The Witch of Joshua Ward House
This Georgian and Federal style building was constructed by Joshua Ward, a wealthy merchant sea captain, in the late 1780s on the remaining foundations of former sheriff George Corwin’s house on Washington Street in Salem, Massachusetts.
Corwin was a bloody figure whose zeal added to the unfortunate events surrounding Salem in the late 1600s. Nicknamed ‘The Strangler’ after his preferred torture (which included tying his prone victims’ necks to their ankles until the blood ran from their noses), he is said to have been responsible for many of the ‘witches’’ deaths, including that of Giles Corey who was crushed to death by placing heavy stones on his chest in order to extract a confession.
Legend states that just before he died, Corey cursed the sheriff and all sheriffs that follow in his wake, for Corwin’s despicable acts. It should be noted here that every sheriff since Corey uttered his curse died while in office or had been “forced out of his post as the result of a heart or blood ailment.” Corwin himself died of a heart attack in 1696, only about four years after the end of the trials.
By the time of his death, Corwin was so despised that his family had to bury him in the cellar of their house to avoid desecration of the corpse by the public. In the early 1980s Carlson Realty bought the House with the intention of turning it into their headquarters. After moving in, a realtor by the name of Dale Lewinski began the task of taking photographs of the staff members to add to a welcome display.
Lewinski used a Polaroid camera to snap the head-and-shoulders, passport-style pictures. It was the photograph of a colleague by the name of Lorraine St. Peter that caused a stir. The Polaroid was developed and, instead of showing St. Peter, it appeared to depict a frightening image: a strange, black-haired, feminine figure. St. Peter was nowhere to be seen on the snap. The photograph has, apparently, not been cropped at all. St. Peter has been entirely replaced by the apparition.
