Proctor's Ledge, at the base of Gallows Hill on the western edge of downtown Salem, is the confirmed execution site where nineteen of the twenty people condemned in the 1692 witch trials were hanged. A small memorial park opened here in 2017, with a low granite wall inscribed with the victims' names, designed to complement the earlier Charter Street memorial near the courthouse.
The site is modest — a sloping residential street with a small green space cut into the hillside — and far less visited than the tourist-heavy downtown attractions. That relative quiet makes it appropriate. The walk from Essex Street takes about fifteen minutes and passes through ordinary Salem neighborhoods, which puts the executions in geographical perspective: this happened at the edge of a small, ordinary town, not in some remote dark place. The location is most affecting at dusk.