8 Actual Haunted Day Journeys in Maryland
This information covers 8 actual haunted locations throughout Maryland, from a Civil Battle jail camp on the Chesapeake to a downtown Baltimore lodge with one of many state’s most-repeated (and most disputed) ghost tales.
Each website is tied to documented historical past: an actual dying, an actual historic occasion, or many years of constant workers and customer reviews, not manufactured scares. You’ll discover the tackle, what’s confirmed reality versus native legend, and the place related, the place to eat and keep alongside the best way.
We checked hours, admission, and the historic document for each website beneath straight in opposition to the sights themselves, state park providers, and information archives, relatively than recycling it from different lists.
Fast Reply: 8 Haunted Day Journeys in Maryland
- Point Lookout State Park (Scotland, MD): a Civil Battle jail camp the place roughly 3,000 males died, and a lighthouse referred to as one of the crucial haunted in America
- Antietam National Battlefield (Sharpsburg, MD): the only bloodiest day in American navy historical past, nonetheless marked by Bloody Lane
- Fort McHenry (Baltimore, MD): the fort that impressed the nationwide anthem, and a soldier nonetheless seen pacing its ramparts
- USS Constellation (Baltimore, MD): a haunted warship with a ghost story that technically belongs to a special, older ship
- Lord Baltimore Hotel (Baltimore, MD): a downtown high-rise lodge with Despair-era tragedy behind its most well-known, and most disputed, ghost story
- Historic Ellicott City (Ellicott Metropolis, MD): typically referred to as probably the most haunted city on the East Coast, with official ghost excursions to show it
- Havre de Grace (Havre de Grace, MD): a lighthouse ghost first reported in an 1889 newspaper, minutes from the Delaware line
- Chestertown (Chestertown, MD): a colonial river city the place a Hollywood actress’s ghost nonetheless attracts guests to her grave
The record strikes roughly south to north, from Southern Maryland up by means of Baltimore and out to the Jap Shore, so you may construct it right into a unfastened statewide loop for those who’re chasing a couple of.
Level Lookout State Park
A Civil Battle jail camp constructed for 10,000 males swelled to twenty,000, and hundreds by no means left.
Sitting on the southern tip of Maryland’s western shore, the place the Potomac River meets the Chesapeake Bay, Level Lookout served as a Union hospital early within the Civil Battle earlier than turning into one of many largest Accomplice prisoner-of-war camps within the nation. The tent-city jail pen was initially constructed to carry 10,000 males and swelled to twenty,000 inside a 12 months; roughly 3,000 to 4,000 prisoners died there from illness, publicity, and malnutrition earlier than the conflict ended. The lighthouse, inbuilt 1830 by John Donahoo and among the many oldest of its sort within the nation, is ceaselessly referred to as one of the crucial haunted lighthouses in America, with two centuries of park workers, lighthouse tenants, and guests reporting a person in ragged Civil Battle-era clothes close to the grounds, and a lady’s apparition asking passersby to assist her discover her grave. The park’s status is well-known sufficient regionally that police report an uptick in break-ins and vandalism across the website each Halloween.
Civil Battle POW campLighthouse constructed 1830~3,000-4,000 prisoner deaths
Plan your go toDay-use admission is cheap and the park features a Civil Battle museum, fishing pier, and 143 wooded campsites if you wish to keep in a single day. Seasonal guided ghost walks run all year long; verify the park’s official calendar for present dates.
Antietam Nationwide Battlefield
The only bloodiest day in American navy historical past occurred right here, and the highway the place it occurred nonetheless carries the title.
On September 17, 1862, roughly 87,000 Union troops confronted 45,000 Confederates alongside Antietam Creek in what stays the deadliest single day in American navy historical past, with the Nationwide Park Service’s official depend standing at 22,720 casualties over about twelve hours. The combating concentrated round three websites nonetheless marked as we speak: Miller’s Cornfield, the Sunken Highway, and Burnside Bridge. The Sunken Highway, nicknamed Bloody Lane after the battle, is probably the most constantly reported haunted spot on the grounds, with guests describing vanishing apparitions of Accomplice troopers and a heavy, oppressive silence even on crowded days. Others report spectral orbs and distant chanting close to Burnside Bridge and the battlefield’s commentary tower.
Sept 17, 186222,720 casualties (NPS determine)Free, public NPS land
Plan your go toThe battlefield itself is free; a small price applies for the customer middle and movie. Self-guided driving excursions cowl all the foremost websites, together with Bloody Lane and Burnside Bridge, and licensed native guides run separate paid ghost excursions after darkish.
Fort McHenry
The fort that impressed the nationwide anthem has its personal long-standing ghost tales, even when the Nationwide Park Service gained’t formally affirm them.
