Harrison County holds two of Mississippi's ten most haunted places

With Halloween approaching, two Harrison County places, the Cahill Mansion / Gregory House Site (exterior viewing only) and Deer Island, rank among Mississippi's ten most haunted places in HauntBound's 2026 index. The index ranks 68 Mississippi sites by separate published accounts and how far back they go, not by fame or search popularity.

Cahill Mansion / Gregory House Site ranks #5, and its six separate published accounts are the most of any Mississippi site, the earliest dated to 1957. Kendall Gregory, a physician, and his family moved into the Handsboro mansion that year and reported cold spots and disembodied screams over the following decade. In 1969 a Tennessee minister held a séance there, and witnesses said the table moved on its own. The mansion burned the next morning, in the room where the séance was held.

Deer Island ranks #9. The state acquired about 400 acres of the island in 2002 to create a coastal preserve and block a planned casino. Two separate published accounts describe activity there. Local tradition holds that a pirate captain's headless guardian watches over buried treasure among the palmettos; an 1892 account describes two fishermen fleeing the apparition to their boat. A blue light called the Firewater Ghost is said to cross the bay after midnight.

Statewide, King's Tavern in Natchez ranks #1, and McRaven House in Vicksburg, the state's most famous haunted site, ranks #2.

"We rank by evidence, not legend: independent published accounts, documented history, and how far back the reports go. We don't claim ghosts are real, or that they aren't. We document where the reports concentrate, and we show our work," said Ben Fineman, editor of HauntBound. The ranking shows each site's documented record.

Visiting:Cahill Mansion / Gregory House Site, 10 Kimball Dr., Gulfport, is exterior viewing only; a private home occupies the site today. Please do not trespass.Deer Island, off the Biloxi waterfront, is a state coastal preserve reachable only by private or charter boat; there is no fee to visit.

For media:The full ranking: https://hauntbound.com/most-haunted/mississippi/The fact sheet, with Biloxi numbers and cleared images: https://hauntbound.com/press/fact-sheets/mississippi/A short version follows.

HauntBound (hauntbound.com) is a family-friendly field guide to more than 6,000 documented haunted and historic places across the United States, ranked by published evidence rather than legend. No venue pays to be listed or ranked.

Media contact: Ben Fineman, Editor, HauntBound, editor@hauntbound.com

###