Danvers State Hospital








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The Danvers State Hospital was a psychiatric hospital located in Danvers, Massachusetts. It was built in 1874 and opened in 1878, staying in business until it was closed in 1992 due to budget cuts. Strangely, the judge who presided over the Salem Witch Trials, John Hathorne, also lived here a few hundred years ago. Soon after its opening, reports began to spill out of inhumane practices occurring in this haunted Massachusetts hospital. Shock therapy, lobotomies, drugs, and straitjackets were commonplace. Reminiscent of Rolling Hills Asylum and Pennhurst Asylum, the cruelty carried out here left energetic imprints that have lasted throughout the 21st century.


A total of 278 people reportedly died at the hospital in one year. Danvers is now known as the birthplace of the prefrontal lobotomy, and lobotomies left patients in a hellish daze, wandering the halls. Horror novelist H.P. Lovecraft even used Danvers as the inspiration for his Arkham Sanitarium. Sound familiar? Arkham Asylum was the backdrop in which DC Comic's Batman's ultra-psychotic villains come from!

But what about real hauntings? The only remnants of the horrid practices here are two cemeteries, filled with 770 bodies. Visitors to the hospital report screaming, banging, and crying. The cemeteries are also hotbeds of paranormal activity, in which apparitions are common.

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