HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
+ 2 further entries on record
Idaho's largest cemetery, established 1882 on 80 acres bought by Mayor James Pinney; ~30,000 interments and the resting place of politicians, corporate leaders and military heroes.
317 N Latah St, Boise, ID 83706
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free, public city cemetery. No tour fee; respect active burial-ground rules.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved roads and lawn sections across 60 developed acres on relatively flat terrain. 53 sections plus a mausoleum.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1882 · Largest cemetery in Idaho · Established January 1882 by Mayor James Pinney · First burial: William Lindsay, age 16, March 1882 · ~30,000 interments across 60 developed acres · Continuously operated by the City of Boise since March 1, 1882 · Commonwealth War Graves Commission-recognized site
Morris Hill Cemetery was established in January 1882 when Boise Mayor James Pinney purchased the eighty-acre parcel for $2,000 from William H. Ridenbaugh and Lavinia I. Morris - the latter the source of the cemetery's name. The City of Boise took over operation on March 1, 1882, and has operated the property continuously since.
The first burial was that of 16-year-old William Lindsay in March 1882. The cemetery grew steadily through Boise's late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century expansion. Early mortality records, which are partially indexed by the Ada County genealogical project IDGenWeb, document the broad cross-section of frontier-era deaths: accidents in mines and on rivers, infectious disease outbreaks, and incidents of violence. The cemetery is also the resting place of politicians, corporate leaders and military heroes, including a Civil War veteran whose remains were brought to Morris Hill from Illinois in 1922.
The cemetery currently consists of 60 developed (platted) acres organized into 53 sections plus a mausoleum, with approximately 30,000 grave sites. Boise Parks and Recreation operates the property and maintains an online burial-search tool. Notable monumental features include the ceramic picture monuments dating from the early 1900s and iron-fenced family plots throughout the older sections.
Morris Hill is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission-recognized site as Boise (Morris Hill) Cemetery, recording Commonwealth war dead interred at the property. The cemetery is open sunrise to sunset daily.
Sources
Morris Hill's paranormal lore is primarily collected by the Idaho Haunted Houses directory and by the Late Night Legends podcast/blog, both of which compile field reports from cemetery investigators and visitors.
The most-cited named-entity case is a child spirit identified by investigators as Virginia, who is said to have died during surgery in the early twentieth century. Spirit-box and EVP sessions documented by Late Night Legends describe what investigators interpret as Virginia's voice responding to questions. A second reported child spirit is associated with grave rubbings on which additional letters are reported to appear after the rubbing has been completed.
A third strand of reports involves environmental responses: investigators describe asking the cemetery for a confirming sign and receiving what they interpret as a localized calm-breeze response in otherwise still air. Visitors photographing the older iron-fenced family plots have described sudden bouts of uncontrollable crying with no apparent trigger.
A male voice heard in daylight, described by one investigator as 'joking' about being ghost-hunted, recurs across multiple sessions documented by Late Night Legends.
HauntBound presents these reports as compiled field observations from amateur investigation teams. None of the claims is independently corroborated by physical evidence, and the families of named decedents (where identifiable) deserve and retain editorial dignity.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Walk the 60 developed acres of Idaho's largest cemetery. Burial-search tools are available online via the City of Boise Parks and Recreation cemetery portal to locate specific interments.
The city offers a walking-tour brochure highlighting Civil War veterans, founding-era Boiseans, ceramic picture monuments, and the iron-fenced family plots that anchor most of the cemetery's local lore.
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Atlanta, GA
Historic Oakland Cemetery was chartered in 1850 as the six-acre 'Atlanta Cemetery,' renamed Oakland in 1872, and expanded to 48 acres. Approximately 70,000 people are interred, including roughly 6,900 Confederate soldiers (3,000 unidentified), four Confederate generals, six Georgia governors, 27 Atlanta mayors, Margaret Mitchell, golfer Bobby Jones, and Maynard Jackson, Atlanta's first African American mayor. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 28, 1976.
Portland, OR
The cemetery began with the 1846 burial of pioneer Emmor Stephens on a family farm in what is now southeast Portland. In 1854 Colburn Barrell bought the land and dedicated 10 acres as 'Mount Crawford,' named after his business partner Crawford Dobbins, who died with 23 others when the steamboat Gazelle exploded at Canemah that April. Later renamed Lone Fir, the 30-acre site holds about 25,000 burials including six Portland mayors and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. It is now operated by Metro.
Boise, ID
Fort Boise Military Cemetery, also known as Cottonwood Cemetery, holds burials of soldiers and dependents from Fort Boise and Government Island; records give 247 graves, 252 interments, and 267 combined transcription entries. The original Boise Barracks cemetery was destroyed in the 1906 floods, and 166 graves were relocated to the present Foothills site beginning in 1906, with additional reinterments continuing into 1913. The City of Boise received the deed in 1947 with a stipulation that the site be maintained as a historic property in its natural early-twentieth-century condition.