Haunted Portsmouth, NH: 11 of the Most Haunted Places on the Seacoast
A 1600s burial ground with a crypt of nameless skeletons, a theater with an audience from another century, a lighthouse keeper who never retired, and islands where an axe murder still divides opinion. These are the most haunted places in Portsmouth and the New Hampshire Seacoast.
Portsmouth has been a working seaport since the 1630s, and almost four centuries of shipbuilders, sailors, merchants and orphans have left it with more ghost stories per block than anywhere else in New Hampshire. Local guides such as Roxie Zwicker of New England Curiosities and Ghost City Tours lead autumn ghost walks through the old South End and downtown. We have checked every place below against current sources, so you know what is open, what is closed for repairs, and where a famous story has no record behind it. Two haunted inns on the list take overnight guests, Star Island has summer rooms, and the rest of the state’s haunted places are in our guide to haunted places in New Hampshire.
Address Mechanic Street, opposite Prescott Park, Portsmouth, NH 03801
Where to look The Vaughan family tomb and the children's graves
Reported ghosts Presences that touch visitors, and figures said to walk from the Vaughan tomb
Visiting A small open burial ground on Mechanic Street; visit respectfully
Tours Portsmouth ghost walks (New England Curiosities, Ghost City Tours) stop here, mainly September to early November
Ghost hunting Ghost walks only; no investigations inside the burial ground
Point of Graves sits on half an acre beside the Piscataqua River, on land Captain John Pickering agreed to give the town for a burying place. The first burial was in 1669, the earliest readable stone is dated 1682, and about 125 gravestones survive, many carved with skulls and crossbones. Members of the Wentworth, Vaughan and Lear families lie here. It is usually called the oldest burial ground in New Hampshire.
Guide Roxie Zwicker of New England Curiosities, who has led Portsmouth ghost walks for about 20 years, says visitors often feel someone standing beside them, or start crying at certain graves without knowing why. The best story belongs to the Vaughan tomb: in the 1800s, family members found a staircase under the old stone leading to a crypt with 28 skeletons on shelves, and figures have been reported walking from it since.
Haunted Rooms tip: Walk over from Prescott Park in the late afternoon, then join one of the autumn ghost walks that stop here.
Address About 6 miles off Portsmouth; boats leave 315 Market Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801
Where to look Smuttynose Island, the Oceanic Hotel's fourth floor on Star Island, and White Island
Reported ghosts Louis Wagner on Smuttynose, a woman waiting on the rocks, and Old Bab on Appledore
Visiting Summer only: boats from Portsmouth; Star Island takes day visitors and overnight guests
Tours Isles of Shoals Steamship Company harbor and island cruises from Portsmouth in season
Ghost hunting Smuttynose and the other islands are not open for ghost hunts
Nine rocky islands sit about six miles off the coast, split between Maine and New Hampshire; Star, White, Seavey and Lunging are on the New Hampshire side. On Smuttynose, in Maine waters, two Norwegian immigrant women, Karen and Anethe Christensen, were murdered with an axe on the night of March 6, 1873. Maren Hontvet escaped and named fisherman Louis Wagner, who was hanged in 1875 still claiming innocence. Poet Celia Thaxter, who grew up on White Island, wrote about the case.
The islands gather stories: moans near the old cottage site on Smuttynose, Wagner’s ghost searching for Maren, a tall woman on the rocks said to be waiting for Blackbeard, rummaging on the fourth floor of Star Island’s Oceanic Hotel, and Old Bab, a ghost Thaxter said haunted Appledore. These are legends. Our older guide put Boon Island and its lighthouse here; Boon Island is off York, Maine, not part of the Shoals.
What investigators report
On Ghost Hunters, investigators on Star Island reported banging and scratching from the vault in the Vaughn Cottage museum, then saw the vault door close on its own. They judged the museum area the most active spot on the island.
Haunted Rooms tip: Star Island is the only island with a public boat; Isles of Shoals Steamship Company cruises leave Portsmouth in summer, and Star Island welcomes day visitors.
