In November of 2008 bodies were found while work crews were digging in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Workers had stumbled onto additional remains of a slave cemetery — first discovered in 2003, that dated back to 1705. Archeologists swooped in and collected the artifacts which had been neglectfully covered over by centuries of development in a New England community not known for its slave holding past. Perhaps if more people had remembered that the evils of slavery had played out in northern communities like Portsmouth, folks would have found the remains sooner. And if generations hadn’t thought that slavery was just fine, the graves might not have been so easily and ignobly forgotten in the first place.

That “there-was-nothing-wrong-with-it” cultural norm is probably why the graves of the “Salem Witches” are lost to history as well. See, for generations after the “witches” were hanged and buried, the community — at least the politically powerful — thought they were well rid of these troublesome characters and neither preserved their execution site nor where their bodies were interred.

It’s believed that at least three of the victims’ bodies — I’ll refer to them as victims from here on out as they clearly were not witches but rather victims of state sponsored terrorism — were exhumed by their families and given respectful burial elsewhere. According to Professor Emerson Baker of Salem State University, Salem’s most famous victim, John Proctor, who was featured in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” was reburied as were George Jacobs and Rebecca Nurse.

No one who robbed the graves of convicted criminals would have admitted to the offense so no real details remain of what may have happened in the other two cases, but Prof. Baker recounted the legend of Rebecca Nurse’s son rowing a boat over to the site where the victims were buried and bringing her home to rest in an unmarked grave on the family’s property.

George Jacobs’ land was developed in the 20th century and a male skeleton was found. The remains appeared centuries old and the man seemed to have died violently, perhaps of a broken neck. In 1992 these remains were buried at Rebecca Nurse’s house in what is now the town of Danvers although at the time of the witch trials it was known as Salem Village.

If these three folks found final resting place elsewhere there are still 17 unaccounted for victims: 16 that were executed by hanging and one, Giles Corey, who was pressed to death during his “interrogation.”

The Salem Witch Trials were a big deal. About 10 percent of the 1,500 person community was charged with the crime. Prof. Baker recounted that more than “150 persons were accused of witchcraft and had their lives ruined… two or three died in prison.”

Read more here at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pat-lamarche/salem-witch-trials-_b_1905804.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news

Such a shame that so many innocent people are buried in whereabouts unknown, probably by this point under any number of more modern structures. I hope that somehow, someday, these poor victims are found, and given proper burials in appropriate places, with the prpoer grave markings..

~Ophelia