Last October 30th, my sister and I visited Salem. I'd never been there before (I'm 53 and live in Maine) and couldn't wait to drink in all that "witchy" ambiance. We saw the "Bewitched" statue in the park, then proceeded to walk the quaint streets--which were all decked out in Halloween finery. There were hundreds of people around, most in costume, and I realized--rather sadly--that Salem had become a very "touristy" town.

My sister, who's 5 years older, took me to many places, but the one I remember most vividly was the House of the Seven Gables. It was an overcast day and slightly chilly, and while we waited to enter, it actually began to snow quite heavily (this lasted for approximately 10 minutes, then stopped). We entered, were given the tour, and I was completely mesmerized.

But as we moved through the house, I suddenly became aware of a disquieting "presence" around me. I felt it at first when we went to a dining area, and it grew stronger once we went up a cramped brick-lined stairway into the attic. Later, after we stood outside, I mentioned to my sister that I felt odd--"displaced," if that makes sense. She laughed it off, and we went on our way.

Months passed. In the spring, she and I were chatting on the phone about Salem. I told her that something had happened to me in the House of the Seven Gables. When she asked "what," I responded that I couldn't quite put my finger on it--but the feeling had become stronger in the months since.

Now, almost a year has gone by, and those feelings have grown even stronger. Just today, a co-worker asked if anyone in the office had gone to Salem during Halloween. I told her my experiences, but as I spoke about the house, I began experiencing that odd "displacement" again. My conclusion? Something touched me when I was in that house--plugged into my subconscious somehow. I don't know what or who...but I've come to believe that a piece of "it" attached itself to me.

I know this all sounds ridiculous, but if I ever do visit Salem again, I definitely will steer clear of that house.

While visiting Massachusetts this past week with my girlfriend, we spent a day in Salem at museums and going on tours of the old houses. By the time we got over to the House of the Seven Gables, it was 7:30 and the house was closed as it was already dark out. The janitor was taking out the garbage and locking up the doors to the visitor entrance, and all the lights in the house were off. I figured since we were there anyway we'd snap a few pictures of the house. My girlfriend had the camera and was standing by the side of the house on Turner Street, while I went down to the water. She ran up to me and told me she heard tapping on one of the windows, but couldn't see anybody. She was skeptical, but it still freaked her out. So I went up to the side of the house and looked in all the windows, hoping to hear or see something to no avail.

Well, the next day after going out whale watching from Gloucester, we decided to come back to Salem around 5:30 PM, before everything closed, to go to another museum and check out the house's tour. I didn't feel anything odd about the house, and never even heard any stories of it supposedly being haunted, so it was just like a normal old house tour to me. While getting to the bottom of the attic stairs to the 2nd floor, I heard a woman's voice RIGHT next to my ear whisper a "Shhh, Shhh" type of sound. I thought it was my girlfriend trying to spook me, so as I turned my head to say "knock it off", I saw she was still 3 to 4 feet behind me - still in the middle of the staircase.

I am writing to let you know that on April 15, 2007 the Class of Heuvelton Central School Seniors (located in New York State) took their Senior trip to Boston. We visited many sites and the House of Seven Gables being one of them. I was a chaperone and Mother of one of the seniors.

A group of 12 or 14 seniors and chaperones were taken at a time (April 15) through the house on the tour. The group that I was with included the class advisor (art teacher). We were located in Susan Ingersoll's bedroom when suddenly (while we were being given the tour), 6 people (the teacher, a Mom who was chaperoning and 4 senior girls) heard a woman scream in a very high pitched voice. At the same time they heard the scream, they also felt a chill go around them as if someone had walked past them. I was standing approximately 4 feet behind them and didn't hear it. They all looked at me and said "Did you hear that?" Then one of the girls asked the guide if the house was haunted and she said "What do you yhink?"...so we never received an answer, but we all knew by instinct that it is.

I know that none of the seniors, myself, nor the teacher or Chaperones had previously read anything about the house before we went on the tour, so they weren't using their imagination from something they had read about the house. Everyone was asking each other what the House of the Seven Gables was - before we arrived for the tour. We were ashamed that we didn't remember from reading the book, if we had previously done so in school.

When our group reached the attic, I mentioned to one of the Moms (chaperones) that it felt "Creepy" in the attic. She agreed, and one of the Senior boys told me the same thing - that if felt "Creepy". I couldn't wait to leave...it was almost as if there was a presence in the room with us, and not a happy one. There was a small child's chair sitting next to one of the windows, and my eyes afixed themselves to that area of the room. I don't know why, but it was as if the presence was in that area...perhaps in the chair.

The history of the house was wonderful and I have been in many old houses for tours and have never felt numerous presences in a house like the House of the Seven Gables. The class advisor (Art Teacher) could not get over hearing the scream and feeling the cool breeze around her.

I thought I would go online and read to see if anyone else had ever had experiences such as ours, and I found your website. I was astonished by the responses from other people. It is the same experience we had.

I remember it so clearly. It was October of 2006 and my class had traveled from New Jersey to Salem. The day started off nice and sunny and then turned to rain. The reason we had come to Salem was because we had just finished reading the Crucible and our teachers thought it would be a great experience if we could visit Salem.

