Haunted South Jersey: The 14 Most Haunted Places to Visit
An 1811 jail with a death cell, a battleship on the Delaware, the forest of the Jersey Devil, the Hindenburg’s hangar and a shoreline of Victorian hotels with ghosts on the top floor. These are South Jersey’s most haunted places, and how to visit each one.
South Jersey’s haunted places are mostly real places with documented pasts. The Burlington County Prison held inmates for more than 150 years and hanged Joel Clough in 1833; the Hindenburg burned at Lakehurst in 1937; the Whitall House was a field hospital after the Battle of Red Bank. Then there are the pines, home of the Jersey Devil, and the shore, where almost every old hotel in Cape May has a ghost story of its own. We have checked each place below against current sources, and dropped the ones we could not stand behind. Haunted Rooms runs ghost hunts aboard the Battleship New Jersey in Camden, and at Fort Mifflin, a short drive across the river in Philadelphia.
Open to the publicParanormal investigations allowed
Address 128 High Street, Mount Holly, NJ 08060
Where to look The Death Cell on the third floor, the basement dungeon and the yard where Joel Clough is said to be buried
Reported ghosts Joel Clough, hanged in 1833; a tall uniformed figure in the basement
Visiting A county-run museum, self-guided at your own pace, with an audio tour
Tours Self-guided or audio tour; guided tours by email request; a Halloween event on October weekends
Hours and season Thursday to Saturday 10 AM to 4 PM, Sunday noon to 4 PM (closed on legal holidays)
Tickets Adults $5, seniors and military $3, students $2
Ghost hunting Burlington County rents the building to paranormal groups for evening investigations through its parks department
Robert Mills, who later designed the Washington Monument, drew up this stone jail on High Street as a model of prison reform, and it took its first inmates in 1811. It held prisoners for more than 150 years, until November 1965, when it was the oldest jail in continuous use in the country. It reopened as a museum in 1966 and is now a National Historic Landmark run by Burlington County.
Its best-known ghost is Joel Clough, who stabbed a woman in Bordentown, was held in the windowless Death Cell on the top floor and was hanged in 1833. The museum says guards and prisoners reported moaning, rattling chains and cigarette smoke afterward, and that workers restoring the building in the 1990s heard voices, saw figures and found their tools locked inside empty cells.
What investigators report
Visiting teams bring digital voice recorders, infrared video and EMF detectors, and the museum says investigators have recorded voices and EMF spikes. The basement “dungeon”, where guards and inmates reported smelling cigarette smoke, is a noted focus.
Haunted Rooms tip: Stand in the Death Cell on the top floor and look for the iron ring in the floor, then step out to the yard where Clough is said to lie under a big tree.
Where to look The enlisted berthing, the engine rooms, Turret II and the top deck
Reported ghosts Sailors said to be still manning their posts
Visiting A museum ship on the Camden waterfront, across the Delaware from Penn’s Landing
Tours Four self-guided or guided tour routes, monthly evening tours of Turret II or an engine room, and overnight encampments for groups
Hours and season Fall: Thursday to Monday, 10 AM to 5 PM (last tickets 4 PM)
Tickets Online through the museum’s ticket page
Ghost hunting On Haunted Rooms ghost hunts
The USS New Jersey was launched at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on December 7, 1942, a year to the day after Pearl Harbor. The Iowa-class battleship served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, off Lebanon and in the Persian Gulf, and with 19 battle stars she is called the most decorated battleship in US Navy history. She was decommissioned for the last time in 1991 and opened as a museum on the Camden waterfront in 2001.
The stories are of sailors who never left: footsteps on empty ladders, voices in the berthing decks and figures on the top deck. TAPS investigated the ship for the 2022 Ghost Hunters episode “Ship of Lost Souls,” and students at Rutgers-Camden have long passed the stories around. Haunted Rooms runs its own ghost hunts aboard; see our event page for dates.
What our team has found
Dowsing rods and EMF meters respond strongly in the chapel, and the captain’s quarters has also given good rod responses. Teams have had a long Estes conversation with accurate answers, the bottom of the dumbwaiter has given the same name repeatedly on all equipment, and five people once saw a full-body apparition in engine room no. 2.
From Haunted Rooms event reports
Haunted Rooms tip: Walk the Blue Line tour down into the engine rooms, the part of the ship most often named in the stories.
