The Haunted Gettysburg Hotel (Hotel Gettysburg): Rachel the Nurse, the Ballroom Dancers and 225 Years on Lincoln Square

The Gettysburg Hotel is the easiest haunted stay in town to find: it fills the northeast corner of Lincoln Square, right in the center of Gettysburg, steps from the David Wills House where Abraham Lincoln finished writing the Gettysburg Address. In June 2024, after a two-year renovation, it took back its original name, Hotel Gettysburg, so you will see both names when you book. It is owned by Gettysburg College and managed by Waterford Hotel Group.

Unlike the Farnsworth House Inn down the street, the hotel itself says nothing about ghosts. Its stories come from guests, staff and the town’s ghost tour guides, and they center on a Civil War nurse called Rachel. It belongs on any list of the haunted hotels in Gettysburg, and it is the most comfortable full-service base for exploring the rest.

The ghosts of Hotel Gettysburg (Gettysburg Hotel)

Rachel, the nurse who still makes her rounds

The hotel’s best-known ghost is Rachel. Local guides describe her as a Civil War nurse who cared for wounded soldiers when the building on this corner was pressed into service as a hospital during the battle. Guests describe a slim woman walking the halls as if searching for someone, and the rustle of long skirts in the corridor at night when nobody is there.

Her signature is in the rooms. Guests come back to find dresser drawers pulled open, clothes taken out and their luggage gone through, as though someone had been looking for bandages or supplies. Some versions say she also walks the streets of Gettysburg looking for soldiers to tend. Her story is told by guides and guests; we have not found records that name her.

The Union soldier on duty

Guests have reported a soldier in full Union uniform standing at attention in their room or in the hallway, who disappears when they look again. He is sometimes seen trying doors along the corridor, as if still on guard duty. One local telling gives him a name, James Culbertson, though we have not found anything to connect a soldier of that name to the hotel.

The dancers in the ballroom

The Grand Ballroom is the old 1814 Bank of Gettysburg, joined to the hotel in 2001. Staff and guests say a woman in period dress has been seen dancing alone there, and some accounts add a soldier partner, the two of them moving hand in hand across the empty floor.

Nobody knows who she is. One theory makes her another Civil War nurse; another says she was a guest who never checked out. Local guides also tell of a man’s presence in the old bank vault.

Lights, cold spots and missing things

The smaller stories are familiar from many old hotels: televisions and lights switching on by themselves, cold spots in the halls, footsteps in empty corridors and small items that vanish and later turn up somewhere else. At the Gettysburg Hotel they tend to be blamed on Rachel tidying up.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Upper-floor hallways: Where guests hear rustling skirts and footsteps at night and see the soldier checking doors.
• Square-view rooms: No room number is tied to Rachel, so ask for a room overlooking Lincoln Square: you get the view of the Wills House and the old heart of town.
• The Grand Ballroom: The former 1814 Bank of Gettysburg, with a 27-foot hand-painted ceiling, where the dancing couple is seen. Look in if it is not booked for an event.
• The old bank vault: Part of the ballroom building, and the spot local guides connect with a male presence.

History of Hotel Gettysburg (Gettysburg Hotel)

Inns have stood on this corner for as long as Gettysburg has been a town. James Scott opened a tavern here in 1797, and the business went on under a string of names: the Indian Queen, the Franklin House and the McClellan House, which was its name at the time of the battle in 1863. In November 1863, Lincoln stayed across the square at the David Wills House, where he worked on the Gettysburg Address.

The name Hotel Gettysburg dates from the 1890s, when the old tavern was replaced by a grand hotel with modern comforts. A historical marker on the building says a second Hotel Gettysburg opened around 1913 and that the Scharf family ran it for 50 years. During Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency the hotel housed his staff, White House correspondents and a press room, and in 1955, while Eisenhower recovered from a heart attack at his farm outside town, it served as a temporary White House office. The Eisenhowers were the last diners served before the hotel closed on December 14, 1964.

The building was used as apartments for a time and then sat empty, and in 1983 fire destroyed it. Gettysburg College and a developer put about $6 million into rebuilding it, and the hotel reopened in 1991 under the Best Western name. In 2001 it absorbed the neighboring 1814 Bank of Gettysburg, the town’s first bank, which became the Grand Ballroom. The building on that corner also held Thaddeus Stevens’s first law office.

The hotel left Best Western and became independent in 2012. After a renovation of more than two years that refreshed every guest room and public space, it reopened in June 2024 under its historic name, Hotel Gettysburg, with 119 rooms and the One Lincoln restaurant. Gettysburg College still owns it.

A note on the stories: you will often read that the hotel itself was a Civil War hospital. Churches, schools, homes and taverns all over town took in wounded men after the battle, so it is plausible, but the claim comes from ghost tour accounts rather than records we could find.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask for an upper-floor room overlooking Lincoln Square when you book and again at check-in. It is a request, not a guarantee.
• If you come home to an open drawer, take a photo before you touch anything, and note the time.
• Ghost walks start all around the square in the evening; the hotel is the easiest base for doing two or three in one weekend without moving the car.
• Cross the square to the David Wills House, where Lincoln finished the Gettysburg Address, then walk ten minutes down Baltimore Street to the Farnsworth House and its bullet-scarred wall.
• Parking around the square is tight on weekends; check the hotel’s current parking arrangements before you arrive.
• Book early for the July 1 to 3 battle anniversary, Remembrance Day in November and October weekends, when the town fills up.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Farnsworth House Inn: Gettysburg’s most famous haunted inn, ten minutes’ walk down Baltimore Street
• Baladerry Inn: an 1812 farmhouse and Union field hospital on the edge of the battlefield
• Cashtown Inn: the Confederate headquarters 8 miles west
• Gettysburg Orphanage: one of the town’s darkest stories, on Baltimore Street
• Haunted hotels in Pennsylvania
• Haunted hotels in Gettysburg

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• Hotel Gettysburg: official site
• Gettysburg Connection: Gettysburg Hotel becomes Hotel Gettysburg (2024)
• abc27: Historic Gettysburg hotel hearkens back to its roots with renovation
• HMdb: Lincoln Square Building (formerly Hotel Gettysburg) marker
• Small Market Meetings: A Gettysburg address
• Library of Congress blog: Eisenhower's temporary White House
• Ghost City Tours: Ghosts of the Gettysburg Hotel
• Gettysburg Ghosts: The Gettysburg Hotel

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