Where to look The Chase House hallway and upstairs rooms
Reported ghosts A girl from the Chase Home for Children years
Visiting Self-guided season May 1 to October; special tours and events in November and December
Tours Ghosts on the Banke, a family Halloween evening with ghost stories, on October weekends
Ghost hunting No ghost hunts; Halloween events only
Strawbery Banke is a nearly ten-acre living history museum in Portsmouth’s old Puddle Dock neighborhood, with more than 37 buildings from the 1600s to the 1900s saved from urban renewal and opened as a museum in 1965. One of them is the Chase House, built in 1762 for merchant Stephen Chase. After the last Chase died in 1881 it became the Chase Home for Children, an orphanage, until the home moved to a bigger site on Middle Road in 1916.
The house’s ghost story says an orphan girl hanged herself in her room and now haunts the hallway, screaming and locking doors. The New England Legends podcast went looking and found no record of a hanging. What they did find was an 1893 diphtheria outbreak at the home in which a young girl died, and the home later said two children died. The museum now interprets the house as it was in 1818.
Haunted Rooms tip: Go in October for Ghosts on the Banke, the museum’s evening Halloween walk through the lantern-lit houses.
Where to look The attic stairs and the upstairs rooms
Reported ghosts A figure in 19th-century clothes who walks out of the attic and vanishes
Visiting Open Memorial Day weekend to October 31, 10 am to 4 pm, closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays
Tours Self-guided with an audio tour; private guided tours by appointment; ghost walks pass outside
Ghost hunting No ghost hunts
This yellow gambrel-roofed house was built in 1758 for sea captain Gregory Purcell by master housewright Hopestill Cheswell, a celebrated Black builder. After Purcell died in 1776 his widow Sarah took in boarders, and naval hero John Paul Jones rented a room while his ships were fitted out in Portsmouth. The Portsmouth Historical Society has owned it since 1919, and it is a National Historic Landmark.
Roxie Zwicker told NHPR that visitors have watched a figure in 19th-century clothes come out of the attic and walk into a room. Assuming it is a costumed guide, they follow, and find the room empty. Zwicker notes that it is the historical society’s own staff who tell the story. Nobody claims it is John Paul Jones.
Haunted Rooms tip: Open Memorial Day weekend to October 31, closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays; the first Friday of each month is free.
Address Fort Constitution Historic Site, 25 Wentworth Road, New Castle, NH 03854
Where to look The lighthouse stairs and watch room, the keeper's quarters and the fort's sally ports
Reported ghosts Keeper Joshua Card, and victims of the 1809 powder explosion
Visiting Fort Constitution is closed for repairs and the lighthouse has no public access until a new footbridge is built
Tours Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses tours will resume after the footbridge is rebuilt; summer sunset cruises from Rye Harbor
Ghost hunting No public access at present
A light has guided ships into Portsmouth Harbor from this point on New Castle island since 1771, and the present 48-foot cast-iron tower was lit in 1878. It stands inside Fort Constitution, the old Fort William and Mary rebuilt with higher walls by 1808, beside an active Coast Guard station. Joshua Card kept the light for 35 years, from 1874 until he retired at 86 in 1909.
Coast Guard crews have described a shadowy figure on the grounds at night, and many believe Card still watches over his light. Ghost Hunters investigated in its fourth season, at the Friends group’s invitation, after reports of voices in the watch room and a man in a pea coat and hat. At the fort, people link a heavy feeling in the sally ports to an 1809 gunpowder explosion that killed 14 people. Guide Roxie Zwicker says this is where she became sure ghosts are real.
Haunted Rooms tip: Both are closed for now: a 2022 storm destroyed the lighthouse footbridge and the state park is shut for repairs. See the tower from the shore or on a Portsmouth harbor cruise.
Grounds open to visitorsGhost toursNo ghost hunting
Address Corner of South Street and Sagamore Avenue, Portsmouth, NH 03801
Where to look The foot of Gallows Hill north of the pond, where Ruth Blay lies in an unmarked grave
Reported ghosts Ruth Blay, the last woman executed in New Hampshire
Visiting City cemetery open in daylight
Tours Ghost City Tours tells her story on its Portsmouth walk
Ghost hunting No night visits
Ruth Blay was a 31-year-old schoolteacher from Haverhill working in South Hampton when, in June 1768, the body of her newborn was found under the floor of a barn used as a schoolhouse. She said the baby was stillborn. Convicted not of murder but of concealing an illegitimate birth, then a capital crime, she was given four reprieves and hanged on December 30, 1768, before a crowd of hundreds. She was the last woman executed in New Hampshire.