Where to look Room 10 on the first floor, the Union Park dining room and kitchen, the basement
Reported ghosts Miss Irene Wright, the "Trunk Lady" of Room 10; a waitress in an old-fashioned dress; the basement "Growler"
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
Hotel Macomber is the big shingle-style hotel on Beach Avenue, across the road from the ocean in Cape May. Built in 1916, it was the largest frame structure of its day east of the Mississippi, and it is described as the last landmark building erected in the town’s historic district. The Union Park restaurant is on the ground floor, the rooms sit on the top three floors (stairs only), guests must be 16 or older and the season runs mid-April to mid-December.
Room 10 is one of the best-known haunted rooms in New Jersey. Guests describe knocking and banging on the door, doors slamming down the corridor and the sound of something heavy dragged across the floor, which local medium Craig McManus links to Miss Irene Wright, a longtime summer guest who arrived each year with a huge steamer trunk. Staff also tell of a woman in an old-fashioned dress who walks into the kitchen.
What investigators report
Guests and investigators focus on Room 10 and its hallway, where some leave recorders running overnight and ask out loud whether anyone is present. One investigator reported an EVP saying “We love this bedroom” there, and others report knocks on doors along the first-floor hall.
Where to look Room 14 and Rooms 9, 10 and 12, the ballroom and kitchen
Reported ghosts Ester Mercur, the last of the Allen family; a man in military uniform; a talking couple in Room 14
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Southern Mansion is an Italianate villa set in gardens on Washington Street. Philadelphia industrialist George Allen built it in 1863 to a design by Samuel Sloan, and his family kept it for 83 years. After Ester Mercur, the last of the line, died in 1946 it became a run-down boarding house; a Philadelphia family bought and restored it in 1994, reopening it as an inn in 1996 and adding a South Wing with ten suites in 1997.
The inn’s own blog calls Ester a happy ghost who enjoys the restored house, and guests describe a strong smell of perfume, laughter and cold spots. Older reports place a murmured conversation between a man and a woman in Room 14, while other writers name Rooms 9, 10 and 12. A chef has told of a man in military uniform in the ballroom and kitchen.
What investigators report
On Ghost Hunters, a K-2 meter reportedly lit up in Esther’s room and the hallway, where investigators also noted a floral perfume smell. In the ballroom, knocking was reported in reply to a “shave and a haircut” knock.
Address 1048 Washington Street, Cape May, NJ 08204
Where to look The family rooms of the Physick House
Reported ghosts Dr. Emlen Physick, his mother Frances Ralston and his aunts Emilie and Isabella
Visiting A house museum run by Cape May MAC; the house is seen on guided tours
Tours Daytime house tours and evening ghost tours, including Voices From Beyond and Haunted Tales of the Cape
Ghost hunting No public investigations; staff share their own recordings on the tours
Frank Furness, the great Philadelphia architect, designed this Stick-style mansion in 1879 for Dr. Emlen Physick Jr., who moved in with his widowed mother and his aunt Emilie. By the 1960s the estate was close to demolition; a group of residents formed the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts and Humanities in 1970 to save it, the city bought it, and the center has run it as a museum ever since.
Cape May MAC calls it the town’s haunted house. Dr. Physick, his mother Frances Ralston and his aunts Emilie and Isabella are all said to still be about, and the medium Craig McManus, MAC’s resident ghost expert, talks of thumps, sighs and cold drafts. MAC’s registrar told the Philadelphia Inquirer he once heard two women talking in the locked, dark house, and local reports add phantom dogs. Evening Voices From Beyond and Haunted Tales of the Cape tours are the easiest way in after dark.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book the evening Haunted Tales of the Cape combo: a trolley ride through the historic district that ends inside the Physick House.
Address 719 East 11th Street, Ocean City, NJ 08226
Where to look The lobby and the second and fourth floors; the old lower-level passages
Reported ghosts Emily, the Lady in White; a red-haired woman, a small child and a middle-aged man
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Flanders is Ocean City’s grand Spanish Mission Revival hotel on the boardwalk at 11th Street. Twenty-four local businessmen built it, architect Vivian B. Smith designed it, and it opened on July 23, 1923, named in honor of the Allied troops who fought in Flanders in World War I. Its fireproof concrete saved it in the 1927 boardwalk fire. Today it is an all-suite condominium hotel with full kitchens, the town’s largest heated pool and a place on the National Register since 2009.