Fort McHenry efficiently defended Baltimore Harbor from a 25-hour British bombardment in September 1814, an assault Francis Scott Key witnessed and became “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Solely 4 People died throughout that battle, however the fort’s later use tells a heavier story: its decrease chambers served as a Civil Battle-era navy jail the place a number of prisoners had been executed, and in the course of the 1918-1919 Spanish Flu epidemic the fort operated as a hospital the place sufferers and the nurses who handled them each died. Reported hauntings embody Lieutenant Levi Claggett, killed by a mortar strike in the course of the 1814 battle and nonetheless seen standing watch at his submit, and Non-public John Drew, who was caught sleeping on obligation, court-martialed, and later took his personal life within the fort’s jail; guests report seeing him pacing the identical cell. The Nationwide Park Service takes an official impartial stance, neither confirming nor selling the fort’s haunted status, even because the tales persist amongst workers and guests.
Constructed 1798Birthplace of the nationwide anthemNPS takes no official stance
Plan your go toIn Locust Level, a brief drive or water taxi from the Interior Harbor. Commonplace daytime admission and hours apply; paranormal investigators want a particular allow from park administration, because the website is managed first as a historical past lesson, not a haunted attraction.
USS Constellation
Baltimore’s most well-known ghost story on this ship truly belongs to a special ship fully, and the confusion took historians over a century to kind out.
Completely docked on the Interior Harbor’s Pier 1, this sloop-of-war was accomplished in 1854 and served from the Civil Battle by means of World Battle II. Its best-known legend includes a sailor named Neil Harvey, tried and executed by cannon for cowardice throughout an 1799 naval battle, whose ghost is claimed to nonetheless stroll the decks. There’s an actual historic wrinkle right here: that 1799 battle concerned an earlier frigate additionally named Constellation, inbuilt 1797, and for a lot of the twentieth century the 2 ships had been extensively believed to be the identical vessel. In depth analysis within the Nineteen Nineties decided they’re truly two separate ships that occurred to share a reputation and the same service document, which implies the Neil Harvey story predates the ship at the moment docked in Baltimore by greater than 50 years. That hasn’t stopped the reviews: workers and guests have described disembodied voices, apparitions on the orlop deck, and a determine in an outdated Navy uniform believed to be Captain Thomas Truxtun.
Constructed 1854Docked at Interior Harbor Pier 1Ghost story predates this ship
Plan your go toCommonplace daytime excursions run year-round for a small price. A seasonal Halloween haunted attraction runs on board in October, separate from the daytime historic tour.
Lord Baltimore Resort
A younger woman’s ghost is Baltimore’s most-told lodge story. Ask three totally different sources who she was and also you’ll get three totally different solutions.
Opened in 1928, this 22-story French Renaissance high-rise on the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations was, for many years, the biggest lodge in Maryland, and it has a documented, darkish chapter tied to the 1929 inventory market crash: a number of accounts describe friends leaping to their deaths from the constructing in the course of the Nice Despair. The place the story will get genuinely tangled is the lodge’s signature ghost, often referred to as a younger woman in a cream gown carrying a pink ball, seen and heard most frequently on the nineteenth flooring. Completely different, well-circulated variations of her story disagree on fundamental details: some accounts describe a single little one who died by suicide alone, others describe a household murder-suicide off the roof after the 1929 crash with the kid included, and at the least one detailed retelling names her “Molly Harrison,” a 23-year-old bride jilted on the altar in 1934, not a toddler in any respect. No single model is clearly the documented authentic, which is value understanding getting into. What’s extra constantly reported, no matter which backstory you hear, is friends and workers describing the elevator touring unprompted to the nineteenth flooring, being touched by unseen fingers, and listening to a toddler crying in empty hallways.
Opened 1928Nationwide Register listedGhost story has a number of, conflicting variations
Plan your go toA working downtown lodge; you may merely e book a room, no particular package deal required. Occasional guided ghost excursions led by exterior paranormal investigators run periodically; verify native listings, because the lodge itself doesn’t run its personal haunted programming.
Historic Ellicott Metropolis
Locals and ghost tour operators alike routinely name this probably the most haunted city on the East Coast, and the county tourism board leans proper into it.
Based in 1772 by Quaker brothers Joseph, Andrew, and John Ellicott as a milling city, this granite-built Nationwide Historic Landmark district has racked up over 250 years of tragedy, fires, and repeated catastrophic flooding, which locals half-jokingly credit score for its outsized haunted status. Howard County’s personal tourism workplace runs official “Ye Haunted Historical past of Olde Ellicott Metropolis” strolling excursions by means of the historic district, stopping at websites like the previous firehouse, now residence to The Wine Bin, the place former hearth chief Benjamin Harrison Shipley Sr. is claimed to nonetheless make his presence recognized, and the Patapsco Feminine Institute ruins, the place apparitions of schoolgirls in white robes have been reported for many years. A brief drive away, the Historic Savage Mill advanced, a working textile mill relationship to 1822 that when employed little one laborers, is individually recognized for reviews of kid spirits nonetheless seen taking part in amongst its buildings.
Based 1772County-run ghost excursionsNationwide Historic Landmark district
Plan your go toOfficial ghost excursions run April by means of November, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:30pm, beginning on the Howard County Customer Heart at 8267 Important Road; reservations really useful, particularly in October. The historic district can be full of outlets, vintage shops, and eating places value a daytime go to by itself.