She was buried in an unmarked grave at the foot of the hill, a pasture that later became four graveyards now known together as South Cemetery. Many locals believe the hill is haunted by her, though no specific sightings are recorded. The legend that the sheriff refused to wait for a final reprieve because his dinner was ready is just that. A 2021 mural at 165 Court Street remembers her.
Haunted Rooms tip: Visit in daylight, walk down toward the pond, then see the Ruth Blay mural at 165 Court Street downtown.
Visiting a haunted place by day is one thing. Investigating one after dark is another. On a Haunted Rooms ghost hunt our team takes you through a historic building with professional ghost hunting equipment, runs EVP sessions and vigils, and gives you time to explore on your own. These are the nearest ones we run.
Where to look Suite 204, the ice machine, the elevator
Reported ghosts Several playful spirits, including a cheeky man
Visiting A working hotel: stay the night or stop in to dine
Ghost hunting No ghost hunts; stay the night instead
The Hotel Portsmouth is an 1881 Queen Anne mansion in downtown Portsmouth, a short walk from Market Square. It was long known as the Sise Inn, was renamed after a renovation in 2014 and was renovated again in 2024 as part of Lark Hotels. Local ghost writers say it has also been offices, a beauty salon and a halfway house.
Activity centers on Suite 204. Guests and staff say something plays with ice from the nearby ice machine, leaving it in trails or heaps on the floor, and locks and unlocks the door to 204. Older accounts add an elevator that moves without being called, a rocking chair that rocks on its own and a male presence said to grab at women from behind.
Haunted Rooms tip: Request Suite 204; dogs are welcome in the Garden Suite for a nightly fee.
Where to look The empty stage, the staircase and the seats
Reported ghosts Audience members in old-fashioned clothes, and music from an empty stage
Visiting Open for performances and occasional historic tours
Tours Portsmouth ghost walks pass the theater
Ghost hunting No ghost hunts inside
The Music Hall opened in 1878 as a vaudeville house, built after an 1876 fire destroyed an earlier theater on the site. Brewer and politician Frank Jones remodeled it in 1901, it showed films as The Civic from 1945, and after a brief closure in the 1980s a citizens’ group saved it as a nonprofit arts center. The Interior Department named it an American Treasure in 2003, and the restored 895-seat theater is busy year round.
Local historian Roxie Zwicker calls the building a living, breathing entity. Stories she and other guides tell include cold spots, twinkling lights, music from an empty stage, footsteps on the stairs, and audience members glimpsed in clothes from another century. Ghost City Tours adds a painting in the lobby nicknamed The Phantom. The Music Hall itself does not mention ghosts.
Haunted Rooms tip: Catch a show or one of the historic tours the theater lists in its special events.
Address Meeting House Green, 40 Park Avenue, Hampton, NH 03842
Where to look The memorial boulder on the green, and Island Path Road
Reported ghosts Eunice Goody Cole, the Witch of Hampton
Visiting The memorial stone stands on the open town green; the Tuck Museum opens limited hours
Ghost hunting No ghost hunts
Eunice Cole was the only woman convicted of witchcraft in New Hampshire. Neighbors accused her of killing livestock and familiarity with the devil; she was tried in 1656, whipped and jailed for years, arraigned again in 1671 and acquitted in 1673, then lived on town charity until she died around 1680. Where she was buried is unknown, and lore says her grave was staked. In 1938 Hampton’s town meeting voted, without opposition, to restore her citizenship.
In a 1938 ceremony copies of her court records were burned and the ashes mixed with soil from her home site; the urn is in the Tuck Museum. A memorial boulder went up on Meeting House Green in 1963, with a plaque added in 2013. After 1938 people began to tell of an old woman seen around town, and a figure in the fog on Island Path Road. Those are stories; the injustice is documented.
Haunted Rooms tip: The stone is outdoors and always visible; check the Hampton Historical Society for Tuck Museum hours to see the urn.
