The South is America’s oldest ghost. Its streets were laid over centuries of war, plague, fire, and secrets kept by the dead. These places have earned their reputations the hard way, through history too dark to stay buried. Here are the most haunted places in the South that you should not miss.
New Orleans, Louisiana: The LaLaurie Mansion
The LaLaurie Mansion – Copyright US Ghost Adventures
No address in the American South carries a darker history than 1140 Royal Street in the French Quarter, home to the infamous LaLaurie Mansion. In the spring of 1834, a fire broke out in the kitchen of socialite Delphine LaLaurie’s home, and what firefighters discovered in the attic rewrote the city’s understanding of horror.
Behind a locked door on the upper floor, enslaved men and women were found chained, mutilated, and subjected to unspeakable cruelties over what investigators believed were years. The revelation sent the city into a fury. A mob stormed the mansion while Madame LaLaurie fled by carriage and was never brought to justice. She died in Paris, possibly in 1849.
Since then, the mansion has cycled through dozens of owners, including actor Nicolas Cage, who purchased it in 2007 before losing it to foreclosure. Every owner has had stories to tell. Neighbors report screams rising from the building after dark. Passersby photograph shadows in upper windows when the building is empty. Ghost hunting teams claim to have recorded voices still begging for release.
The most commonly reported phenomenon: the sound of chains dragging across hardwood floors in the small hours of the night, heard clearly from the street below.
Savannah, Georgia: The Marshall House Hotel
Savannah’s oldest operating hotel, the Marshall House Hotel, opened in 1851 and served as a Union Army field hospital twice, during the yellow fever epidemics of the 1850s and again during the Civil War occupation of 1864. Surgeons operated around the clock in the halls; limbs were removed and buried beneath the floorboards and in the courtyard. In a grim discovery during 1990s renovations, workers unearthed human bones beneath the hotel floor.
Guests consistently report seeing a young girl in a white dress wandering the upper corridors. Others describe a man in a long dark coat standing at the foot of their bed, gone by morning. The fourth floor, once the main surgical ward, logs the most complaints of unexplained cold spots, sudden nausea, and lights that refuse to stay off.
Also in Savannah: Colonial Park Cemetery
Established in 1750, Colonial Park is the city’s oldest surviving burial ground and the final resting place of more than 9,000 souls, many of them victims of yellow fever epidemics. When Union soldiers occupied Savannah in 1864, they camped in the cemetery and vandalized headstones, altering the dates on markers as a dark joke. Hundreds of those stones remain altered today.
Shadow figures drift between the ancient oaks at night. Orbs appear in photographs taken near the older graves. Children’s laughter is heard near the far wall where small stones mark victims of the 1820 epidemic. EVP recordings by local ghost tour operators have repeatedly captured a low male voice near the dueling ground, believed to be Button Gwinnett, signer of the Declaration of Independence, who was fatally wounded in a duel here in 1777.
St. Augustine, Florida: The St. Augustine Lighthouse
The Castillo in St. Augustine – Copyright US Ghost Adventures
Built in 1874, the St. Augustine Lighthouse has stood over three centuries of maritime tragedy and sudden death. Its most enduring spirits are said to be two young daughters of Superintendent Hezekiah Pity, who drowned in 1873 when a construction cart they were playing in rolled off the worksite and into the sea.
Visitors and staff report hearing children giggling on the upper landings, small handprints appearing on freshly cleaned windows, and a persistent scent of perfume on the staircase. The basement, where the girls’ father is said to have sat for days after their deaths, is considered the most active area. The lighthouse has been investigated by multiple paranormal television programs, one of which captured what appeared to be the figure of a young girl at the top of the tower on thermal imaging equipment.
Also in St. Augustine: Castillo de San Marcos
The oldest masonry fort in the continental United States has stood since 1695, built of coquina shell-stone by the Spanish. Its walls have absorbed centuries of siege, imprisonment, and death. The most chilling story of haunted St. Augustine belongs to a sealed chamber discovered during 18th-century renovations: behind a false wall, investigators found two skeletons believed to be those of Colonel García Martí and his wife, Dolores, who had vanished without explanation in the 1730s.
The scent of rose perfume, associated with Dolores, is still reported near the southwest bastion where the chamber was located. Rangers working the night shift describe a pale woman in white who appears near the saltwater moat at dusk and vanishes when approached. The underground magazine, once used for solitary confinement, produces an oppressive dread that even skeptical visitors find difficult to shake.
Annapolis, Maryland: The Maryland Inn
The Maryland Inn – Copyright US Ghost Adventures
Built around 1782 on Church Circle, the haunted Maryland Inn is one of the oldest continually operating inns in the United States. It has hosted presidents, diplomats, and officers across two centuries, along with a few guests who checked in and never left.