Throughout the day we had visited several different historic places. I loved it. In the early afternoon we decided to go to the House of the Seven Gables. We walked there in the rain (though it was actually fun). We passed the Custom House and I really wanted to go see it but we were on a tight schedule. We walked further and eventually we came to the House of the Seven Gables.

The house was amazing. We were all split into groups and each of us took turns going in for the tour. Finally it was my group's turn. We went from room to room and everything was perfect and made me feel like we were back in time. Soon we came to the bedroom with a picture of one of the women who used to live in the house (I think it was Susan's bedroom). I noticed that she looked exactly like one of my friends (it was soo weird, I wished that I could of taken a picture). While we were in the room I started feeling uncomfortable. I wasn't scared or anything...I was actually interested. I looked around the room at my friends and nothing seemed to be disturbing them so I just brushed the feeling off.

After we were finished in that room, we went up the very small brick stairway. The stairs were really freaky. I kept feeling like I was going to fall backwards. Soon we ended up in the attic. We stood there for about two minutes and then I started feeling uncomfortable again. The room didn't feel right. It felt more uncomfortable than the bedroom. It felt like someone was watching us from behind the wooden fence that we weren't supposed to cross. It felt as if someone was lying on the bed behind us. It was creepy.

I turned to my friend and asked her how she felt and she said "It's creepy here." My other friend looked at us and said "Yeah, I don't like it up here at all." While we listened to our tour guide, I kept looking back at the bed. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched. I don't even remember half of what our tour guide said because I was to interested in the bed.

Once we exited the attic I felt the creepy feeling leave me. I'll never forget my experience there. If I ever go to Salem again (which I probably will) I definitely want to check out that house again.

This experience occurred around the year of 1996. I can't quite recall the exact date considering it's been a while. I was visiting Salem for the first time after having a brief stay in Boston. We traveled from Boston to Salem by train early in the morning and had planned to make it a full day visit.

My husband, at the time, was from Boston so he was familiar with the town. He was briefing me on the attractions. We discussed the history of the place due to my knowledge with the Salem Witch trials from school and Nathaniel Hawthorne. We toured the town of Salem for most of the day with our son who was two and a half then, and I liked the town. It was quaint and I enjoyed being around so much history (even as sad as it was) and seeing the historical homes.

We left the visit to the House of Seven Gables for last since I really wanted to take my time to enjoy it. One of my favorite books was the Scarlet Letter, and it was exciting to visit a home that was connected to Nathaniel Hawthorne. As we began the tour I was instantly intrigued by the house, party because I had never been in a house this old and because of it's history. As interested as I was, I can't really recall every room we toured except the dining room, the kitchen, and of course the most memorable......the attic.

When I say memorable I don't mean happy or fun - it was more like eerie and sad. It really grabbed my attention, I remember being fixated on the beds. The stairs leading up to the attic for some reason also made a strong impression. I still remember being captivated. As we left we walked around the outside of the house, even then I could not stop looking at the house, especially a specific window. Again, being it's been a while, I can't recall what section of the house the window was on, but it was definitely the upper level.

By the way, I remember when the tour guide was telling the story of a lady who supposedly haunts the house, I was thinking how cute, "the tour guide is all dressed in attire from that era and he's telling ghost stories." Interesting, I thought, but I wasn't really buying it. I'm not a skeptic, but I just thought it was part of the whole act. I just wanted to point out that he tells of this supposed ghost in the dining room; one of the rooms that intrigued me.

After this visit to Salem, we were still in Boston. We were actually staying in my ex-sister-in-law's apartment. We started noticing that my son's toys were going off at night. I didn't pay too much mind to it because we figured there's always an explanation, although it had never happened before.

My then sister-in-law's husband would work late hours, and one night at around 3 AM he was in the living room, just watching TV and eating a snack. Well, to his left was one of my son's toys, and as usual it was going off. He proceeds to get up and physically turn it off. Thinking it wouldn't happen again, he was shocked to see the toy was still going off and making sounds.

We had another episode when we left Boston and went back to Florida. So now I'm away from all this, get back to my daily routines and typical life in Florida. Now this was my parents' house, which I had lived in for about 5 years before my brief stay in Boston, and I had never ever experienced anything there before.

One morning I was getting ready for work, and I have always gotten up extra early and then I would wake up my son. This particular morning I was in the bathroom combing my hair and I hear footsteps, like a child running and playing. I immediately assume it's my son, but of course I'm thinking this is very odd because he never wakes up this early. Nonetheless children are unpredictable.

Ok, then I'm thinking he made no vocal sound, and I've never seen or heard him wake up so cheery that he immediately wanted to run around and play. I proceed to look for him, and let me add this is on the second level so there's just bedrooms. I look around one of the bedrooms but no sign...then the next one still and my son is nowhere to be found. Finally thinking I'm going to find him in the third one, I'm shocked to find him sound asleep and with no chance of him ever being up.

There were numerous other experiences that began occurring, from the sounds of chairs being pulled and the refrigerator opening and the lights going off.

I've always thought that maybe some of the ghosts attached themselves to us because these things had never happened before. I'm not an expert on this and I would really like to ask someone who knows of this.

I will definitely never forget my visit to the House of Seven Gables.