Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainAuburn's oldest cemetery, where residents have reported a woman seated on a tombstone with her head in her hands, shadow figures moving among the stones, and a phantom cat that vanishes from the markers.
Armstrong St, Auburn, AL 36830
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Publicly accessible cemetery; no admission fee.
Access
Limited Access
Historic cemetery with uneven ground, grass, and older stone markers. Not fully accessible.
Equipment
Photos OK
Auburn's oldest cemetery · Probable burial site for approximately 90 Civil War soldiers from Auburn hospital use · Contains graves of Lee County pioneer families
Pine Hill Cemetery on Armstrong Street is the oldest cemetery in Auburn, Alabama, predating the city's incorporation. The burial ground served the earliest European-American settlers of the area that would become Auburn — then a small college town in Lee County — and continued as the primary interment site for the community through the Civil War period and into the late 19th century.
The cemetery's Civil War significance is tied to the presence of Auburn University Chapel, roughly a mile away, which served as a Confederate hospital during the conflict. According to the hauntedhaven blog documentation of the Grimlett legend, approximately 90 Confederate soldiers who died in Auburn's makeshift hospitals during the Civil War are believed to be buried at Pine Hill, making it a military burial ground in addition to a community cemetery. Records for individual soldiers are incomplete, which is typical for Civil War-era hospital burials in the Deep South.
Pine Hill contains markers for Lee County pioneer families alongside military-era burials. The cemetery remains an active burial ground, maintained by the city and accessible to the public during daylight hours. Its long history and association with Auburn's founding generation — combined with its role as the probable resting place of Civil War casualties — make it a site of historical significance beyond its paranormal reputation.
Sources
The paranormal accounts at Pine Hill Cemetery are collected primarily by Auburn-Opelika Tourism and by local real-estate and neighborhood coverage of Auburn's ghost lore. The reports fall into three recurring categories.
The most frequently described apparition is a woman seated on a tombstone with her head in her hands — a figure seen by multiple witnesses from outside the cemetery perimeter. She is described as still, seated, with her face covered; no interactions with observers are reported and no identity is associated with the figure.
The second category is shadow figures: dark forms moving among the headstones that observers describe as clearly animate but without physical substance. The sightings follow the pattern common to cemetery-shadow accounts nationally — movement at the periphery of vision, figures that do not respond to light or sound.
The third and most specific account involves a phantom cat. Witnesses report observing a cat seated on one of the older tombstones that disappears when they look directly at it or approach. The cat has been reported on multiple separate occasions by different observers.
No formal paranormal investigations of Pine Hill Cemetery are documented in the sources reviewed, and no named entities are associated with the reported phenomena. The reports are consistent with the site's age and its Civil War burial history.
Pine Hill is Auburn's oldest cemetery and the burial ground for early settlers, Civil War soldiers, and prominent Lee County families. Daytime visits allow exploration of historic markers. The cemetery's long association with Auburn ghost lore makes it a destination for dark-history visitors.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Mobile, AL
Established in 1836 as Mobile's primary municipal burial ground, Magnolia Cemetery spans more than 100 acres and contains over 80,000 burials. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 13, 1986, and remains an active, though limited, burial site. The cemetery holds an exceptional collection of Victorian funerary art, including a rare mid-19th-century cast-iron statue cast by the Wood & Perot foundry of Philadelphia.
Huntsville, AL
Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville, Alabama was founded in 1822 when planter LeRoy Pope sold two acres to the city for use as a burial ground. It is the oldest and largest cemetery in Alabama, now covering nearly 100 acres with more than 80,000 burials, including five Alabama governors and five United States senators.
Forest Park, IL
Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, grew from two adjacent cemeteries — German Waldheim (established 1873) and Forest Home (1876) — which merged in February 1969. The 220-acre site was chosen as a non-denominational burial ground, a policy that made it the only Chicago-area cemetery willing to accept the bodies of the Haymarket defendants in 1887.