Its famous ghost is Emily, the Lady in White, a cheerful young woman with long dark hair who is said to dance and sing in the lobby and on the second and fourth floors, unscrew light bulbs and play with door locks. A portrait of her hangs on the second floor. Ghost tours say she waited in vain for a sweetheart who never came home from the war.
What investigators report
A South Jersey investigation team that used EMF monitoring, audio recorders and trigger props reported a sense of a little girl in the basement near the entrance to the back tunnel.
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.
Address Batsto Village, 31 Batsto Road, Hammonton, NJ 08037 (Wharton State Forest)
Where to look Batsto Village, the sand roads of Wharton State Forest and Leeds Point, the legend's birthplace
Reported ghosts The Jersey Devil
Visiting State forest and a state historic village, open to all; the sand roads need care
Tours Batsto Mansion tours and October lantern tours of the village
Hours and season State forest daylight hours; check Batsto Village for mansion tour times
The Pine Barrens cover about 1.1 million acres of South Jersey, around a fifth of the state, across seven counties of pitch pine, cedar swamp and sand road. In 1978 Congress made them the country’s first National Reserve. Scattered through the woods are the remains of towns built on bog iron, glass and sawmills, and Batsto Village in Wharton State Forest, an ironworks from 1766 that made supplies for the Continental Army, has been restored with its 50-room mansion.
This is the home of the Jersey Devil. The legend says that in 1735 a Mrs. Leeds of Leeds Point, pregnant for the thirteenth time, cursed the child, which was born with wings, hooves and a tail and flew off into the pines. In one week of January 1909, newspapers printed hundreds of sightings across South Jersey and Philadelphia, and some schools closed. Historian Brian Regal traces the tale to the unpopular Leeds family of almanac makers, not to any real birth.
Haunted Rooms tip: Start at Batsto Village, then drive one of the sand roads into Wharton State Forest an hour before dark; carry a paper map, as phone signal is patchy.
Where to look Upstairs hallways, especially the third floor; empty guest rooms
Reported ghosts A woman in old-fashioned dress in the halls; children heard playing
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
Congress Hall is Cape May’s oldest big hotel, a long yellow building with a tall white colonnade facing the beach. Thomas Hughes opened it in 1816 as a wooden boarding house locals called “Tommy’s Folly”, renamed it when he went to Congress, and after the Great Fire of 1878 it was rebuilt in brick. Presidents Pierce, Buchanan, Grant and Benjamin Harrison stayed here; Harrison made it his Summer White House. A $22 million restoration reopened it in 2002.
Housekeepers describe radios, televisions and voices behind closed doors on the third floor, with no one inside when they knock, and guests tell of a woman in old-fashioned dress who walks down an upstairs corridor and disappears around the corner. Children are sometimes heard playing when none are staying, which local ghost tours connect to a boy who drowned off the beach in 1876.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask for a third-floor room and have a drink in the Brown Room, then join a Cape May ghost walk outside.
Address Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, Lakehurst, NJ (tours only)
Where to look The long hangar floor and side passages, and the chain-outlined crash pad
Reported ghosts Footsteps and slamming doors in the hangar, said to be linked to the Hindenburg dead
Visiting On an active military base; visits only on pre-registered Navy Lakehurst Historical Society tours
Tours Hangar No. 1 and Hindenburg crash site tours, registered at least two weeks ahead
Hours and season Tours on Wednesdays and selected Saturdays, 9:30 AM to 1 PM
Tickets Donation-based
Ghost hunting No ghost hunting on the base
Hangar No. 1 was finished in 1921 to house the Navy’s rigid airships, and at 966 feet long and 224 feet high it is still one of the great buildings of the early air age. On the evening of May 6, 1937, the German airship Hindenburg caught fire as it came in to land beside it, and 36 people died: 13 passengers, 22 crew and a civilian on the ground crew. A black ground marker edged with yellow chain and a bronze plaque now mark where the gondola came down.
Ghost story sites claim footsteps with nobody there, doors along a passage of the hangar that open and slam on their own, and a Navy balloon pilot seen in the same corridor. We have found no named witness or base record behind any of it, so treat it as base folklore. The history is the reason to go: the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society runs tours of the hangar and crash site.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book a Navy Lakehurst Historical Society tour at least two weeks ahead: you must be security-registered to get onto the base.
