Merritt Island — Travelrags

Atlas Obscura’s Guide to America’s Most Haunted Cemeteries

It’s nice to imagine death as an endless deep sleep, but not everyone is so lucky. In cemeteries across the U.S., you’ll find souls whose final resting places are not, in fact, restful at all. Perhaps they died with scores unsettled or, perhaps, their graves were ravaged by greedy developers. Sometimes, heartbreak rendered them unable to move on peacefully; in other cases, they simply couldn’t…

Atlas ObscuraAug 13

The Atlas Obscura Guide to Halloween Travel

There is a version of Halloween tourism that involves a man in a rubber mask jumping out from behind a plywood wall. It has its pleasures. It is not this. The places below are real. The things that happened in them are documented — in court records, in coroners' reports, in parish registers, in the diaries of people who were there. Some have ghost stories attached. The ghost stories are almost…

19 things in this story

Georgiana CemeteryPlaceHolds Ethel Allen, murdered in the early 1900s.
Elsewhere
Warren's Occult MuseumMuseumMonroe, United StatesCollection of haunted objects, closed to public in 2019.
The Haunted Warren MuseumMuseumSalem, United StatesOpens August 27 at 259 Essex Street, Salem.
Taunton State HospitalSightTaunton, United StatesPsychiatric institution with a reputation for hauntings.
Outagamie County Asylum CemeteryPlaceAppleton, United StatesHolds bodies of at least 133 former patients.
Greenbrier Ghost markerSightRonceverte, United StatesCommemorates Zona Heaster Shue, whose ghost named her killer.
The Three BrujasPlaceTaos, United StatesThree unmarked concrete graves said to hold witches.
Selee Satanic Mill MarkerSightEaston, United StatesSign for an eighteenth-century sawmill owner believed to employ imps.
Springdale CemeteryPlacePeoria, United StatesContains the so-called Witch’s Circle.
Highgate CemeteryPlaceLondon, United KingdomSite of occultist feuds and vampire hunters in the 1970s.
Jackson Grave HousesPlaceHarrells, United StatesSmall structures built over graves to shelter the spirit.
Grave of Joseph Augustus ZarelliPlacePhiladelphia, United StatesMarks a boy who went unidentified for sixty-five years.
Spinning HeadstoneSightHillside, United StatesHeadstone in Hillside Cemetery.
Lizzie Borden Bed and BreakfastHotelFall River, United StatesThe actual house where the Lizzie Borden murders took place.
Robert the DollSightKey West, United StatesDoll in Key West causing trouble for over a century.
HelltownNeighborhoodBoston, United StatesFormer village of Boston, Ohio, bought out by the federal government.
Bolton StridSightBolton Abbey, United KingdomA section of the River Wharfe running vertically down a rock shaft.
Ghosts From MississippiPlaceJackson, United StatesItinerary from a witch's grave to a moving cemetery statue.
McRaven HouseSightVicksburg, United StatesMcRaven was built c.

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