Now part of the famous Peabody Essex Museum, this stately townhouse hides a grisly secret from 1830. The Gardner-Pingree House, designed by master architect Samuel McIntire, was once the residence of wealthy sea captain Joseph White. White was not well-liked in Salem, with a dubious reputation that included participation in an illegal slave trade.

However, it was not until White disinherited his niece that her new husband, Joe Knapp, together with his brother Frank, hired Richard Crowninshield to assassinate White in his bed. The ensuing court case and double hanging was described as the “trial of the century,” and influenced both Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe. Crowninshield took his life before he was brought to trial.

18 freaky facts about Salem, Massachusetts: America's most mysterious town