An 1878 Salisbury courthouse named on Eastern Shore ghost walks, where tour guides tell of guilty consciences and the spirits of prisoners from the old jail.
101 North Division Street, Salisbury, MD 21801
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
The courthouse is an active government building; its haunted reputation is encountered as a stop on paid downtown ghost walks rather than through interior access.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Downtown Salisbury sidewalks; the ghost-walk routes are roughly a mile of flat city blocks.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1878 · Seat of Wicomico County since 1878 · Anchor of downtown Salisbury's historic core · A regular stop on multiple Salisbury ghost-walk routes · Linked in lore to the site of an earlier town jail
The Wicomico County Courthouse stands at 101 North Division Street in the heart of downtown Salisbury, the seat of Wicomico County on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The building dates to 1878 and has served as the county's courthouse since, surviving the fires that reshaped much of the surrounding commercial district.
As a working courthouse, its public history is the ordinary record of a county seat: trials, the business of local government, and its place among the older buildings that ring the downtown. An earlier jail stood in the same part of town, and that proximity is what threads the courthouse into the city's ghost-walk narration.
Salisbury supports more than one ghost-tour operator. US Ghost Adventures runs a downtown walking tour that meets near the government office building, and Chesapeake Ghost Tours, a locally and woman-owned company whose routes were researched by Eastern Shore author Mindie Burgoyne, also covers the courthouse. The building is interpreted from the public sidewalk on these tours rather than through interior access, since it remains an active government facility.
The courthouse's appearance on these tours places it alongside other downtown stops, including Poplar Hill Mansion and the city's old firehouses, in the broader story Salisbury tells about its haunted core.
Sources
On Salisbury's downtown ghost walks the Wicomico County Courthouse is presented as one of the most haunted buildings in the city. Guides describe what they call the whispers of guilty consciences and the spirits of people who, in the tour's framing, are still seeking justice in the afterlife. The narration also draws in prisoners from the old jail that once stood in the same part of town, treating the courthouse as a gathering point for that earlier history.
The tours additionally describe the courthouse as the setting of several murders. These are claims made within ghost-walk storytelling rather than a documented case file; the specific incidents are not named or sourced in the tour material, so they are best understood as part of the tour's atmosphere rather than as established fact.
The lore is delivered by the operators, US Ghost Adventures and the locally owned Chesapeake Ghost Tours, and echoed in regional paranormal listings. None of it is independently verified, and because the building is an active courthouse, visitors encounter the stories from the sidewalk on a guided evening walk rather than inside.
Join a guided downtown Salisbury ghost walk that includes the 1878 Wicomico County Courthouse among its stops. US Ghost Adventures runs a roughly one-hour, one-mile walking tour that meets near the government office building; Chesapeake Ghost Tours, a locally owned operator, also covers the courthouse on its Salisbury route.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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