Charlotte's first municipal burial ground (1776-1884) holding Revolutionary War dead, founding father Thomas Polk, and Governor Nathaniel Alexander, with persistent legends of an enslaved sexton called Ambrose.
200 W 5th Street, Charlotte, NC 28202
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public daytime access. Ghost tours and walking tours of Uptown frequently include Old Settlers' as a stop and charge separately.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat lawn with paved perimeter walks; some uneven ground around historic markers.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1776 · Charlotte's First Municipal Cemetery · Revolutionary War Burials · Civil War Burials · Burial of Founder Thomas Polk and Governor Nathaniel Alexander
Old Settlers' Cemetery, located across West Fifth Street from First Presbyterian Church, served as Charlotte's main municipal burying ground from about 1776 until the opening of Elmwood Cemetery in 1853. Active burials continued through 1884, after which the cemetery transitioned to its current role as a historic public greenspace administered by the City of Charlotte.
The grounds hold roughly 200 marked graves, including those of Colonel Thomas Polk — founder of Charlotte and a Revolutionary War officer — and Nathaniel Alexander, a U.S. Congressman and Governor of North Carolina (1805-1807). Revolutionary War and Civil War soldiers are interred among the early settlers and prominent families of Mecklenburg County.
The cemetery sits in the center of present-day Uptown Charlotte. Its proximity to First Presbyterian Church across Fifth Street figures heavily into local folklore, particularly the persistent legend of a Civil War-era tunnel said to have connected the two sites. The grounds are protected as a city historic resource and are routinely cited as part of Charlotte's founding-era civic infrastructure.
Documented body-snatching for the benefit of nearby medical schools was a regional historical practice during the late 19th century, and local ghost-tour and Wikipedia coverage of Old Settlers' notes the practice as part of the cemetery's history; this historical context underlies some of the contemporary paranormal narratives at the site.
Sources
Charlotte's ghost-tour operators frame Old Settlers' Cemetery as one of the city's most reported paranormal sites. Visitors describe disembodied voices, growling sounds, a wave of nausea on entering the grounds, and floating orbs — the last most commonly described in photography taken on the grounds at night.
The lore attaches in particular to a figure called 'Ambrose.' According to legend recorded by Queen City Ghosts, Charlotte Ghost Tours, and US Ghost Adventures, Ambrose was a Black sexton at First Presbyterian Church across Fifth Street. As Union forces approached Charlotte near the end of the Civil War, church leaders directed Ambrose to dig a tunnel under Fifth Street toward the cemetery to hide silver and valuables. The story holds that on Ambrose's return trip to retrieve the items the tunnel collapsed, killing him under the cemetery. Local sources note that the tunnel and Ambrose's biography are not documented in surviving church records and that the story is preserved primarily through oral tradition.
A secondary thread of the cemetery's lore concerns body-snatching: in the late 19th century, regional medical schools required cadavers, and historical accounts indicate that corpses were taken from urban cemeteries for dissection. Ghost-tour operators cite this practice as historical context for reports of disturbed-spirit activity on the grounds.
We treat the Ambrose narrative with the same editorial care its historical record warrants. The story circulates as folklore rooted in the documented presence of enslaved laborers at Charlotte's antebellum institutions, and we frame it without romanticization.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Local ghost-tour operators including US Ghost Adventures and Queen City Ghosts include Old Settlers' Cemetery as a featured Uptown stop, covering the Revolutionary-era burials, the Ambrose tunnel legend tied to First Presbyterian Church across the street, and the cemetery's lore about bodies historically taken for the nearby medical school.
Walk the small grounds during daylight hours and locate the markers for Thomas Polk (Charlotte founder), Governor Nathaniel Alexander, and Revolutionary and Civil War soldiers. The cemetery is small, flat, and easy to traverse in 30-60 minutes.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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