Salem is home to eight historic burial grounds:

• Charter Street Cemetery (Old Burying Point), 1637
• Broad Street Cemetery, 1655
• Friends' Cemetery, c. 1700
• St. Peter's Church Burying Ground
• Howard Street Cemetery, 1801
• Greenlawn Cemetery, 1807
• Harmony Grove Cemetery, c. 1840
• St. Mary's Cemetery, c. 1845

St. Peter's, Harmony Grove, and St. Mary's are privately-owned and Charter Street, Broad Street, the Friends' Cemetery, Howard Street, and Greenlawn are municipally-owned. Several groups have been formed by Salem citizens to steward the municipally owned cemeteries:

• Charter Street Cemetery & Howard Street Cemetery – Friends of the Downtown Salem Historic Cemeteries
• Broad Street Cemetery – Friends of Broad Street Cemetery
• Greenlawn Cemetery – Friends of Greenlawn Cemetery    

In 2002, the City of Salem produced a Burial Ground Planning Project that encompassed our four oldest public cemeteries, Charter Street, Broad Street, Friends' Cemetery, and Howard Street, and gave recommendations for their preservation along with budget projections. 

More recently, Charter Street Cemetery was the recipient of two installments of CPA funds ($90,550 in 2015 and $260,000 in 2017) for preservation work in accordance with recommendations given in the 2002 Planning Project document. Documentation of treatments carried out by stone conservators from Monument Conservation Collaborative in 2016 can be found here.