine's Day? Well, you can get another heart like this one at WitchCityGiftShop.com. Add some flowers. Just don't let it break.

02/14/2025

The standard depiction of Puritans being stern, non emotional and pious individuals is mostly true. You could be whipped or put in the pillars for signs of public affection, dancing and sometimes smiling.
Of course, there were exceptions to the rule because, well, they did have children. And while was not a holiday they celebrate like we do today, College Humor decided to write some cards to capture their sentiment.

02/13/2025

Rats have always been a big issue to humans as they bring pestilence, causing death. Rats are believed to have caused the black plague from 1346 to 1353 that swept through Europe killing 50 million people.
In London, 75,000 people died from bubonic plague from 1605 to 1666. Many Puritans came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony from London during that time. Perhaps, they were escaping the plague in addition for wanting a new life.
For that reason, exterminating rats has always been a priority for humans so that's why we are posting this announcement that Feb. 13 is Kill Your Rats Day in Boston.
This was posted in the West End tenements where about 50,000 people lived in close quarters. It is in English, Italian, Polish and Hebrew.

02/11/2025

If you have been to Turner’s Seafood restaurant located at 43 Church Street in Salem,
MA, recently, you may have seen the plaque attached to the front of the entrance. It
reads “Lyceum Hall: In this building on Feb. 12 th , 1877, Alexander Graham Bell
presented the first public demonstration of long-distance telephone conversation
following the demonstration, the first news dispatch sent by telephone originated here
and was received by the Boston Globe newspaper.”

In the winter of 1877, just months after Bell invented the telephone, he demonstrated
the telephone to a standing room only crowd. This would be the first of two
demonstrations.

of the telephone he would make at the Lyceum Hall in Salem during the month of
February alone.

Due to the popularity of the first public demonstration, he came back for a second
presentation just two weeks later on Feb. 23 rd , 1877.

Shortly after arriving at the Lyceum Hall on Feb. 12 th , 1877, Bell hooked up his
telephone device and told the crowd that he would be speaking with his lab assistant,
Thomas Watson, seventeen miles away in Boston using his telephone device.
While Bell was in Salem powering up his telephone device, Bell’s lab assistant, Thomas
Watson, was located 17 miles away in Boston waiting for the call.

Shortly after Bell spoke with Watson by phone, he handed the phone over to a Boston
newspaper reporter in Salem who then used the phone to speak with his editor who was
with Thomas Watson in Boston. This event was the first time in history that a phone was
used to report a major news story.

The original building that hosted Bell and his telephone demonstration sadly burned
down in the 1890’s and was later replace with the current building in the 1930’s.

02/10/2025

Are you enjoying the ? Ever wonder what type of games were played in the 1600s in ? They played , but it was more like soccer and rugby. Then there was Stoolball, Ninepins, Pitching the Bar, Foot Races, Slide the Groat and Coasting.

Whether the Puritans liked it or not, colonial New England games were popular. There was Stoolball, Coasting, Slide Groat, and even the dreaded Football.

02/10/2025

02/09/2025

October 1789 George Washington stayed at the Joshua Ward house (today the Merchant Hotel) on what is now known as Washington St. (formerly School St.). On Presidents Day remember many USA Presidents have visited Salem including John Adams, James Monroe, John Q. Adams, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, Ulysses Grant, Chester Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, William Taft, Calvin Coolidge, F.R. Roosevelt, J.F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, G.H. Bush, Bill Clinton...

Happy Presidents Day!

02/07/2025

Elizabeth Johnson Jr was sentenced to hang on February 1, 1693. She was reprieved but her conviction remained until North Andover Middle School’s students took up her case. It's never too late for justice, learn more at https://www.thelastwitchfilm.com/