The Daniel Low Building stands on one of Salem’s historically weighty downtown sites. The present structure began as a meetinghouse for Salem’s First Church, completed in 1826: worship upstairs, commercial tenants below. Later Victorian Gothic remodeling turned it into a major commercial face of the city. For generations it housed Daniel Low & Company, famous for mail order and witch-themed souvenirs — especially the Salem witch spoon. Today Rockafellas Restaurant and Colonial Hall occupy the landmark.

Daniel Low spent much of his working life tied to the property and is said to have been there almost daily. Records place his death inside the building on February 3, 1911, after a heart attack. The firm continued for decades afterward. Later ghost lore often folds reported experiences into the memory of that famous occupant. His death on site is history; claims that his spirit remains are later folklore, not independently verified.

The building’s best-known paranormal claim is the Lady in Blue. According to Rockafellas owners, a photograph on a computer later seemed to show a woman in blue who had not been noticed at first. The image became one of the location’s signature stories. Staff, customers, and visitors have since reported a similarly described female figure in upper windows and elsewhere; the house eventually leaned into the legend. The photo should neither be ignored nor treated as proof of a haunting. Available information does not settle who the figure is, under what conditions the image was made, whether ordinary photographic explanations were ruled out, or whether anyone in blue was physically present when it was taken. It matters because it shaped later reports; the reading of the image stays open.

Other apparition accounts vary: a woman in upper windows, brief human figures, hallway shadows, people seen in empty rooms. Some witnesses fold these into the Lady in Blue story; others report only an unidentified person. None of those sightings has been independently verified as paranormal.

A stronger modern claim is physical rather than spectral. Security footage associated with Rockafellas — reportedly shared publicly — is said to show bartender Jack behind the bar when a glass leaves a shelf behind him, hits an ice machine, and shatters. A local account says Jack confirmed the event matched the recording. If the footage is authentic and accurately described, this is a reported physical-anomaly event: unusual movement of an object on camera, not only a felt presence. Video of an event is not proof of a ghost. Conventional candidates include shelf instability, vibration, stress in the glass, mechanical factors, or something off-frame. Significance rests on alleged video plus witness confirmation; cause remains unknown.

Employees and customers also report quieter disturbances — odd noises, being watched, discomfort when alone, objects seeming to shift, activity upstairs, a sense the building is occupied when it should be empty. Those recur on tours and in local folklore; they are anecdotal and hard to test after the fact.

The site’s civic and religious past (meetinghouse, First Church, long commercial life) feeds the atmosphere of the stories. Documentary history supports the landmark; paranormal readings of that history are later interpretation.