1700 burying ground where the Norwich Historical Society runs an annual luminaria-lit evening ghost tour
Town Street, Norwich, CT 06360
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
The burying ground is free to visit during daylight. The annual Antient Ghosts evening tour is separately ticketed through the Norwich Historical Society.
Access
Limited Access
Hilly, uneven historic cemetery ground; the evening tour runs in near-darkness with limited lighting
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1700 · Colonial-Era Burying Ground · Revolutionary War-Era Graves · Burial Place of Governor Samuel Huntington · Burial Place of French Revolutionary Allies
The Old Norwichtown Colonial Burying Ground was laid out in 1700, on land associated with Norwich's first minister, the Reverend James Fitch, to meet the needs of a rapidly growing colonial settlement that had been founded in 1659. Over the following centuries several thousand people were buried in the ground; today about 1,300 headstones remain, many of them carved with the death's-heads and winged-soul motifs typical of New England's early gravestone art.
The cemetery holds figures central to Norwich's Revolutionary history. Samuel Huntington, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a governor of Connecticut, is buried here. So are French soldiers who came to Connecticut as allies during the Revolution. The ground is also the resting place of Hannah Waterman Arnold, the mother of Benedict Arnold, whose own reputation looms over the town's colonial story.
The site sits beside the Norwichtown green at the historic core of the city. It remains a public cemetery and a stop on the Walk Norwich heritage-trail network, and its age and Revolutionary connections make it a focus of the Norwich Historical Society's interpretive programming.
Sources
The burying ground's standing in local ghost lore is tied less to specific hauntings than to the way its history is performed. Each year the Norwich Historical Society's Antient Ghosts of Norwich tour moves visitors from the Norwichtown green into the darkened cemetery, where the only light comes from flickering luminaria. Four costumed reenactors are positioned along the route, each stepping out at an appropriate grave to tell the story of someone buried there. The Society is explicit that the material is grounded: every account is based on documented history or ancestral anecdote handed down through families, not invented.
Beyond the Historical Society event, the cemetery turns up on commercial walking-tour itineraries of Norwich as one of the older and more atmospheric stops, valued for its Revolutionary-era stones and its hilltop setting above the colonial town.
The site is not the subject of a sustained paranormal-investigation record. Its reputation rests on its age, the prominence of those buried there, and the long-running guided tour rather than on reports of specific apparitions.
Walk the 1700 burying ground during daylight, with roughly 1,300 surviving headstones marking Revolutionary-era Norwich. Interpretive markers and the adjacent Norwichtown green provide context. The ground is hilly and uneven; wear sturdy shoes.
Each year on the Friday before Halloween, the Norwich Historical Society leads a roughly hour-long guided evening tour through the burying ground, lit only by flickering luminaria. Costumed reenactors stationed among the stones tell the stories of people buried there, all drawn from historical record or handed-down family accounts. Tickets and timed entry are arranged through the Historical Society.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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