The Most Haunted Places in Maryland

Ranked

1. 

   1. Druid Ridge Cemetery Pikesville · Cemetery / Burial Ground · Family Comfort: High

   HauntBound identified nine distinct published accounts at this burial ground, across five kinds of published source. Three later publications retell those accounts.

   9 original accounts · documented across 3 decades, 1920-2022 · retold in 3 later publications

2. 

   2. Old South Mountain Inn Boonsboro · Haunted Hotel / Inn · Family Comfort: High

   An inn has stood on this National Road site since 1732, hosting stagecoach travelers including Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. John Brown's raiders seized it in 1859, and General D.H. Hill made it his headquarters and a hospital during the 1862 Battle of South Mountain. Staff say Madeleine Dahlgren, who bought the inn in 1876, still paces the upper floor in her blue velvet dress and once unlocked a stuck door ahead of a fire.

   8 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 1876-2019

3. 

   3. The Horse You Came In On Saloon Baltimore · Haunted Dining / Bar · Family Comfort: Low

   HauntBound identified eight distinct published accounts at this operating restaurant and bar, across three kinds of published source. One later publication retells those accounts. Reported phenomena include electrical anomalies and objects moving.

   8 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 1849-2017 · retold in 1 later publication

4. 

   4. USS Constellation Baltimore · Museum / Historical Site · Family Comfort: High

   HauntBound identified six distinct published accounts at this museum site, across three kinds of published source. One later publication retells those accounts. Reported phenomena include apparitions and phantom sounds.

   6 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 1799-1955 · retold in 1 later publication

5. 

   5. Westminster Burying Ground, Edgar Allan Poe Grave Baltimore · Cemetery / Burial Ground · Family Comfort: Moderate

   Established in 1787, Westminster Burying Ground holds Revolutionary War and War of 1812 veterans; in 1852 a church was built above the graves on brick piers, creating catacombs. Edgar Allan Poe was buried here in 1849, and from 1949 to 2009 an anonymous visitor known as the Poe Toaster left roses and cognac at his grave each January. Visitors report a dark, hooded figure near Poe's monument and cold hands brushing them in the catacombs.

   9 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 1920-2009

6. 6. Ram's Head Tavern Annapolis · Haunted Dining / Bar · Family Comfort: Moderate

   Samuel Chase, a Declaration of Independence signer, worked out of this West Street building in 1769, when it later became a house of entertainment called the Sign of the Green Tree. Bill and Paula Muehlhauser bought the tavern in 1989 and grew it into the Ram's Head Tavern. Staff attribute its activity to a woman called Amy, said to have died in a fall, and keep a bedpost believed to be hers above the bar.

   4 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 1794-2014 · retold in 2 later publications

7. 

   7. Antietam National Battlefield Sharpsburg · Battlefield / Military Site · Family Comfort: Moderate

   On September 17, 1862, the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg produced 23,100 casualties in a single day, the bloodiest in American military history, with more than 5,000 concentrated along a sunken road known as Bloody Lane. Visitors report phantom gunfire and gunpowder smell in quiet fields, along with uniformed figures that vanish on approach. At Burnside's Bridge, accounts describe balls of blue light moving through night fog, accompanied by fading drum cadence.

   14 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 2012-2022 · retold in 4 later publications

8. 8. Spook Hill Burkittsville · Outdoor / Natural Site · Family Comfort: High

   HauntBound identified six distinct published accounts at this outdoor site, across four kinds of published source. Three later publications retell those accounts. Reported phenomena include disembodied voices and phantom footsteps.

   6 independent sources

   Contradicted by physical evidence A visitor account on a crowdsourced haunted-places site concludes the hill's famous uphill-rolling-car effect is 'definitely an optical illusion' caused by the road's slope, the well-documented gravity-hill phenomenon, and one longtime local writer has said that in the early 1980s he and friends staged the effect themselves by physically pushing visitors' cars.

9. 

   9. Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House Museum Waldorf · True Crime Site · Family Comfort: High

   HauntBound identified eight distinct published accounts at this documented crime site. One later publication retells those accounts. Reported phenomena include apparitions and cold spots.

   8 original accounts · documented across 3 decades, 1960-2020 · retold in 1 later publication

10. 

    10. Middleton Tavern Annapolis · Haunted Dining / Bar · Family Comfort: High

    Ferry operator Horatio Middleton bought this waterfront building in 1750 and opened it as a tavern serving passengers on the Annapolis-Rock Hall ferry, a route that carried George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. It remains Maryland's oldest continuously operating tavern. Staff have long described a male figure in revolutionary-era dress they call Roland at the harbor-facing windows before opening, along with the smell of cigar smoke and plates that topple from shelves untouched.

    5 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 1876-1995 · retold in 2 later publications

Superlatives