Address 100 Hessian Avenue, National Park, NJ 08063
Where to look The attic of the Whitall House and the battlefield along the Delaware
Reported ghosts Wounded soldiers heard moaning in the attic
Visiting A 44-acre Gloucester County park open in daylight; the Whitall House opens for tours on a limited schedule
Hours and season Park open daylight hours
Tickets Free
James Whitall built this brick and stone Georgian house in 1748, just outside what became Fort Mercer on the Delaware. On October 22, 1777, about 500 Americans held the fort against some 2,000 Hessians; the Hessian commander, Colonel Carl von Donop, was mortally wounded and is buried in the park. Ann Whitall stayed in the house through the fighting and nursed the wounded, earning the name the Heroine of Red Bank. In 2022 the remains of 13 Hessian soldiers were found at the north end of the park.
After the battle the house served for several weeks as a field hospital, mostly for wounded Hessians, and the markers on site describe bloodstained floors and unmarked graves on the farm. The ghost stories center on the attic, where wounded soldiers are said to moan, whisper and leave cold spots. A local group, Perceptive Paranormal Research, told AAA they were touched and felt dizzy inside. The battlefield itself is a quiet county park on the river bank.
What investigators report
Because the house served as a field hospital after the Battle of Red Bank, a local team ran an EVP session asking “Are you in the hospital?” and reported a recorded answer of “yes.”
Where to look The hallways and the upper floors, including the fifth floor
Reported ghosts Laughing children in the halls, unseen guests talking in empty rooms
Visiting A working hotel with a restaurant and bar open to the public
Tours Channeling dinners and ghost walks with Craig McManus through Cape May MAC
The Church brothers opened the Inn of Cape May in 1895 as the Colonial Hotel, a boarding house of about 60 rooms at the foot of Ocean Street, said to be the tallest building on the coast at the time. A south wing added by 1905 roughly doubled it, giving the Second Empire front its towers and concave mansard roof. It has Cape May’s first elevator, still running, was renovated again in 2022, and still takes guests.
The inn tells its own ghost stories. Guests have asked staff about noisy children running and laughing in the halls when no children were staying nearby, and the Cape May medium and author Craig McManus says he saw light under a fifth-floor door of a room that turned out to be empty, and recorded what sounded like several people talking in another. McManus also hosts channeling dinners at the inn through Cape May MAC.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book one of Cape May MAC’s channeling dinners at the inn, or ask for an upper-floor room, where most of the stories come from.
Where to look The upper floors of the second building, the stairs, guest rooms including Room 17
Reported ghosts A young woman who fell from a window in the 1960s, often called Miss Brown; a girl looking out to sea
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
Angel of the Sea is the pink Victorian with the twin towers half a block from the beach on Trenton Avenue. It began around 1850 as the summer cottage of Philadelphia chemist William Weightman Sr., was cut in half to be dragged closer to the ocean in 1881, and was rescued after the 1962 storm, when Reverend Carl McIntire moved both halves here. It reopened as a 27-room bed and breakfast in 1989 and 1990 and is run today by the Stanton family.
The ghost story dates from the 1960s and 1970s, when the houses were a dormitory for Shelton College. A young woman, usually called Miss Brown, is said to have locked herself out and fallen while climbing through a window. Guests describe beds that shake, footsteps on the stairs, flickering lights, coughing and an alarm clock in Room 17 going off by itself at 2:30 in the morning.
Haunted Rooms tip: Breakfast, afternoon tea and evening wine and cheese are included, and the porches are the place to watch the sea at dusk.
Where to look The third floor and its cedar-lined room, the attic ladder, the grand staircase, the old basement bar
Reported ghosts Earle Shields, the builder's 15-year-old son, once called "Ernest" by staff
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Peter Shields Inn is the white 1907 Georgian Revival mansion at the quiet east end of Beach Avenue, across the road from the ocean. Peter Shields, the Pittsburgh businessman who helped found East Cape May, built it as his family’s summer home, and Philadelphia architect Lloyd Titus designed it. It became a bed and breakfast in the 1980s and today has nine guest rooms above a well-known oceanfront restaurant.
Its ghost is a boy. In 1907, fifteen-year-old Earle Shields was fatally wounded in a hunting accident on a boat off Cape May, and the family left town a few years later. Earlier owners and staff called the presence on the stairs “Ernest”, and Cape May medium Craig McManus believes that was Earle, who he says haunts the third floor and the attic.
What investigators report
A Cape May psychic medium reported that during a channeling session in a third-floor guest room, a closed door slowly opened three times with no draft. He singled out the third-floor attic and cedar-lined room as the strongest spot.
