Nightly at 8:00 pm, April–November
The Lantern Ghost Walk
Seventy-five minutes, one lantern, two hundred and seventy-odd years of stories. We don't promise a sighting. We do promise you'll never look at a staircase the same way.
History first, then the stories
The Lantern Ghost Walk began, more or less by accident, around 2011. Samuel Teague, our head innkeeper, had a habit of walking late arrivals up the front stair and telling them about Abigail Crane on the way. Guests started asking if they could come along when he did it for other people. Then they started bringing friends. When the Alcotts bought the house in 2014, they asked Samuel to make it official, and he has led it most nights since, with a small team of guides he has trained himself.
It is not a horror tour. It's a walk through one old house and its neighborhood, told by people who know the records: the ship manifests, the probate inventories, the funeral-parlor day books and the Nursery log that guests have been filling in since 1997. Where something is documented, we tell you so. Where it's family legend or a guest's account, we tell you that too, and let you make up your own mind. Samuel likes to say the walk is "seventy percent history, twenty percent stories and ten percent standing very still on the landing."
What happens on the route
Each walk is a little different, depending on the guide, the weather and which rooms are empty that night, but the route follows the same bones.
- 8:00
The front hall. Your guide lights the lantern from the one kept burning in the hall and introduces the house: Captain Josiah Crane, the West Indies trade, what Salem looked like in 1748, and why this house, built fifty-six years after 1692, has nothing to do with the witch trials, however often people ask.
- 8:10
The main stair and the landing. The story of Captain Nathaniel Crane, the pepper voyages to Sumatra, the ship that didn't come home in 1801, and his widow Abigail, who kept a lantern in the top window for eleven years. This is where most sightings of the Lady in Gray have been reported. The guide will ask everyone to be quiet for one minute. Most people find it a long minute.
- 8:20
The Apothecary. If the room is free, we step inside to see Dr. Ezra Pell's original drawers (1834–1871), still with some of their painted labels, and talk about what a Salem apothecary sold, which is rather alarming. Guests have reported a smell of peppermint here for decades. We have never found the source.
- 8:30
The Undertaker's Parlor and the Great Hall. From 1889 to 1946 this was the Hollis & Vane Funeral Parlor. Our bar is in the old viewing parlor and the Great Hall was its chapel. The guide explains how home funerals moved into parlors like this one, and why the front room of an American house came to be called a "living room." (The bar is open during the walk. You are welcome to come back.)
- 8:40
The library and the marbles. The glass case of clay and glass marbles found inside the walls during the 1997 restoration, and the story of "little Tom," a boarder's child from the 1870s and 80s, whom Nursery guests still hear, they tell us, rolling marbles down the third-floor hall.
- 8:50
Out onto Mercy Lane and three nearby streets. The walk leaves through the garden gate and follows the old lanes toward the water: the site of a ropewalk, a sea captain's house where a much-told story begins, a corner where the boarding-house sailors drank, and the spot with the best view back to our widow's walk. On a clear night you can see the lantern in the top window from there.
- 9:15
Back to the front door. The walk ends at the front steps, where the guide answers questions and, if you ask nicely, tells one more story that doesn't fit anywhere else.
Times and prices
| Details | |
|---|---|
| Season | April 1 through November 30 |
| Start time | 8:00 pm nightly; additional 9:30 pm walk every night in October |
| Length | About 75 minutes |
| Meeting point | The front hall, 14 Mercy Lane. Please arrive 10 minutes early. |
| Adults | $35 |
| Inn guests | $25 |
| Children under 12 | $15 (with an adult) |
| Group size | Up to 16 people, so everyone can hear and see |
| Private walks | Available for groups and wedding parties by arrangement |
Walks run rain or shine. In a downpour we spend a little longer inside and shorten the outdoor stretch; in a true storm we'll move you to another night or refund you. We provide the lanterns (battery candles inside real tin lanterns; the guide's lantern is the only real flame). Wear comfortable shoes, and in spring and fall bring a layer, as the lanes off the harbor are cooler than you'd expect.
October walks sell out weeks ahead, and the 9:30 pm walk in particular is popular with guests coming back from dinner. If you are staying with us in October, book your walk when you book your room.
What the walk is not
We get asked, so here it is plainly:
- It is not a jump-scare tour. No actors in sheets, no sudden noises, no one grabs your ankle. If something unexplained happens, it wasn't us. We'd tell you.
- It is not a witch-trials tour. The house was built in 1748. The tragedy of 1692 deserves to be learned about properly, and the city's memorials and museums do that with care. Our guides will happily point you toward them, and they don't make light of the people who suffered.
- It is not a ghost hunt. We don't use meters, spirit boxes or dowsing rods, and we don't try to summon anyone. Abigail has been through quite enough.
- It is not a pub crawl. The walk passes the bar. It doesn't stop for a round.
- It is not a guarantee. Most nights, nothing happens except a very good story. That's the walk.
I came as the designated skeptic and I left still a skeptic, but a skeptic who would very much like to know who was on that landing.
— A walk guest, August 2024
Accessibility and who it suits
The walk covers roughly two-thirds of a mile, mostly on brick sidewalks and one short stretch of cobbles, with stops every few minutes. Inside the house, the route climbs the main stair to the second-floor landing (seventeen steps, with a handrail). Guests who can't manage the stair can wait in the front hall, where the guide tells the landing story from below; it works surprisingly well. The rest of the indoor route is on the ground floor and reachable by our side-entrance ramp, and the outdoor route has curb cuts at every crossing except one, which the guide will point out.
If you use a wheelchair or walker, or have any other needs, please tell us when you book and we will plan the route with you. Folding stools are available on request. For more about the house's layout, see our accessibility page.
The walk suits curious children from about eight up; the stories are about loss and old Salem life, told gently, and there's nothing graphic. Under 12s walk with an adult. Service dogs are welcome; pets, even very well-behaved ones from the Carriage House, should stay home.