Haunted Delaware

25 haunted destinations cataloged across Delaware, spanning 6 counties. The collection features museum, outdoor, and haunted dining — every listing verified with family ratings, accessibility info, and practical visit logistics.

25 locations 6 counties 10 classifications 8 wheelchair accessible

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Top 6

Haunted Dining / Bar

Deer Park Tavern

Newark, DE

The Deer Park Tavern was built in 1851 on the site of the earlier St. Patrick's Inn, an 18th-century inn that burned in 1847 after operating from 1747. Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon used the St. Patrick's Inn as their headquarters in 1764 while surveying the Mason-Dixon Line. Edgar Allan Poe stayed and lectured at the Newark Academy on December 23, 1843, and according to local tradition cursed the building after falling in the mud on arrival. The Deer Park Tavern was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

$$ 21+ in bar area; all ages in dining Family: Moderate

Prison / Reformatory

Fort Delaware

Delaware City, DE

Fort Delaware occupies Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River and was completed in 1859 to defend the ports of Wilmington and Philadelphia. During the Civil War the fort served as a prison camp where roughly 33,000 Confederate soldiers were confined and approximately 2,500 died from disease and exposure.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Museum / Historical Site

Rockwood Mansion

Wilmington, DE

Rockwood Mansion in Wilmington, Delaware, was completed in 1854 as the retirement home of Wilmington-born banker Joseph Shipley. Modeled after Shipley's country estate near Liverpool, England, the Rural Gothic Revival mansion sits on 72 acres and now operates as Rockwood Park & Museum, run by New Castle County.

$$ All Ages for daytime visits; 14+ for paranormal tours Family: Moderate

Museum / Historical Site

Smyrna Museum (The Barracks)

Smyrna, DE

The Barracks, now the Smyrna Museum, is a brick house in Smyrna, Delaware built in the late 1790s. Local tradition holds that it housed militia during the War of 1812. During the Civil War it served as the headquarters for the enrollment of Union troops in Delaware, and on August 12, 1863 the state's first Civil War draft lottery was drawn on its front porch. The Duck Creek Historical Society has operated it as a museum since 1989.

$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Bellevue Hall

Wilmington, DE

Bellevue Hall is a Neo-Classical mansion in Wilmington, Delaware, originally built in 1855 as a Gothic Revival residence for wool merchant Hanson Robinson. William du Pont acquired the estate in 1893, and his son William du Pont Jr. remodeled the house in the 1930s into a near-replica of his Virginia home, Montpelier. The State of Delaware purchased the property in 1976 and now operates it as Bellevue State Park.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Dining / Bar

Dead Presidents Pub & Restaurant

Wilmington, DE

The buildings that house Dead Presidents Pub & Restaurant at 618 North Union Street in Wilmington are roughly 200 years old, dating to around 1806. The structures were originally private residences and were later connected to form one building. The basement once functioned as a family chapel and yielded a large carved Jesus figure during renovations. The Dead Presidents Pub was opened in 1998 by Mike and Steve Lucey and was acquired by Brian and Sarah Raughley in December 2009.

$$ 21+ in bar area; all ages in dining Family: Moderate

More in Delaware

Lewes — 5

Museum / Historical Site

Lightship Overfalls (LV-118)

Lewes, DE

Lightship Overfalls (LV-118) was built in 1938 as one of the last lightships constructed for the U.S. Lighthouse Service. She guided maritime traffic off the Delaware coast for 34 years, decommissioned in 1972. The Overfalls Maritime Museum Foundation acquired the vessel in 1973 and has preserved her at Lewes. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 2011, she is one of only seven lightships in the country open to the public.

$ All Ages Family: High

Aerial survey view of Bay Oaks Neighborhood

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Bay Oaks Neighborhood

Lewes, DE

Bay Oaks is a residential subdivision near Lewes, Delaware, located off Camp Arrowhead Road on Waterview Road. Lewes itself stands on the site of Zwaanendael, the 1631 Dutch colonial settlement destroyed in conflict with the Siconese in 1632, and the broader area has yielded colonial-era and Indigenous artifacts.

$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Cannonball House (Lewes Historical Society)

Lewes, DE

The Cannonball House on Front Street in Lewes dates to the middle of the 18th century. During the British bombardment of Lewes in April 1813, in the War of 1812, the house was struck by a cannonball that remains lodged in its foundation, giving the building its name. The Lewes Historical Society acquired the house and operates it as a maritime museum.

$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Ryves Holt House

Lewes, DE

The Ryves Holt House at 218 Second Street in Lewes is considered Delaware's oldest surviving house, with its original section dated to roughly 1665 (dendrochronology has also produced a 1680 date). It served as an early inn and was later owned by Ryves Holt, the first Chief Justice of Sussex County. The Lewes Historical Society operates it as a visitor center, and it joined the First State National Historical Park in 2014.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Burton-Ingram House (Lewes Historical Society)

Lewes, DE

The Burton-Ingram House dates to about 1789 and is one of the preserved structures on the Lewes Historical Society campus in Lewes, Delaware. Intended to lodge society visitors, it became known for unsettling guests and is now part of the organization's interpretive and paranormal programming.

$$ Minimum 13 Family: Moderate

New Castle — 5

Haunted Hotel / Inn

David Finney Inn

New Castle, DE

The David Finney Inn building at 216 Delaware Street in New Castle, Delaware dates to 1685, making it one of the oldest surviving commercial structures in the state. David Finney, a successful attorney who built the structure, later served as a prominent figure in early Delaware legal and civic history. The building operated as the Hotel Louise beginning in 1895 before returning to inn and tavern use.

