HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Site of the 1864 St. Albans Raid, the northernmost land action of the Civil War
Main St & Taylor Park, St. Albans City, VT 05478
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public park and downtown streetscape; self-guided
Access
Wheelchair OK
Town green and downtown sidewalks
Equipment
Photos OK
Northernmost land action of the American Civil War · 1864 Confederate bank raid and arson attempt · U.S.-British diplomatic incident over extradition
St. Albans, a prosperous railroad town twelve miles south of the Canadian border, was the target of an audacious Confederate operation late in the Civil War. On October 19, 1864, 21 Confederate soldiers who had slipped into Vermont from Canada rounded up townspeople on the green, declared the town under Confederate authority, and robbed three banks, the First National, the St. Albans, and the Franklin County banks, of approximately $88,000.
The raiders tried to set fire to the town with bottles of a flammable mixture, though most of the fires failed to catch. In the confusion a local resident and a contractor named Elinus J. Morrison were shot. Morrison died of his wounds two days later, the raid's only fatality. The men then fled north across the border on stolen horses.
Canadian authorities arrested most of the raiders, and after a controversial extradition hearing they were released as belligerents rather than criminals, with a portion of the stolen money recovered and returned. The episode strained relations between the United States and Britain and stands as the northernmost land action of the war. None of the three banks survives today, but Taylor Park and the American House, where some of the raiders had lodged while scouting the town, remain among the documented sites.
Sources
What makes the site compelling is the history itself, not a haunting. Standing in Taylor Park, visitors are at the center of the only Civil War combat action to reach this far north, a place where for a few hours in 1864 the war arrived on Main Street. The raiders' plan, to plunder northern banks and burn a Union town to draw federal troops away from the front, played out across the very blocks now occupied by ordinary downtown businesses.
Local and state historical organizations have preserved the account in detail, including the robbery of the three banks, the shooting of contractor Elinus Morrison, and the chase across the border. The story is told through markers, the Vermont Historical Society, and a dedicated local history project rather than through ghost tours. The interest here is the strangeness of the event, a southern raid in the far north, made real by walking the ground where it happened.
Notable Entities
Walk Taylor Park and Main Street, where on October 19, 1864 Confederate raiders robbed three banks and one civilian was killed. The bank buildings are gone, but Taylor Park and the streetscape they crossed remain, and historical markers and local society materials tell the story on the ground.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Kansas City, MO
On June 17, 1933, gunmen ambushed a federal law-enforcement party in the south parking lot of Kansas City Union Station, killing four officers — including FBI Special Agent Raymond Caffrey — and the prisoner they were transporting, escaped bank robber Frank Nash. The FBI attributed the attack primarily to Vernon Miller and, controversially, to Pretty Boy Floyd and Adam Richetti. The killings outraged Congress and directly prompted legislation granting FBI agents the permanent authority to carry firearms and make arrests.
Morgantown, WV
The Berman Building, a turreted brick commercial building, was constructed in 1852 at the northwest corner of High and Walnut Streets in Morgantown. Its basement contains a barred cell that local historians believe held prisoners during the Civil War, possibly Confederate prisoners taken during the April 1863 Jones-Imboden Raid on the city.
Alton, IL
Built in 1833 as Illinois's first state penitentiary, the Alton facility was decommissioned in 1860 and repurposed as a Union POW camp from February 1862 through July 1865, incarcerating roughly 11,000 Confederate soldiers. An 1863 smallpox outbreak contributed to 1,354 documented deaths among the prisoner population.