Spooky Churches

New York

Phantom children

The former Amherst Synagogue in Western New York State was built in the 1980s. It has some scary paranormal activity recorded. According to legend, the wooded area in which the synagogue stands was once the dumping ground of a sadistic child murderer. Many years later, during construction, a wall fell, and it was thought that the spirits of the murdered children had done it, showing their anger at having their final resting place disturbed. Others tend to think that the grounds might have been sacred Native American land. Even paranormal investigators have found this place frightening. There are times when you can see ghostly faces looking through the windows. The apparitions that remain here are phantom children that rise from the ground when least expected and a wild-eyed, man with an axe who chases trespassers away.

New York City

Brooklyn

Ghostly priest and sounds of bell ringing

Holy Trinity Church was built in 1841 for Catholic German immigrants. It was rebuilt in 1854 with two towers in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East Williamsburg. It is one of the oldest parishes in Brooklyn and has an adjoining school built on the ground that once was a cemetery. The church has its share of spirits, and people have heard phantom footsteps and voices throughout the building. In the gym, lights turn on and off by themselves. One of the spirits is that of the church’s second priest, Monsignor Michael May, who, even though has died, his spirit remains in his room at the rectory. This room is meant to be used as guest quarters, but no priest wants to share the space with a ghost. In 1987, church sexton and bell-ringer George Stelz was murdered in the vestibule of the church. The bloody handprint left by the murderer can still be seen in the stairway that leads to the bell tower. Parishioners say that Stelz can be heard walking the halls and, on occasion, ringing the church bells.

Virginia

Sounds of struggle and a golden-haired woman

Historic Aquia Episcopal Church in northern Virginia was built in 1757 and has stood for more than 200 years through three wars, a fire, and near abandonment. This is the childhood church of patriot George Mason who is the principal author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights on which the US Bill of Rights is based. The church has been a Union Army Camp and hospital during the Civil War. Legend has it that in the mid-18th century, a young woman took refuge in the church to escape a gang of highwaymen. She hid in the belfry, but they found her and killed her, leaving her corpse behind. After the Revolutionary War, when church service resumed, her remains were found by parishioners who said that the skeleton had golden tresses like those of a living woman. Until they were replaced by concrete, blood stains from this tragic incident remained on the floorboards for nearly a century. To this day, parishioners can hear running footsteps in the graveyard beside the church and the sounds of a violent struggle within the walls. At the balcony window, a woman with long blond hair has been seen.

Unexplained voices and organ music

Old Post Chapel is located adjacent to the historic Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place of presidents, astronauts, and the US fallen service members. The chapel is one of the most notorious haunted locations in the Washington, D.C., area. It was commissioned in 1933 and stands on the former location of the US Army outpost Fort Whipple. The chapel is used for worship, weddings, and funerals. Those who come here say they hear unexplained voices, and late at night, organ music can be heard. Locked cabinets and doors open by themselves. Supposedly the ghost of Mary Ann Curtis Lee, widow of Robert E. Lee, stands vigil by the Confederate general’s memorial. There are the sounds of wailing from a grief-stricken woman all dressed in white, waiting for her mate, by the entrance to the chapel. Legend has it that the woman in white jumped from the bell tower in her grief, and today, the bell tower stands locked and off-limits to the public. Animals even feel the paranormal activity, and the K-9 dogs patrolling the historic military cemetery won’t enter the Old Post Chapel, especially at night.

South Carolina

Ghostly spirits singing

The burned-out husk of St. Helena’s Chapel of Ease stands surrounded by skeletal trees covered in Spanish moss. The chapel was built on St. Helena’s Island in Beaufort, South Carolina in 1740. It was burnt sometime after the Civil War, and the ruins stand today along with the graveyard. People have heard the disembodied voices of a ghostly choir singing and others have felt a sense of dread when inside the structure. In the Chapel of Ease, graveyard stands a mausoleum which was built as the final resting place of Edgar and Eliza Fripp. Their tomb was ransacked by Union soldiers during the Civil War. The mausoleum doorway was bricked up but when workers returned they discovered the tomb unsealed and the bricks used neatly stacked by the door of the mausoleum. It remains unsealed to this day because no one could keep it sealed up.

Florida

Spectral children

Key West is an island in the Straits of Florida, here you can find St. Paul’s Episcopal Church which was destroyed by fire in 1886, and a hurricane in 1928 also uprooting bodies in the adjoining cemetery. The church was built on land donated by the widow of land baron John Fleming, stating that her husband’s remains were never to be removed from the cemetery. Today one of the spirits that haunts this place is that of Fleming himself. His gravesite was lost in one of the many reconstructions, and perhaps he is searching for it. He is dressed in 19th-century clothing. An angel statue by the church has spectral children huddled around it. Legend has it that the children were killed in a fire set by a clergyman who went mad when he found out his wife was deceiving him with a deacon. Besides these hauntings, there is also a ghostly sea captain that haunts the graveyard.

Louisiana

Ghostly monk

St. Louis Cathedral is located in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. It is North America’s longest continually operating Catholic church. This church has witnessed three centuries of New Orleans’ history and is considered to be haunted. Among the known spirits and the most famous is the ghost of the heroic monk Pere Dagobert. In defiance, of the newly-installed Spanish governor in New Orleans, Dagobert performed the funeral rites for six executed Creole rebels who had been left outside of the cathedral to rot as an example to other would-be revolutionaries. Dagobert led a procession of the slain men’s families through the streets of New Orleans, singing the funeral mass in a loud, baritone voice on the way to an unmarked grave. After Dagobert passed on of natural causes in 1776, he could still be heard singing on rainy mornings, and others say they have seen his ghostly presence leading a phantom funeral procession from the cathedral through a nearby alleyway. Other spirits seen here at the cathedral include the infamous murderer Madame Delphine Lalaurie and the iconic Queen of Voodoo Marie Laveau, haunting the pews.