Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainAn 1855 Wilkes-Barre burial ground of industrialists and Civil War dead, open for guided historical tours
540 N River St, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Daytime access to the cemetery grounds is free. The Wilkes-Barre Preservation Society's guided history tours may carry a small fee or suggested donation; RSVP required.
Access
Limited Access
Hilly cemetery grounds with grass, gravel drives, and uneven older sections
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1855 · 19th-Century Wilkes-Barre History · Civil War Veterans · Industrial-Era Burials
Hollenback Cemetery was established in 1855 along the Susquehanna River in Wilkes-Barre and opened that December, with its first burial recorded in March 1856. In the years before 1870 it absorbed hundreds of earlier burials, as remains were moved here from private family plots and from the old burying ground on East Market Street, consolidating much of the city's early dead in one place.
The cemetery became the resting place for a cross-section of Wilkes-Barre's 19th-century leadership. It holds what local historians describe as the highest concentration of Civil War veterans in northeastern Pennsylvania, along with eleven Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices. Among its industrialists is Fred Morgan Kirby, who came to the region in the 1880s, built a chain of five-and-dime stores, and merged his business into what became the F.W. Woolworth Company; Kirby Park across the river carries his name.
Today Hollenback is maintained as a working historic cemetery. The Wilkes-Barre Preservation Society, which operates the nearby Zebulon Butler House at 313 South River Street, runs scheduled guided tours that use the grounds to tell the city's story, from its coal-era industrial families to its Civil War service. The society has also worked to digitize the cemetery's records to make genealogical research easier.
Sources
Hollenback turns up on regional lists of haunted places, but its reputation is built more on the weight of its history than on documented apparitions. The most specific account comes from a daytime visit by a local paranormal group, who reported what they called miniature cyclones of leaves trailing behind them across the grounds. By their description, whenever someone turned to look directly at the swirls, the leaves would fall to the ground. The same visitors noted what felt like an unusual, localized wind pattern moving through the cemetery on an otherwise clear, sunny day.
Those reports are anecdotal and come from enthusiast investigators rather than any formal study, and the cemetery's operators present the site as a place of regional history rather than a paranormal attraction. The guided tours focus on the people buried here and the city's past. For visitors, the draw is the setting itself: a 19th-century riverside burial ground crowded with the monuments of Civil War soldiers, judges, and the industrial families who built Wilkes-Barre.
The Wilkes-Barre Preservation Society leads guided walking tours of the cemetery, pointing out the graves of regional industrialists, Civil War veterans, and Pennsylvania jurists, and explaining the burial ground's role in the city's 19th-century history. Tours run on scheduled dates; RSVP by phone is required.
The cemetery grounds are open during daylight hours for quiet, respectful self-guided walks among 19th- and 20th-century monuments, including the Kirby family plot.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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