HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
A national cemetery built around the mass grave of 2,436 Confederate prisoners who died at Fort Delaware — a Pennsville resident's flat refusal to visit captures its reputation.
Fort Mott Road, Pennsville, NJ 08070
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free. Open to the public as a Department of Veterans Affairs national cemetery.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat, mowed cemetery grounds with paved drives and monument areas.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1875 · Common grave of 2,436 Confederate POWs from Fort Delaware · Designated a national cemetery in 1875 · Burials of Union guards and World War II German POWs · National Register of Historic Places
Fort Delaware sat on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River, and during the Civil War it became one of the Union's largest prisoner-of-war camps. By July 1863 the 75-acre island held roughly 12,500 prisoners. Conditions were severe: the official record attributes the deaths to malnutrition, disease, and neglect in the crowded, low-lying compound. Because the island had no room to bury its dead, the bodies were ferried across the river to the mainland at Finn's Point.
Burials began in 1863. In all, 2,436 Confederate prisoners were interred in a common grave at the site, along with 135 Union soldiers who had served as guards at Fort Delaware. The federal government designated the burial ground a national cemetery on October 3, 1875. In 1910 the United States erected an 85-foot granite obelisk over the Confederate dead, listing the names that could be recovered from the prison records.
The cemetery received a later set of burials with no connection to the Civil War. Thirteen German prisoners of war who died on American soil during World War II were buried at Finn's Point. The cemetery is maintained today by the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1997, the cemetery's caretaker was shot and killed on the grounds by spree killer Andrew Cunanan, who took the caretaker's pickup truck; Cunanan went on to murder fashion designer Gianni Versace in Miami before taking his own life. The killing is one of several documented violent events that have attached themselves to the site's local reputation.
Sources
The lore of Finn's Point is the lore of what is buried there. New Jersey Monthly's article on the cemetery opens from a local refusal: asked whether they would visit, a Pennsville resident said only, 'Oh no, I would never go there. That place is haunted.' The piece traces that reputation to the documented history — thousands of prisoners who died of disease and exposure at Fort Delaware and were laid in a single mass grave across the river.
The site's later history added to its grim standing. A group of prisoners held at Finn's Point after World War II, facing repatriation, are reported to have died by suicide rather than be sent back. In 1997 the cemetery's caretaker was murdered on the grounds. These are matters of record, and they account for much of why locals speak of the place the way they do.
Unlike many sites with a haunted label, Finn's Point is not built on a catalog of reported apparitions or recorded voices. Its reputation is the weight of the dead it holds — a war grave that visitors and neighbors have long approached with unease. That distinction is worth keeping: the documented horror here is historical, and the cemetery is a place of commemoration first.
Media Appearances
Walk the grounds to the Confederate Monument — an 85-foot granite obelisk dedicated in 1910 above the common grave of the Fort Delaware prisoners — and the Union memorial. The cemetery is maintained by the National Cemetery Administration and is open to the public during daylight hours.
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