On the night of September 20, 1777, British troops attacked Wayne's sleeping encampment with only bayonets — 53 Americans died, and the second-oldest Revolutionary War monument in America marks their mass grave.
45 Monument Rd, Malvern, PA 19355
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Grounds are free and open to the public. Paranormal tours are separately ticketed; see pbpfinc.org for current pricing.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat, mowed battlefield grounds with a central stone monument. Accessible paths throughout.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1777 · Site of the Paoli Massacre, September 20–21, 1777 — 53 American soldiers killed · Second-oldest Revolutionary War battle monument in the United States (erected 1817) · Mass grave of Paoli Massacre victims beneath the central monument · National Register of Historic Places listed
In September 1777, the British Army under General William Howe had recently defeated Washington's forces at Brandywine and occupied Philadelphia. Brigadier General Anthony Wayne was ordered to harass Howe's rearguard and intercept British supply wagons. Wayne positioned his 1,500-man force near the Warren Tavern at present-day Malvern, Pennsylvania.
British Major General Charles Grey, tasked with eliminating Wayne's threat, conceived a plan specifically designed to prevent any audible warning. On the night of September 20–21, 1777, Grey ordered his troops — an estimated 1,200 British and Hessian soldiers — to remove the flints from their muskets so no accidental discharge would alert Wayne's camp. The attack, launched in darkness after midnight, used only the bayonet.
The assault broke through the picket lines with little warning. Wayne managed to escape with roughly two-thirds of his force, but 53 American soldiers were killed, approximately 100 wounded, and 71 taken prisoner in an engagement lasting around twenty minutes. British casualties were minimal. The action entered American consciousness as the 'Paoli Massacre,' a term that appeared in contemporary American press and correspondence and proved politically useful in framing British conduct as atrocity.
Survivors buried their dead at the site before withdrawing. In 1817, Chester County citizens erected a stone monument over the mass grave — the second-oldest Revolutionary War battle monument in the United States, predated only by the Lexington Battle Green monument in Massachusetts. The Paoli Battlefield Preservation Fund, a nonprofit established in the 1990s, acquired and restored the 47-acre battlefield and works to maintain its NRHP-listed status.
Sources
The Paoli Battlefield's paranormal investigation program is organized directly by the Paoli Battlefield Preservation Fund, the same nonprofit that manages and preserves the site. Investigations are led by Interstate Paranormal Research and results are published on the preservation fund's own website, making this one of the few Revolutionary War battlefield sites where the historical stewardship organization formally documents and reports paranormal activity.
Documented investigation results posted by the preservation fund include EVP recordings captured in the battlefield's central areas, photographs that investigators describe as showing orb activity, and firsthand reports of personal sensory experiences — cold spots, pressure sensations, and visual anomalies — during nighttime tours. The reports are framed by investigators as consistent with a site where sudden, violent mass death occurred.
The specific location of the mass grave beneath the 1817 monument is the focus of the most concentrated reported activity. Investigators note that the men buried there died quickly, at night, with little warning — circumstances that some paranormal traditions associate with residual-haunt phenomena.
No specific named entity has been identified in the reports; the paranormal claims are collective and atmospheric rather than tied to individual identified soldiers. The preservation fund's documentation is the primary corroborating source, alongside visitor-submitted reports to regional paranormal aggregators.
Organized by the Paoli Battlefield Preservation Fund and led by Interstate Paranormal Research, these investigation tours document EVP recordings, orb photographs, and firsthand paranormal experiences across the battlefield. Tours follow the ground where Wayne's encampment stood on the night of the September 20, 1777 attack.
Free, open-access walk through the 47-acre preserved battlefield. The central monument, erected in 1817, stands over the mass grave of the soldiers killed in the September 1777 attack. Interpretive markers describe the night's events.
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