HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Alexandria Ghosts (Alexandria Terrors) — An Old Town Walking Tour Past Gadsby's Tavern, Carlyle House, and the Wilkes Street Tunnel
301 King St, Alexandria, VA 22314
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages for the walking tours; adults-only in practice for the Spirits and Spirits Haunted Pub Crawl
Cost
$$
Phantoms of the Potomac from about $27-$29 per person; Ultimate Dead of Night from about $30 per person. Boos and Booze/Spirits and Spirits Haunted Pub Crawl pricing not published; see the operator's site.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Old Town Alexandria's cobblestone streets and brick sidewalks; the operator states it does not enter privately-owned buildings.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1753 · Carlyle House (1753), Revolutionary- and Civil War-era hospital use · Gadsby's Tavern (18th century), hosted George Washington and other early American figures · Wilkes Street Tunnel (1850s), Civil War-era railway terminus
US Ghost Adventures markets its Alexandria program as "Alexandria Ghosts"/"Alexandria Terrors," with three bookable products. The flagship Phantoms of the Potomac walking tour meets at the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum, 301 King Street, and covers Carlyle House, Gadsby's Tavern, and the Wilkes Street Tunnel. A longer Ultimate Dead of Night tour meets separately at the Ice Well, 138 N Royal St, and covers 8-11 stops nightly at 8 PM. A separate Spirits and Spirits Haunted Pub Crawl runs through Old Town's historic bars.
Carlyle House and Gadsby's Tavern are both real, well-documented 18th-century Alexandria landmarks; Carlyle House served as a Revolutionary- and Civil War-era hospital, and Gadsby's Tavern hosted George Washington and other early American figures. The Wilkes Street Tunnel, built in the 1850s, served as a Civil War-era railway terminus.
A dedicated TripAdvisor product listing for Phantoms of the Potomac, with independent reviews current through 2026, and a separate operator company review page on TripAdvisor corroborate that the Alexandria Ghosts program is actively operating. This is a separate US Ghost Adventures chain program, distinct from the corpus's existing Ghost City Tours Alexandria and Nightly Spirits Alexandria entries, which are unrelated operators.
Sources
The operator ties reported distress and apparitions at Carlyle House to its use as a hospital during periods of war, describing visitors who reportedly "jumped out of windows" to escape the suffering inside. At Gadsby's Tavern, the operator centers its material on the Female Stranger, an unidentified young woman who died at the tavern around 1816 and whose grave in St. Paul's Cemetery bears no name — a genuinely documented historical mystery, not the operator's invention. The operator separately describes "the Burning Bride," tied to a figure it names Laura Schafer, and a reported presence at the Wilkes Street Tunnel connected to unsolved cold-case murders and the tunnel's Civil War-era railway history.
All of this is the tour operator's own marketing and narrative material, not documented history independently verified for this listing; it is included here as a description of what the tours cover, not as an endorsement of any specific claim.
Notable Entities
The flagship 1-hour walking tour of Old Town Alexandria, meeting at the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum, 301 King Street. The route covers Carlyle House, Gadsby's Tavern, and the Wilkes Street Tunnel, pairing colonial-, Revolutionary-, and Civil War-era Alexandria history with reported hauntings. Prices run roughly $27-$29 per person.
An extended, roughly 1-hour, 1-mile walking tour meeting at the Ice Well, 138 N Royal St, covering 8-11 haunted and historical locations across Old Town Alexandria, from Indigenous and colonial history through the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Runs nightly at 8 PM. Prices around $30 per person.
A haunted pub crawl through Old Town Alexandria's historic bars, pairing the operator's ghost stories with stops for drinks purchased by guests, per local law.
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Featured stop; the operator ties reported activity to wartime use of the house as a hospital and the resulting distress of the wounded and dying.
Featured stop; the operator's marketing centers on the Female Stranger legend, an unidentified woman who died at the tavern. A separate, related corpus entry, Gadsby's Tavern (gadsbys-tavern.json), also exists for the same Alexandria address; this listing matches the operator's Female Stranger framing to the museum-specific entry.
Featured stop; the operator ties reported activity and unsolved cold-case murders to the 1850s railway tunnel's Civil War-era history. No matching corpus venue file found.
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