HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
1877 Saratoga Springs Landmark Above the Spa City
365 Broadway, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$$
Room rates begin at $285 per night per published 2026 listings; corporate rates from $279 January-April 2026.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Renovated 2018; modern elevators and ADA-accessible rooms.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1877 · Gilded Age Architecture · Saratoga Springs Heritage · Preservation Renovation
Saratoga Springs in the 1870s was at the height of its career as the spa capital of the eastern United States, drawing well-heeled vacationers to its mineral waters, its racing, and its summer society. The Adelphi opened on this stretch of Broadway in 1877 and was quickly absorbed into the rhythm of the season. Politicians and businessmen met at the bar to negotiate the deals that brought thoroughbred racing and the Canfield Casino to the region.
One of the hotel's first prominent guests was John "Old Smoke" Morrissey, the world heavyweight boxing champion who became a U.S. congressman, a New York state senator, and the founder of Saratoga's thoroughbred racecourse and the Canfield Casino. In 1878, a year after the Adelphi opened, Morrissey died of pneumonia in the hotel at age 47. He was laid in state on the second-floor parlor that opened onto the piazza, where mourners filed past before his burial.
The Adelphi remained in operation for the rest of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, but by the 2000s its mechanical systems and finishes were strained. The current ownership group purchased the property in 2012 and undertook an extensive preservation renovation. The hotel reopened in stages, with the full 123-room property completed in 2018.
The building today contains hidden interior rooms and underground service tunnels that connected to a bank that historically stood across the street, surviving evidence of the era's commercial geography.
Sources
The Adelphi's most-cited ghost is a woman in a blue Victorian dress, observed walking the hotel's halls and parlors. Reports describe her as non-threatening; she pauses, seems to look at the guest, and is gone. The same period dress recurs across multiple guest accounts.
The second figure attached to the property is John Morrissey himself. The boxer, congressman, and racetrack founder died of pneumonia in the hotel in 1878 and was laid in state in the second-floor parlor before his burial. Local folklore connects him to the Adelphi as well as to his old business at the Canfield Casino, and he is sometimes named as a candidate for the apparitions reported in the hotel's older sections.
During the building's 2013 evaluation for renovation, contractors and developers discussed unexplained occurrences in the empty hotel. The reports were brief and circumstantial; the hotel's own materials describe them with characteristic restraint. Following the 2018 reopening, the Adelphi has not marketed itself as a paranormal destination, and the hotel's official history page is the venue's primary public statement about its more atmospheric reputation.
Saratoga Springs is itself rich in late-Victorian folklore, and the Adelphi appears regularly in local ghost-tour itineraries that walk Broadway at night. The hotel's own contribution to the genre is understated: a polished bar, a piazza overlooking the spa-city street grid, and the recurring image of a woman in blue passing through.
Notable Entities
Reserve a room in the 1877 Adelphi Hotel, where heavyweight champion John Morrissey was laid in state on the second-floor parlor in 1878 and where guests have reported a woman in a Victorian blue dress walking the corridors. The hotel was fully renovated in 2018.
The hotel maintains restaurant and bar service in spaces where Gilded Age politicians and racing impresarios negotiated the deals that brought thoroughbred racing and casino gaming to Saratoga.
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