Boston hanged people on the Common for a century, put up nothing to say so, and buried the overflow where the subway now runs. Five places, what each costs, and which stories have a source.
Ann Hibbins was hanged on Boston Common on 19 June 1656 - the third witchcraft execution in the town, and thirty-six years before anything happened in Salem. She was a wealthy widow with a sharp tongue and, after 1654, no husband left to shield her, which in 1656 was close to enough. Nathaniel Hawthorne later wrote her into The Scarlet Letter as Mistress Hibbins, which is how most people have met her without knowing it. Salem built an industry on nineteen deaths. Boston hanged people on what is now a public lawn, and left the lawn unmarked.
Tradition puts the hangings on the Great Elm, an enormous tree near the middle of the Common that came down in a storm on 15 February 1876; Bostonians walked out in their thousands to look at it and carry pieces home. Tradition is the right word. No record fixes which of the Common's many trees was used, and by 1769 the town had stopped using a tree at all and built a gallows, with executions there continuing into 1817. So a guide pointing at one spot and saying it happened here is pointing at a story about a tree that no longer exists. That is not a reason to skip the Common. It is a reason to notice which guides tell you so.
Mary Dyer was hanged on the Common on 1 June 1660. She was a Quaker at a time when Massachusetts banned Quakers on pain of death; she had already been banished, reprieved once on the gallows itself, and she came back anyway. Three others died the same way and are remembered together as the Boston martyrs. Her statue stands outside the State House at the top of the Common, a few minutes from where she died - one of the few places in the city where this history is stated plainly and for free.
The Central Burying Ground opened in 1756 to take the overflow from King's Chapel, Copp's Hill and the Granary, and it holds the poor, the unclaimed, and soldiers of both sides from the Revolution. In the 1890s the Tremont Street subway - the first in the country - was cut through part of it. The remains that came up were reinterred together inside the cemetery wall under a stone carrying the date 1895. It is still there, a few steps off Boylston Street, and trains have run under the rest of the burials every day since.
The Common is a public park. The Central Burying Ground, the Granary, King's Chapel and Copp's Hill are free and open in daylight, and the Freedom Trail strings most of them together for nothing. The Omni Parker House, which collects more ghost stories than any building in Boston, is a working hotel - you can walk into the lobby, and that is the visit. So a Boston ghost tour is not selling access, because there is nothing here to unlock. It is selling the part the city left off the signs.
That sits in the typical band for the category, whose median is $30.
5 of the 5 Boston tours we track . Ordered by review depth.
1 hour Delve into Bean Town’s most mysterious and macabre tales on this thrilling, haunted walking tour of Boston’s historic district.
Below the for a ghost tour in Boston · 5 tours, median $32.50
2 hours Join a haunted pub crawl through Boston’s darkest taverns. Hear eerie tales of the Founding Fathers, sip where they drank, and walk the shadowy streets of the Revolutionary War.
Typical for a ghost tour in Boston · 5 tours, median $32.50
1.5 hours Join the Ghosts of Boston Tour and explore haunted houses, eerie cemeteries, and ghostly Revolutionary War sites. Discover the spirits of American Patriots still roaming the city's historic grounds!
Typical for a ghost tour in Boston · 5 tours, median $32.50
2 hours Explore the true crimes of the historic Beacon Hill neighborhood on a guided walking tour in Boston. Step into the dark history of the city while learning about famous murder cases and serial killers.
Above the for a ghost tour in Boston · 5 tours, median $32.50
1.5 hours Explore the dark history of Boston on a 90-minute walking tour. Hear chilling tales of cursed artifacts, unsolved mysteries, & restless spirits as you explore eerie burial grounds & haunted locations.
Typical for a ghost tour in Boston · 5 tours, median $32.50