Merchant's House Museum tops New York's new evidence-ranked haunted index

New York's most famous haunted site, Amityville Horror House (exterior viewing only), now a private home, does not make the top ten in HauntBound's 2026 index of the state's most haunted places, which ranks sites by published evidence rather than reputation. Merchant's House Museum in New York ranks #1. Manhattan holds four of the top ten.

The top five:

1. Merchant's House Museum, New York
2. Rolling Hills Asylum (Genesee County Home and Infirmary), East Bethany
3. Yaddo, Saratoga Springs
4. Manhattan Well (129 Spring Street), New York
5. Canfield Casino, Saratoga Springs

Yaddo in Saratoga Springs has the most distinct published accounts of any New York site, five. The oldest documented site is Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island, dating to 1655. Morris-Jumel Mansion in New York is the index's most family-friendly pick in the state. Apparitions are the most commonly reported phenomenon, on record at 226 sites. The ranking weighs how independent the accounts are and how many decades they span, not only how many there are, so the most documented site is not always the one ranked first.

"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.

HauntBound ranks each state's places by the documented record of reported haunting phenomena: the quantity, independence, persistence and documentary quality of published reports. A story retold many times counts for less than independent accounts, and a source that only establishes a building's history never counts as evidence of a haunting. The index does not try to determine whether paranormal phenomena are real. The 2026 index reflects sources identified and classified as of September 15, 2026.

For media:The full ranking: https://hauntbound.com/most-haunted/new-york/The fact sheet, with city-by-city numbers and cleared images: https://hauntbound.com/press/fact-sheets/new-york/Interviews by email and city-by-city data on request.

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

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