Marblehead

31. Redd's Pond

Located at the intersection of Pond and Norman Streets.

This pond was named for Wilmott Redd, a Marblehead woman accused of witchcraft and examined in Salem Village on 31 June 1692. At her examination, the afflicted girls cried that her specter tormented them and urged them to sign the devil's book. When Susannah Sheldon, one of the afflicted girls, was ordered to approach Redd, she "was knock down before she came to her, & being so carryed to said Redd in a fit, was made well after said Redd had graspt her arm." Wilmott Redd was tried at the September 17 sitting of the Court of Oyer and Terminer and executed on September 22. Her house once stood in the vicinity of the pond "upon the hill by the meet'house."

32. Ambrose Gale House

Plate 30; 17 Franklin Street, between Washington and Selman Streets).

Ambrose Gale lived here in 1692. Together with Charity Pitman and Sarah Doddy, he testified that Wilmott Redd had cursed a Mrs. Syms with an enduring case of constipation. The house was originally built around 1663 and is privately owned.

33. Old Burial Hill

Off Orne Street, immediately adjacent to Redd's Pond.

Ambrose Gale's wife Mary is buried here. Her epitaph reads: "Here Lyeth ye Body of Mary Galle ye Wife of Ambros Galle Aged 63 Years Decd February ye 5 1694/5." Of particular interest in this cemetery, though totally unrelated to the witchcraft, is the superb gravestone of Susanna Jayne, carved by the eighteenth-century master stonecutter Henry Christian Geyer.