$ All Ages Family: High

Asylum / Hospital

Delaware State Hospital (Farnhurst Cemetery)

New Castle, DE

Delaware's first public psychiatric institution opened in 1889 as the Delaware State Hospital for the Insane at Farnhurst. Hundreds of patients who died at the facility without family to claim them were interred in an on-site potter's field with numbered rather than named markers. Most original buildings were demolished by the 1990s, but the cemetery was identified, restored, and memorialized in 2016 — 777 graves are now documented.

$ All Ages Family: High

Prison / Reformatory

Old New Castle County Jail

New Castle, DE

Constructed in 1845, the Old New Castle County Jail served as the primary detention facility for New Castle County, Delaware, for more than 150 years. The jail witnessed hangings, a riot fatality, and suicides over its long operational history before state inspectors deemed conditions inhumane and forced its closure in 1997. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and sits within New Castle's preserved colonial-era downtown.

$ All Ages (paranormal events vary) Family: Moderate

Haunted House / Historic Home

Amstel House Museum

New Castle, DE

The Amstel House in New Castle, Delaware was built in 1738 by John Finney. It later housed Nicholas Van Dyke, who became Delaware's seventh governor, and Kensey Johns; George Washington attended a wedding at the house in April 1784. The New Castle Historical Society — formed from a 1931 effort to save the building — operates it as a museum.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Dining / Bar

Jessop's Tavern

New Castle, DE

Jessop's Tavern occupies a New Castle building dated to 1674, in the heart of the colonial-era Delaware Street streetscape. The site is associated with Abraham Jessop, a cooper (barrel-maker) who worked in the area in the early 18th century. The Day family opened the current tavern in November 1996 and named it for him.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Dover — 4

Exterior of the John Dickinson Mansion brick Georgian house at Kitts Hummock Road in Dover, Delaware, documented by HABS

Museum / Historical Site

John Dickinson Plantation

Dover, DE

The John Dickinson Plantation in Dover, Delaware preserves the 1740 brick mansion built by Judge Samuel Dickinson, father of founding father John Dickinson. The 18th-century plantation, where enslaved and tenant labor worked tobacco and grain fields, is operated by the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs as a free public museum.

$ All Ages Family: High

Christ Episcopal Church, a brick colonial church in Dover, Delaware

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Christ Episcopal Church and Cemetery

Dover, DE

Christ Church traces to a 1704 mission of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; the brick church was built in 1734 on what is now Dover's Green. Its burying ground holds early Delaware residents, including a cenotaph for Declaration of Independence signer Caesar Rodney.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Dining / Bar

Golden Fleece Tavern Site

Dover, DE

Built in the 1730s on Dover's Green, the Golden Fleece Tavern was a government and social hub. On December 7, 1787, delegates meeting here voted unanimously to ratify the U.S. Constitution, making Delaware the first state. The building was demolished around 1830; a marker and a wall fragment remain.

$ All Ages Family: High

Ghost Tour / Walking Tour

Kent County Courthouse / The Green Historic District

Dover, DE

The Green is Dover's colonial public square, laid out in the late 17th century and made the county seat when a courthouse was built there in 1722. The square hosted the courts, markets, and government of Kent County and the early state, and it remains a National Register historic district.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Bear — 1

Aerial survey view of Lums Pond State Park

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Lums Pond State Park

Bear, DE

Lums Pond was created in the early 1700s when St. Georges Creek was dammed to support local milling operations. During the construction of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal in the 1800s, the canal company purchased the pond as a water source for the locks. Delaware acquired the 1,790-acre property in 1963 for public recreation; the pond remains the largest freshwater pond in the state.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Delaware City — 1

Stone walls of Fort Delaware viewed from the northwest on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River

Battlefield / Military Site

Fort Delaware State Park

Delaware City, DE

Fort Delaware is a stone fortification on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River, completed in 1859 to designs by U.S. Army chief engineer Joseph Gilbert Totten. During the Civil War, it held nearly 33,000 Confederate prisoners, political prisoners, and federal convicts; approximately 2,500 died on the island, half during a smallpox epidemic in 1863. The site is now operated as Fort Delaware State Park.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Frankford — 1

Aerial survey view of Great Cypress Swamp

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Great Cypress Swamp

Frankford, DE

The Great Cypress Swamp once covered nearly 50,000 acres in southern Sussex County, Delaware, representing one of the northernmost bald cypress ecosystems in North America. A catastrophic 1930 peat fire — ignited by a moonshiner's still explosion — burned for eight months through the soil itself, destroying much of the old-growth canopy. A smaller but devastating fire had occurred in 1782 as well.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Frederica — 1

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Highway 12 West

Frederica, DE

Delaware Route 12 runs through Kent County in central Delaware, passing near the small community of Frederica. The stretch west of Frederica passes through flat agricultural landscape typical of the Delaware interior. The legend associated with this road involves a historical murder, the disposal of a body, and the dog that reportedly consumed the remains.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Smyrna — 1

Haunted House / Historic Home

Belmont Hall

Smyrna, DE

Belmont Hall is a Georgian brick mansion built about 1773 by Thomas Collins near Smyrna in Kent County, Delaware. Collins served as a brigadier general in the Revolution and was elected the state's president (governor) in 1786, holding the office until his death in 1789. In 1777 a British raiding party reached the house and shot a sentry posted on the rooftop walk, who died inside.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

By type

Museum / Historical Site (7) Outdoor / Natural Site (4) Haunted Dining / Bar (4) Haunted House / Historic Home (3) Prison / Reformatory (2) Haunted Hotel / Inn (1) Asylum / Hospital (1) Battlefield / Military Site (1) Cemetery / Burial Ground (1) Ghost Tour / Walking Tour (1)