The Salem Witch Trials were creepy enough to begin with (go read The Crucible again if you don't believe it!), but the story of Giles Corey, who was slowly pressed to death under a series of progressively heavier rocks in an effort to extract a confession, is particularly unsettling. Legend has it he uttered a curse against Salem right before his dying breath (you could understand why he'd have some ill will). For generations, his apparition has allegedly appeared in the cemetery before something terrible is about to happen, including a 1914 fire that burned down a sizable proportion of the city. There has also been a series of tragedies that have hit the Salem sheriff's office (starting with the 1696 heart attack that killed George Corwin four years after he presided over the trials).