Address 800 Long Beach Boulevard, Surf City, NJ 08008
Where to look Upper-floor windows and the beachfront side
Reported ghosts A woman holding a baby at an upper window; voices linked to the 1854 Powhatan wreck
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Surf City Hotel is a Long Beach Island institution: a historic hotel, restaurant, pub, clam bar and Beach Club with live music, a short walk from the ocean. The first building went up in the late 1800s and was known as the Mansion House, the Long Beach Inn and the Marquette Hotel before taking its current name; that structure later burned. Colleen and Greg Gewirtz have owned it since 2017, and rooms are open April through October.
The ghost stories go back to the April 1854 wreck of the emigrant ship Powhatan off the island, when hundreds died and, local lore says, the keeper of the old Mansion of Health was suspected of robbing the bodies. Whether that hotel stood on this site is unclear, but people describe a pale woman holding a baby at an upper window, and voices and footsteps at night. The owners say they have tried to meet the ghosts, without success so far.
Haunted Rooms tip: It is a lively summer bar and music venue, so book a midweek or shoulder-season night if you want quiet.
These places appear in older lists of haunted spots. We keep them here so you know the facts before you go, but you cannot (or should not) visit them.
Trenton Psychiatric Hospital, Trenton and Ewing
Founded in 1848 as the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum. Under Dr. Henry Cotton, director from 1907 to 1930, teeth and organs were removed in the belief that infection caused mental illness, and hundreds of patients died. Stories say Cotton still walks the halls, but it is a working state hospital and closed to visitors.
Jonathan Pitney House, Absecon
The home of Dr. Jonathan Pitney, the physician called the Father of Atlantic City, who died there in 1869. It was later a bed and breakfast with stories of two men walking through a guest’s room and fife music from the cottage. Its website is no longer maintained and we could not confirm it still takes guests, so treat it as a private home.
The Abbott House, Mays Landing
A Victorian house once run as a bed and breakfast, with stories of a bouncing ball on the top floor and books flying off a shelf. Its old website now belongs to an unrelated company and we could not confirm it still takes guests; treat it as a private home.
Henry Ludlam Inn, Dennisville
An 18th-century house once run as a bed and breakfast with vague stories of frightening noises. We could not confirm it is still open to guests, so view it only from the road.
Removed from this guide: the Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City, which closed in 2016 and reopened in 2018 as the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino; we found no record behind the story of a man jumping from the tenth floor or the cloud that toppled a blackjack table. The Washington Inn in Cape May is a restaurant built in 1840 and open today, but we could not find a published source for the ghost of a girl called Elizabeth. Corrected: the Jonathan Pitney House, the Abbott House and the Henry Ludlam Inn could not be confirmed as open, so they are now listed as private homes.
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 South Jersey?
The Burlington County Prison Museum in Mount Holly. It was a working jail from 1811 to 1965, Joel Clough was hanged in 1833 and is said to be buried in the yard, and the museum itself tells of workers in the 1990s who heard voices and found their tools locked in empty cells.
Can you go ghost hunting in South Jersey?
Yes. Haunted Rooms runs ghost hunts aboard the Battleship New Jersey in Camden, and Burlington County rents the prison museum in Mount Holly to paranormal groups for evening investigations. Fort Mifflin, where we also run hunts, is just across the Delaware in Philadelphia.
Is the Battleship New Jersey haunted?
Crew stories of footsteps, voices and figures on the decks are common, and TAPS investigated the ship for the 2022 Ghost Hunters episode “Ship of Lost Souls.” It is the most decorated battleship in US Navy history and a museum on the Camden waterfront.
Where can you stay in a haunted hotel in South Jersey?
Cape May is the place: the Hotel Macomber (ask for Room 10), the Southern Mansion, Congress Hall, Angel of the Sea, the Peter Shields Inn and the Inn of Cape May. Up the coast are the Flanders Hotel in Ocean City and the Surf City Hotel on Long Beach Island.
Where is the Jersey Devil said to live?
In the Pine Barrens, the 1.1 million acres of pine forest that cover much of South Jersey. The legend begins at Leeds Point in 1735. Batsto Village in Wharton State Forest is a good place to start.
Is Trenton Psychiatric Hospital open to visitors?
No. It is a working state hospital, so although it appears in many South Jersey ghost lists for its history under Dr. Henry Cotton, it is not a place to visit.
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.
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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.
