HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
An 1819 farmhouse that became a Civil War hospital after the Battle of Folck's Mill, now an Italian restaurant with a haunted reputation.
12901 Ali Ghan Rd NE, Cumberland, MD 21502
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Full-service Italian restaurant; standard dinner pricing. No charge to view the historic building beyond a meal.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Restored early-19th-century farmhouse on the edge of Cumberland; ground-floor dining.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1819 · 1819 Hinkle House, built by Jacob Hoblitzel on a William Lamar land grant · Used as a field hospital for Union and Confederate wounded after the Battle of Folck's Mill (Aug 1, 1864) · Soldiers' sketches reportedly survive in the attic · Maryland's westernmost Civil War battle fought adjacent to the property
The building that houses Puccini Restaurant stands on land that was part of a post-Revolutionary War grant to Colonel William Lamar. Jacob Hoblitzel built the farmhouse there in 1819, and it later passed to George Hinkle, a farmer whose name the house still carries.
On August 1, 1864, the Battle of Folck's Mill was fought practically at the door. It was the westernmost Civil War battle in Maryland, a roughly five-hour engagement in which Union forces turned back a Confederate column moving on Cumberland. In the aftermath, the Hinkle House was pressed into service as a temporary field hospital for wounded soldiers from both armies. According to the restaurant's own history, sketches and etchings made by soldiers convalescing there can still be seen in the attic.
The house survived the war and the long agricultural decline that followed, retaining its early-19th-century structure. In 2006 it reopened as Puccini Restaurant, an Italian kitchen known for wood-fired pizza, with the period rooms preserved as the dining space.
The Hinkle House is one of the few buildings in the Cumberland area with a direct, documented tie to combat on Maryland soil, which gives a dinner there an unusual layer of history.
Sources
The haunted reputation of Puccini Restaurant comes straight out of its history. A farmhouse that served as a field hospital after a Civil War battle is the sort of building that draws ghost stories, and this one has them. Western Maryland haunted-history listings and diner reviews describe footsteps when no one is around and objects said to move on their own in the old Hinkle House rooms.
The accounts tend to connect any activity to the soldiers who were treated, and in some cases died, in the house in August 1864. The attic sketches left by convalescing patients give the building a tangible link to that period, which the lore leans on.
There is no named ghost, photograph, or formal investigation behind the reports, and they read as the accumulated atmosphere of a historic restaurant rather than a documented haunting. Hauntbound notes the Civil War hospital history as solid and the haunting itself as supposedly-haunted local lore, and routes the listing to review on that basis.
Have a meal in the 1819 Hinkle House, the farmhouse used as a field hospital for Union and Confederate wounded after the August 1864 Battle of Folck's Mill, Maryland's westernmost Civil War engagement. The building keeps its period character, and diner accounts and local lists report it as supposedly haunted, with phantom footsteps and objects said to move on their own.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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