Haunted Point Lookout Lighthouse

The Point Lookout Lighthouse, built in 1830, is known as one of the most haunted places in Maryland.

 For more than 130 years, the lighthouse served the surrounding community and ships until it was decommissioned in 1981, after which several reports of supernatural activity began popping up.

In response to these reports, parapsychologist Dr. Hans Holzer and a team of other experts descended on the Point Lookout Lighthouse and managed to record 24 different voices during their investigation.

The voices can be heard singing, talking, and even swearing. A voice saying “Fire if they get too close to you” can be clearly heard in their recordings, thought to be related to the Confederate soldiers that were held prisoner on the island. Holzer also believed that he captured the voice of the first lighthouse keeper at Point Lookout, Ann Davis, who fondly spoke of “my home” somewhere on the staircase. A sighting of Ann Davis dressed in a white top and blue skirt was also reported.

When a stinking smell emanated from a room inside the lighthouse, Holzer was convinced that it was the spirits of tormented souls who couldn’t leave. Soon after he uttered this statement, the horrible
smell dissipated.





During the Civil War, Federal forces occupied Point Lookout, building a prisoner of war camp and a hospital for the wounded from the Battle of Gettysburg. The camp and hospital were far from Gettysburg; so a trip, for some poor soldier suffering battle wounds, was a long, arduous journey. The isolation of the area made escape attempts by Confederate prisoners of war almost impossible.

The Hammond General Hospital, designed with wards radiating out from a central hub, like spokes on a wheel, was shut down shortly after the end of the Civil War.

Camp Hoffman, the largest Federal facility for Confederate prisoners was built to contain 10,000 prisoners but is believed, by some, to have held up to 50,000 men. Prisoners were held in an open air camp in tattered canvas tents; hot and mosquito infested in summer; freezing cold in winter. Conditions were crowded and dirty and there were reports of contaminated water and spoiled food.

A Smallpox outbreak forced the establishment of a separate unit for infectious disease.

It is estimated that between 3,000 to 8,000 men died of war wounds and disease and were buried in a mass grave.

One of the most frequent ghost sightings at Point Lookout is a man in Civil War era clothing. He is seen moving across the road, away from what was once the Smallpox unit. The gaunt ghost shambles across the road, reeking of mildew and gunpowder, wearing ragged, homespun clothes. It has been postulated that perhaps a Confederate prisoner feigned illness hoping to escape. But as his ghost runs across the road repeatedly, it is doubtful that he succeeded in his escape attempt. This forlorn ghost seems not to notice the living, but preservers on his eternal path toward an elusive freedom.