HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
A preserved 1863 Union earthwork fort above Parkersburg, built to guard the B&O Railroad and now a hilltop park with Civil War haunting reports.
Fort Boreman Drive, Parkersburg, WV 26101
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free; county historical park open to the public
Access
Limited Access
Hilltop park with trenchwork earthworks; some uphill walking on unpaved ground
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1863 · Union earthwork fort built 1863 to guard the B&O Railroad · Named for West Virginia's first governor, Arthur I. Boreman · Listed on the National Register of Historic Places (2002)
Fort Boreman sits on a hill overlooking Parkersburg, where the Little Kanawha River meets the Ohio. Company A of the 11th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment built the fort in 1863, the same year West Virginia was admitted to the Union, to protect a vital supply line: the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad connection between Wheeling and Parkersburg, which the Confederate army repeatedly threatened to cut or commandeer.
The fortification took the form of a series of paired trenches, roughly four feet deep, encircling the crest of the hill in a zigzag pattern. From that height the garrison commanded the river junction and the rail approaches into Parkersburg. The fort took its name from Arthur I. Boreman, West Virginia's first governor.
Fort Boreman remained in use through the closing period of the Civil War. After the war the earthworks survived on the hilltop as the surrounding city grew below. The 12-acre site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 17, 2002, recognized as a historic archaeological site.
Wood County developed the hill into Fort Boreman Historical Park, preserving the trench lines and adding interpretive markers and an overlook. The combination of the original earthworks and the commanding river view makes it both a Civil War site and one of the better vantage points over Parkersburg.
Sources
Fort Boreman's haunting reputation is tied to its garrison history and to the wartime hospital that stood near the hill. Regional haunt-and-legend documentation describes visitors seeing figures of soldiers along the earthworks and hearing low groans on the hilltop, particularly around dusk.
These accounts are anecdotal. They circulate through West Virginia haunt-and-legend coverage and local word of mouth rather than through any sustained investigation record, and we present them as folklore consistent with the kind of stories that attach to Civil War sites where soldiers were stationed and the sick and wounded were treated.
The documented draw is the fort itself: preserved Union trenchwork on a hill that still commands the river junction it was built to defend. Visitors come for the history and the overlook, with the soldier reports as the local lore layered over a real military site. The park is open and public, best walked in daylight when the earthworks and markers are easy to follow.
Notable Entities
Walk the preserved zigzag trenches that ring the hilltop where Company A of the 11th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry built Fort Boreman in 1863 to protect the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Interpretive markers cover the fort's role through the end of the war, and the summit gives a wide view over Parkersburg and the Ohio and Little Kanawha rivers.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Parkersburg, WV
Quincy Hill, now a Parkersburg city park, was the site of a Civil War tent hospital that treated wounded and sick Union soldiers, including African American and Irish immigrant troops. The encampment was struck by a smallpox epidemic. The hill, originally known as Prospect Hill, is a long-standing subject in local Civil War and haunted-history accounts.
Hammond, OR
Battery Russell is one of nine concrete coastal-artillery emplacements built between 1897 and 1906 to defend the mouth of the Columbia River as part of Fort Stevens. Completed in 1904 and named for Civil War Brig. Gen. David A. Russell, the battery mounted two 10-inch M1888 'disappearing' rifles. It was decommissioned in 1944. On the night of June 21-22, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-25 surfaced offshore and fired roughly 17 shells in the direction of the fort — the first foreign attack on a mainland U.S. military installation since the War of 1812. The site is preserved within Fort Stevens State Park, Hammond, Oregon.
Hillsboro, WV
On November 6, 1863, Union General William Averell led roughly 5,000 troops in an assault on Confederate forces under General John Echols entrenched atop Droop Mountain. After a flanking maneuver broke the Confederate line, Echols retreated south with significant losses — the last time Confederate forces mounted organized resistance in West Virginia. The state dedicated the 287-acre park on the site in 1928, making it West Virginia's first state park.