1830 Donahoo Light at the Confederate Prison Camp Cape
Point Lookout Road, Scotland, MD 20687
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Point Lookout State Park charges a small per-vehicle entrance fee. The lighthouse is open to the public on scheduled days managed by the Point Lookout Lighthouse Preservation Society.
Access
Limited Access
Sand, grass, and gravel paths around the cape
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1830 · John Donahoo Construction · Civil War Hospital and Prison Camp · Confederate POW Burials · Point Lookout State Park
John Donahoo, the Irish-born builder responsible for many of the early Chesapeake Bay lights, completed the Point Lookout Lighthouse in 1830. It is one of the oldest integral lighthouses in the United States, with the light tower built directly onto the keeper's dwelling rather than as a separate structure.
During the Civil War, the federal government converted the cape into Hammond General Hospital and, beginning in 1863, into a prisoner-of-war camp for captured Confederate soldiers. By 1864 the camp held more than twenty thousand prisoners in tents and rough barracks within the four-acre stockade. Estimates of the death toll range from approximately three thousand to nearly four thousand. Many of the dead were buried near the lighthouse before later reinterments at the Point Lookout Confederate Cemetery.
After the war the lighthouse continued in active service. The Coast Guard automated and ultimately decommissioned the light in 1966. Maryland's Department of Natural Resources acquired the surrounding land, which became Point Lookout State Park. The lighthouse itself is preserved by the Point Lookout Lighthouse Preservation Society and opens for public tours on scheduled dates. The state park includes a Civil War Museum and a monument to the Confederate dead.
Sources
Point Lookout's reported paranormal activity is unusually well-archived among American lighthouses. After the Coast Guard turned the building over to civilian tenants in the 1960s and 1970s, residents and overnight guests began reporting consistent phenomena: the heavy footfall of boots on the upper-floor planks, the sound of a woman singing in empty rooms, men's conversation and laughter heard through closed doors, and the disembodied call of a guest's name from elsewhere in the house.
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources organized formal paranormal investigations of the lighthouse in the 1980s and 1990s, including sessions with parapsychologist Hans Holzer. The site has appeared in regional television documentaries and remains a frequent stop on Chesapeake-area ghost-tour itineraries.
The site's reported phenomena are inseparable from its documented history. The four-thousand-prisoner death toll at the adjoining Civil War camp gives the cape a depth of recorded loss that many reportedly active sites lack. Hauntbound's editorial approach is to treat the burial-ground context with archival respect rather than to amplify the prison camp's suffering for entertainment.
Media Appearances
Visit the 1830 John Donahoo lighthouse at the mouth of the Potomac River, paired with the adjoining Civil War Museum interpreting the Point Lookout Confederate prison camp. The lighthouse opens on scheduled public days managed by the preservation society; the state park and museum are open year-round.
Walk the cape where four thousand Confederate prisoners are buried and the Potomac meets the Chesapeake. Interpretive markers cover the prison camp footprint, the Civil War hospital, and the lighthouse keepers' history.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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