Seven cemeteries across six Galveston city blocks hold an estimated 36,000 burials, three bodies deep, including Confederate deserter Nicaragua Smith and the author of the Texas Declaration of Independence
Broadway between 39th and 43rd Streets, Galveston, TX 77550
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Cemetery complex is publicly accessible. Multiple ghost-tour operators offer ticketed nighttime cemetery tours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat grounds; some uneven paths between older sections
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1839 · Seven-cemetery complex (1839–1939), National Register of Historic Places · Yellow fever epidemic burials (1839, 1867) · 1900 hurricane mass casualty burials (Evergreen section, ~900 interments) · George Campbell Childress — author of the Texas Declaration of Independence · Nicaragua Smith — executed Confederate deserter (January 8, 1863)
The Broadway Cemetery complex began in 1839 when Galveston was formally incorporated. The Galveston City Company donated four blocks of land for the Old City Cemetery and an adjacent Potter's Field, replacing improvised sand-dune burials that proved unstable — natural elements repeatedly exposed coffins in the dunes. Over the following century, six additional cemeteries were established within the complex, each serving a different community or faith: Trinity Episcopal Cemetery (1844), Old Catholic Cemetery (1844), Old Cahill Cemetery (1867 — later renamed New City Cemetery and known as the 'Yellow Fever Yard'), Hebrew Benevolent Society Cemetery (1868), and Evergreen Cemetery (1900, created in direct response to the hurricane).
The yellow fever epidemics of the 19th century shaped the cemetery profoundly. The 1839 outbreak killed 250 people. The 1867 epidemic killed 725 and overwhelmed the older sections, prompting the Cahill expansion. A series of twentieth-century grade raises — Galveston raised much of the island's elevation by dredging and fill after the 1900 storm — resulted in new burials being placed above earlier graves. The result is a complex where approximately 12,000 grave markers represent an estimated 36,000 actual interments, many of them stacked three deep.
The September 8, 1900 hurricane killed an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people and forced the rapid establishment of Evergreen Cemetery within the complex. Approximately 900 burials were added to Evergreen in the immediate aftermath of the storm.
The district's most notable named burials include: George Campbell Childress, principal author of the Texas Declaration of Independence (1836); John Allen, Galveston's first mayor; and Nicaragua Smith. Smith was a Confederate deserter turned arsonist executed by firing squad on January 8, 1863 — the same day as the Battle of Galveston — and buried in an unmarked grave at the location of his execution within the complex.
Sources
The Broadway Cemetery's paranormal reputation draws from the documented density and diversity of its casualties. Ghost City Tours, whose Haunted Cemetery Tour holds a 4.9-star rating and is consistently ranked as Galveston's top-rated ghost tour, centers its narrative on two named figures and the district's broader mass-casualty history.
Nicaragua Smith stands as the district's most specific ghost story. Smith, a Confederate deserter who turned to arson and was eventually caught, was executed by firing squad on January 8, 1863 — coincidentally the same date as the Battle of Galveston nearby — and buried in an unmarked grave at his execution site within the complex. The unmarked burial, the violent death by squad volley, and the irony of the date have made Smith a central figure in cemetery ghost-lore.
Elize Roemer Alberti, buried in the Old City Cemetery section with the four children she poisoned with morphine-laced wine in December 1894, is the other named focal point. (See also: Galveston Old City Cemetery entry.) The unique burial arrangement — perpetrator and victims in the same family plot — is the detail most cited in paranormal tour accounts.
More diffuse reports describe Confederate soldier apparitions in the Trinity Episcopal and Old Cahill sections, and unidentified child figures near the Evergreen section's 1900 storm additions. Tours after dark report cold spots moving through the older sections and the sound of children in areas with no current visitors.
Notable Entities
Six city blocks encompassing seven distinct cemeteries dating from 1839 to 1939. Sections include Old City Cemetery, Potter's Field, Trinity Episcopal, Old Catholic, Old Cahill, Hebrew Benevolent Society, and Evergreen. Notable graves are marked; the district contains around 12,000 visible markers covering an estimated 36,000 actual burials due to three-layer interments.
Ghost City Tours operates the top-rated ghost tour on Galveston Island — a 90-minute nighttime walk through the Broadway Cemetery complex covering Nicaragua Smith, the Alberti murders, yellow fever epidemic burials, and 1900 storm casualties. Spooky Galveston's Secret Society Cemetery Tour visits Trinity Episcopal and Old City cemeteries within the same complex.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPGalveston, TX
The Broadway Cemetery complex in Galveston encompasses seven distinct historic burial grounds established between 1839 and 1939, collectively containing an estimated 36,000 or more burials. The complex includes sections dedicated to victims of the 1900 Great Storm — the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history, which killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people in Galveston — as well as yellow fever epidemic victims, Confederate deserters executed by firing squad, and a documented 1894 murder case involving a woman who poisoned her four children.
Ferndale, CA
Established in 1868 on a steep hillside above Ferndale's Eel River Valley, the cemetery served the Victorian dairy-farming and lumber community through its founding generations. Its moss-covered stonework and rhododendron canopy drew the production crew for Stephen King's 1979 Salem's Lot miniseries, which used the site as the fictional Harmony Hill Cemetery.
Galveston, TX
Galveston's Old City Cemetery is the island's oldest formal burial ground, established in 1834 before the city was incorporated. It holds epidemic victims from multiple yellow fever outbreaks, casualties from the September 8, 1900 hurricane, and notable figures including Elize Roemer Alberti, who poisoned four of her children in December 1894 and is buried in the same plot as her victims.