Havre de Grace
A lighthouse ghost first reported in an 1889 newspaper, and Al Capone himself reportedly handed by means of city throughout Prohibition.
Sitting the place the Susquehanna River meets the Chesapeake Bay, on the northern tip of Maryland and solely about 40 minutes from Wilmington, Delaware, Havre de Grace pairs small-town attraction with an unusually well-documented ghost story. Harmony Level Lighthouse, Maryland’s second oldest, was inbuilt 1827, and the primary written account of something uncommon there dates all the best way again to a February 1889 newspaper article, by which the lighthouse keeper described a glowing-eyed determine staring by means of the lantern room glass, accompanied by a robust floral scent relatively than the standard odor of lamp oil. Locals and guests since have reported a slow-moving shadow within the tower’s higher home windows and a darkish presence close to the memorial cannon at its base; a 1994 homicide sufferer was additionally discovered on the lighthouse grounds, including a more moderen, actual tragedy to the positioning’s historical past. Past the lighthouse, the city’s Roaring Twenties-era Chesapeake Resort, as soon as a horse-racing and playing scorching spot that reportedly drew Al Capone, and the Bahoukas Vintage Mall, the topic of a number of paranormal investigations, each function in town’s official ghost excursions.
See additionally
Lighthouse constructed 1827First reported 1889~40 min from Wilmington, DE
Plan your go toHarmony Level Lighthouse is open to the general public on choose days and hosts a seasonal nighttime Haunted Lighthouse Tour, with proceeds benefiting the Pals of Harmony Level Lighthouse. Havre de Haunts runs common strolling ghost excursions of the Important Road district on weekends in October and by request the remainder of the 12 months.
Historic Chestertown
A Hollywood actress is buried right here, and guests nonetheless go away vodka bottles on her grave hoping to listen to her voice.
This colonial river city on the Jap Shore’s Chester River has a full slate of ghost lore that the native historic society leans into with seasonal, guided Historic Chestertown Ghost Walks. One of the best-known cease is St. Paul’s Cemetery, a graveyard relationship to the 1700s on the grounds of one of many oldest church buildings on the East Coast, the place actress Tallulah Bankhead is buried; guests have lengthy claimed that urgent an ear to her grave slab enables you to hear her voice, and mysterious tokens, beads, and empty liquor bottles usually seem on the stone. The cemetery additionally holds Revolutionary Battle determine Tench Tilghman, whose lantern is claimed to nonetheless be seen crossing the close by bridge at evening, together with Union and Accomplice troopers linked to the close by Battle of Caulk’s Subject. A brief drive exterior city, the 1721 White Home Farm carries its personal well-documented legend of a younger lady thrown from her horse whereas eloping, with a bloodstain locals say has by no means totally washed off the rock the place she died.
St. Paul’s Cemetery, 1700sTallulah Bankhead’s graveSeasonal ghost walks
Examine All 8 Earlier than You Go
FAQ
Is the Molly ghost story on the Lord Baltimore Resort true?
The core details are murky. A number of well-circulated variations of the story disagree on who died and the way, starting from a single little one’s suicide to a household murder-suicide to a wholly totally different account naming her a jilted 23-year-old bride. What’s constant is that Nice Despair-era suicides on the lodge are documented, and the precise “woman on the nineteenth flooring” story, in no matter model you hear it, has been repeated by workers and friends for many years.
What’s probably the most haunted place in Maryland?
Level Lookout State Park and Historic Ellicott Metropolis are the 2 names that come up most frequently. Level Lookout has the deeper documented historical past, tied to a Civil Battle jail camp the place hundreds died, whereas Ellicott Metropolis is extra ceaselessly cited as “probably the most haunted city” on the East Coast general, with a complete native tourism trade constructed round it.
Is the USS Constellation ghost story truly true?
Probably the most well-known model of it, involving a sailor executed by cannon in 1799, is tied to a special, earlier ship that historians didn’t definitively separate from the present vessel till the Nineteen Nineties. The ship at the moment docked in Baltimore was inbuilt 1854, greater than 50 years after that specific story is about. That mentioned, workers and guests report different, more moderen paranormal exercise aboard the present ship impartial of that particular legend.
The place ought to I keep if I’m visiting Chestertown?
Brampton 1860, a 35-acre historic inn about two minutes from downtown Chestertown, is our high decide. It’s listed on the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations, gives non-public cottages and farm-to-table breakfasts, and places you shut sufficient to stroll the city’s ghost-walk route and go to St. Paul’s Cemetery without having to drive.
Are you able to go to these locations with out happening a ghost tour?
Sure, for all of them. Each website on this record has customary daytime entry separate from any night ghost-focused programming, so you may go to purely for the historical past if that’s what you’re after.
Which of those websites are you able to go to totally free?
Antietam Nationwide Battlefield is free to drive and stroll, with solely the customer middle and movie carrying a small price. Historic Ellicott Metropolis and Chestertown are each free to stroll by yourself; the guided ghost excursions in every city are the one ticketed a part of a go to.
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