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…
1. Colonial Park Cemetery, located in Savannah, Georgia, dates back to 1750 and was once the city's primary public burial ground for over a century. It is home to more than 9,000 graves, including those of the city's earliest settlers and victims of the 1820 yellow fever epidemic. Some believe that during the Civil War, Union soldiers disturbed the cemetery by relocating headstones and altering their inscriptions, angering the restless spirits that now haunt the area.
Visitors may spot these apparitions floating above the ground or as green mist, and they can join haunted tours offered by various companies. However, visitors are not allowed inside the cemetery after dark, leaving some locals to sit on the fence's edge to observe any ghostly activity.
2. The Harvard Shaker Lollipop Graveyard, situated in Harvard, Massachusetts, features candy-like cast-iron stakes that mark the graves of Shaker Village residents from centuries past. The Shakers, a Christian religious collective known for their beliefs in sexual equality, celibacy, and pacifism, established their community here in 1769.
The graveyard is now a quiet historic district, but locals have spotted deceased Shakers in the surrounding fields and forests. There's also a rumor that the graveyard was built on top of a Native American burial ground, causing ongoing unrest among the original inhabitants.
Written by urgent.news from Atlas Obscura's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