Where to look The oldest part of the house, the tavern
Reported ghosts Hannah Hill, the builder's daughter
Visiting A working hotel: stay the night or stop in to dine
Ghost hunting No ghost hunts; stay the night instead
The oldest part of the Three Chimneys Inn was built in 1649 by Valentine Hill, who ran a sawmill and gristmill on the Oyster River below. It is now a 23-room inn with the Ffrost Sawyer Tavern, a short walk from the University of New Hampshire campus in Durham.
Hill’s daughter Hannah is said to haunt it. Records show she married at 20, and then she vanishes from the documents; local tradition says she drowned in the Oyster River. Staff have told the UNH student paper about muddy bare footprints under the dining room rugs, drawers found opened an inch and a wine glass that floated off a tavern table.
Haunted Rooms tip: Have a drink in the Ffrost Sawyer Tavern, in the old part of the house.
Address Thompson Hall, 105 Main Street, Durham, NH 03824
Where to look Smith Hall's attic and fourth floor, and Thompson Hall
Reported ghosts A woman in white in Smith Hall, sometimes called Mary
Visiting The campus grounds are open; residence halls are for students only
Ghost hunting No public access to dorms
UNH’s campus ghost lives in Smith Hall, the oldest dorm, opened in 1908 for women students and paid for in part by the widow of mining engineer Hamilton Smith Jr., who drowned boating on the Oyster River in 1900. For generations students have reported footsteps in the attic and a young woman in white who appears in rooms at night and vanishes. One version names her Mary and says she hanged herself on the fourth floor in the 1920s.
University archivist Mylinda Woodward told The New Hampshire that Smith Hall is the most plausible haunting on campus, but that there is no proof of Mary. A similar tale about Thompson Hall, the 1893 clock-towered main building, says it was once a nunnery where a girl hanged herself; Woodward says it was never a nunnery and no suicide happened there. Psychology instructor Mark Henn has even run a ghost walk to test how such stories spread.
Haunted Rooms tip: Thompson Hall’s tower is the classic photo; dorms are for residents only, so stay outside.
Visited one of these places? Tell us what happened
We collect first-hand accounts from visitors and add the best ones to our guides, with your first name and the date of your visit. We read every story before it’s published.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most haunted place in Portsmouth, NH?
Point of Graves, the 1600s burial ground on Mechanic Street, is the stop every ghost walk makes, thanks to the Vaughan tomb and its crypt of 28 unknown skeletons. The Music Hall and the Chase House at Strawbery Banke are close behind.
Are there ghost tours in Portsmouth?
Yes. New England Curiosities, run by local historian Roxie Zwicker, leads ghost walks from September to early November, and Ghost City Tours runs a Portsmouth route. Strawbery Banke holds its family Ghosts on the Banke evenings on October weekends.
Can you stay in a haunted hotel in Portsmouth?
Yes. The Hotel Portsmouth, the former Sise Inn, is an 1881 mansion where guests report a suite that locks itself, and the Three Chimneys Inn in nearby Durham has the ghost of Hannah Hill.
Can you visit the Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse?
Not at the moment. A December 2022 storm destroyed the footbridge, and Fort Constitution is closed for repairs. You can see the lighthouse from the shore and on Portsmouth harbor cruises, and tours will resume once a new footbridge is built.
Where is Ruth Blay buried?
In an unmarked grave at the foot of Gallows Hill in what is now South Cemetery, at South Street and Sagamore Avenue. She was hanged there on December 30, 1768, the last woman executed in New Hampshire.
Is the Isles of Shoals haunted?
The islands have many legends, from Louis Wagner’s ghost on Smuttynose to a woman waiting for Blackbeard. The 1873 Smuttynose murders are real and well documented; the ghosts are stories. Star Island takes summer visitors by boat from Portsmouth.
Sources and how we research
Every place in this guide is checked against its official website, historic register listings and news coverage, and we confirm whether it is open, closed, private or gone before we list it. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and local historians tell them; we say so where records contradict a story. Each place shows how many independent sources we checked it against; our own Haunted Rooms pages are not counted.
New guides, haunted places to visit and ghost hunt dates near you. No spam, unsubscribe any time.
About the authors
The Haunted Rooms Team runs public ghost hunts and overnight investigations at historic venues across the United States. We research every place in our guides using official sites, historic registers, local archives and news coverage, and we report ghost stories as the stories they are. We review each guide regularly so you are not sent to a place that has closed, changed hands or banned visitors. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
