23-acre historic rural cemetery established 1867 on a Lake Champlain bluff in Burlington, with a Victorian Gothic Revival stone chapel funded by philanthropist Louisa Howard — and the site of Queen City Ghostwalk's after-dark cemetery tours.
455 North Avenue, Burlington, VT 05401
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public access to cemetery grounds during posted daylight hours. Queen City Ghostwalk evening tours are ticketed; check queencityghostwalk.com for current schedule and pricing.
Access
Limited Access
Rural cemetery on a Lake Champlain bluff with sloped, gravel, and grass paths. Evening tours require steady footing.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1867 · Rural Cemetery Movement · Victorian Gothic Revival Chapel · Louisa Howard Philanthropy · Vermont Civic Burial Ground
Lakeview Cemetery was laid out in the second wave of the American 'rural cemetery' movement, set on a bluff overlooking Lake Champlain at the northern edge of Burlington. The city purchased its initial 23 acres from H. B. Sawyer in 1867 for $3,500, then added 7 more acres from J. A. Arthur the following year for $2,000. After several years of layout work the cemetery was formally dedicated in 1871.
The property's most distinctive built feature is the Louisa Howard Chapel. Burlington philanthropist Louisa Howard funded its construction; the stone Victorian Gothic Revival chapel was completed in the 1880s and dedicated in 1882. It overlooks Lake Champlain and remains the cemetery's signature architectural landmark. Restoration work, funded beginning in the 1990s, was completed in 2006.
The cemetery is a non-denominational property owned by the city of Burlington. A volunteer 'Friends of Lakeview Cemetery' group has continued maintenance and restoration efforts since the early 1990s. The grounds contain burials of Vermont governors, U.S. senators, Medal of Honor recipients, military officers, and a wide cross-section of civic figures spanning from the Civil War era to the 20th century.
Lakeview is the subject of Thea Lewis's book Lakeview Cemetery of Burlington, Vermont (Arcadia/The History Press, 2019), which combines biographical history of notable burials with the ghost stories the cemetery has accumulated.
Sources
The paranormal reputation at Lakeview is structured almost entirely around Queen City Ghostwalk's evening tour program, which has been running since founder Thea Lewis launched the company in 2002. Lewis brought on Holli Bushnell — a sexton for Burlington cemeteries with substantial direct knowledge of the grounds and burials — and musician/composer Rebecca Ryskalczyk as additional guides for the after-dark cemetery walks. The tours typically begin at 6 p.m. and run on full-moon evenings during the season.
The tour stops at notable gravestones, where Lewis combines documented biography with reported visitor encounters. The Lakeview chapter of Lewis's 2019 Arcadia/History Press book Lakeview Cemetery of Burlington, Vermont collects these accumulated stories in print form. Reported phenomena follow the standard rural-cemetery template: figures glimpsed walking among monuments at dusk, momentary apparitions near specific graves, and isolated sensed-presence reports.
The Seven Days Q&A coverage of the tour focuses on the experience and storytelling rather than documenting any individual investigation. Specific dramatic incidents — including widely repeated accounts of visitors capturing ghostly figures on camera — circulate within the tour's oral tradition but are not anchored to primary documentation in the sources reviewed here.
Lewis's book and Queen City Ghostwalk's tours together effectively constitute the dominant paranormal source for this site. The site's strength as ghost lore is the cumulative biographical density of the place — the layered Vermont history embedded in its monuments — rather than any single anchor event.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Join author and tour operator Thea Lewis (and guides Holli Bushnell, sexton for Burlington cemeteries, and musician Rebecca Ryskalczyk) for a 6 p.m. evening walk through Lakeview's notable gravestones. The tour blends documented local history, biographical sketches of notable Vermonters buried here, and the cemetery's accumulated ghost stories.
Walk the rural cemetery's grounds and view the 1882 Louisa Howard Chapel (Victorian Gothic Revival stone) overlooking Lake Champlain. Burials include Vermont governors, U.S. senators, Medal of Honor recipients, and Civil War-era figures.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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