The most frequently encountered presence is that of a colonial-era man in a gray coat, seen standing in the hallway outside Room 12. Staff report cold drafts along corridors on still summer nights, and guests have heard the sound of a harpsichord playing from empty parlor rooms before dawn. On multiple occasions, guests have called the front desk to report a man in old-fashioned clothing standing in their doorway, only for staff to confirm the hallway is empty and the door is locked from the inside.
Also in Annapolis: The William Paca House
Built in 1763 by William Paca, Maryland’s signer of the Declaration of Independence, this Georgian mansion once overlooked two acres of terraced gardens. Paca outlived three of his children and two wives within these walls, and many believe the accumulated grief never left.
A woman in 18th-century dress, believed to be Paca’s second wife Anne Harrison, has been seen on the main staircase. Objects left in period-accurate positions are found moved by morning. The garden produces unexplained cold spots near the fish-shaped pond even on warm July evenings. Renovation workers restoring the house in the 1960s reported hearing children crying from the sealed, untouched nursery upstairs.
Orlando, Florida: Greenwood Cemetery
Established in 1880, Greenwood Cemetery is Orlando’s oldest burial ground and the resting place of thousands of city founders, alongside victims of yellow fever, influenza, and early industrial accidents. Its Victorian section, shaded by enormous live oaks draped in Spanish moss, produces the most consistent reports.
Apparitions in period dress have been photographed near the older monuments. The area near the children’s section, where a cluster of small white stones marks deaths from the 1918 influenza pandemic, is known for sudden temperature drops and the inexplicable sensation of small hands pulling at sleeves. A nature photographer documenting the Victorian monuments in 2015 captured what appears to be a translucent woman in a long white dress standing between two oaks, a figure not visible to the naked eye during the shoot.
Also in Orlando: The Orange County Regional History Center
Housed in a magnificent 1927 courthouse on Central Boulevard, the History Center sits on ground that witnessed Orlando’s most turbulent decades, including frontier justice, civil rights-era confrontations, and generations of criminal proceedings. The building’s former cells and courtrooms have absorbed a great deal of human desperation.
The fourth floor, which once held the jail cells, is the most active area after hours. Doors confirmed locked are found standing open in the morning. Security cameras have logged movement in empty galleries. A security guard who worked the overnight shift for six years refused to enter the fourth floor after 11 p.m., citing a recurring vision: a man in a dark suit seated at the judge’s bench, who would slowly turn and look directly at the guard before dissolving into shadow.
Williamsburg, Virginia: The Peyton Randolph House
Williamsburg at night – Copyright US Ghost Adventures
Widely considered the most haunted building in Colonial Williamsburg, the Peyton Randolph House on Nicholson Street was home to one of Virginia’s most powerful families and far more than its share of death. Peyton Randolph, first President of the Continental Congress, died suddenly in 1775. In 1781, the house billeted French soldiers under Rochambeau, some of whom never returned home.
Paranormal investigators have documented some of their most compelling findings here. A man in colonial breeches is seen in the parlor. A woman’s silhouette appears in an upstairs window when the building is confirmed empty. Staff report the persistent smell of tobacco smoke in rooms where no one has smoked in over a century. During one overnight investigation, audio equipment captured what researchers identified as a French military march, a tune from the 1780s, repeating faintly in the east bedroom.
Multiple Colonial Williamsburg interpreters have independently reported an encounter with a man they mistook for a colleague, until he walked through a closed door. The description is always consistent: tall, broad-shouldered, in a dark waistcoat, with an expression of tremendous sadness.
Also in Williamsburg: The Wythe House
Built around 1752 for George Wythe, signer of the Declaration of Independence and America’s first law professor, the Wythe House on Palace Green served as George Washington’s headquarters before the Siege of Yorktown.
The house is said to be haunted by Lady Anne Skipwith, a guest who danced at a ball here all night before losing a slipper on the main staircase and rushing home barefoot. She died of a fever within days. For more than two centuries, witnesses have reported hearing a single high-heeled footstep, one shoe and then silence, descending the staircase late at night. The garden behind the house, where soldiers were quartered before Yorktown, produces reports of uniformed figures among the boxwoods after dark.
Watch this video interview for a firsthand experience of the creepy and spooky things experienced at the Wythe House.
The South does not bury its history. It keeps it close, and sometimes it refuses to let history stay quiet at all. Visit these places with respect and an open mind, and don’t forget to check out US Ghost Adventures for haunted tours in 260+ US cities.
