Atlas Obscura’s Guide to America’s Most Haunted Cemeteries

It’s nice to imagine death as an endless deep sleep, but not everyone is so lucky. In cemeteries across the U.S., you’ll find souls whose final resting places are not, in fact, restful at all. Perhaps they died with scores unsettled or, perhaps, their graves were ravaged by greedy developers. Sometimes, heartbreak rendered them unable to move on peacefully; in other cases, they simply couldn’t resist the chance to toy with their living visitors. One thing is certain: These restless spirits can turn otherwise serene sites into delightfully dark destinations, where the beauty of old headstones and manicured grounds is tinged with something indescribably eerie. When you gear up for your next cross-country road trip, let the energy of spooky season guide you to these cemeteries and graveyards full of folklore, legend, and sinister rumors. They’re slices of history, yes, but they’re also brimming with all things supernatural, sure to turn even the most hardened paranormal skeptics into believers. 1. Colonial Park Cemetery - Savannah, Georgia Established in 1750, this 6-acre site was Savannah’s primary public burial ground for over a century and contains over 9,000 graves. Many of the city’s earliest settlers are buried here, as well as hundreds of victims of the 1820 yellow fever epidemic. Some believe that when Savannah was overrun by Union forces during the Civil War, occupying soldiers dug up and moved around many of the cemetery’s headstones, also changing the names and dates etched into some of them. Understandably, this ruffled the feathers of the resident spirits, who now float through the cemetery as clouds of light or, sometimes, a green mist just above the ground. Today, Colonial Park Cemetery is a public park, with haunted tours offered by various companies. While no visitors are permitted to the cemetery at night, some folks sit on benches just outside its fence to watch for apparitions. Some of Savannah’s ghost experts even conduct nighttime EVP (Electronic