After quite a spell, restoration of house tied to witch trials nearly done

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — A yearslong effort to restore the ramshackle Massachusetts homestead where a woman accused of witchcraft during the 1692 Salem witch trials resettled after escaping the hangman’s noose is nearing an end.

A $1.5 million renovation project at the Peter and Sarah Clayes House in Framingham is expected to be completed in the spring.

“This is an amazing piece of national history, and it was just falling apart,” said Annie Murphy, executive director of the Framingham History Center and a member of the Sarah Clayes House Trust, formed several years ago to save the structure. In addition to its connection to the witch trials, the house is thought to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad and once housed Secret Service agents assigned to protect President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s son when he lived nearby.

The home on Salem End Road was privately owned until it was essentially abandoned after a foreclosure around 2000.

Vandals smashed the windows and defaced the interior. The paint peeled, and waist-high weeds grew in the yard. Local kids who used the building as a party spot called it the “witch house.”

Sarah Clayes was jailed during the witch trials, which claimed the lives of 20 people, including her sisters Rebecca Nurse and Mary Easty. She was freed in 1693 when the government realized the lunacy of killing innocents over unsubstantiated accusations. Sarah and Peter Clayes got out of town.

Probably the only thing remaining — if anything — of the original 1693 house is the rough-hewn stone foundation, Murphy said. But 17th century maps of the area clearly show the Clayes house at the exact location. The house that still stands dates to 1776.

BILL SIKES/AP Renovations to the homestead of Sarah Clayes, jailed during the witch trials, are expected to be completed in 2018.