Point Lookout Lighthouse
A lighthouse in Lexington Park, Maryland, built in 1830, Point Lookout Lighthouse is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Lighthouse associated with documented regional history. HauntHunt files it with haunting reports, dark history and hauntings. Ask the file who haunts it and it answers: Spirits attributed to Civil War prisoners and former keepers. The dossier holds 2 reported claims, 1 legend and 3 documented facts, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site welcomes visitors.
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Is Point Lookout Lighthouse haunted?
The record holds 2 claims, 1 legend, 1 named entity — filed as reported, not verified. The heaviest filing is classed unverified. The archive documents the claim; it takes no position on the ghost.
The record — long form
James Davis lit the Point Lookout lamp for the first time on September 20, 1830, and was dead by December 3 — a tenure of seventy-four days. His daughter Ann took over the light and kept it for seventeen years at $350 a year, the first female keeper on the point, her early contract having taken the precaution of forbidding liquor sales on lighthouse property. The keeper register that follows her is unusually hard on its occupants: Richard Edwards died in office three months after appointment in 1853, William Wood lost a year's pay over broken mirrors and a cat in the oil barrel, and Pamelia Edwards was dismissed in 1869 with no reason entered in the record.
The land the lighthouse stands on did its own damage. Congress appropriated $1,800 for the light in 1825, but owner Jenifer Taylor refused $500 for the ground — he reportedly wanted the keepership instead — and a county commission finally set the price at $1,150. Contractor John Donahoo built the story-and-a-half house for $3,050 before the deed was even signed, and argued with the government about it for two years after the lamp was lit.
The war years
In 1862, after McClellan's failed Peninsula campaign, the Army built Hammond Hospital at the point — a pavilion-style facility whose wards radiated like spokes. A year later, after Gettysburg, Confederate prisoners began arriving at what became the Union's largest POW camp: more than 50,000 men passed through between 1863 and 1865, with 20,000 held at peak in tents inside a wooden-walled pen on the bay shore.
Nearly 4,000 died of exposure, disease and starvation — a rate Maryland's own park history notes was less than half that of soldiers in the field, which is the kind of statistic that explains rather than settles the file. In 1864 Confederate general Bradley T. Johnson plotted a raid to free the prisoners; it never came off. The hospital was dismantled in 1867 and nothing of it survives above ground.
What witnesses file
The haunting reports begin, tellingly, only after 1966 — when the light was automated, the keepers left, and the house went to tenants and park staff. In the 1970s a ranger repeatedly reported a man running in long strides across a stretch of road toward the woods, on a line that matched the old prisoner pen's escape attempts. Tenants described singing, talking and snoring from empty rooms, lights that misbehaved, and photographs that came back with unexplained swirls. A park ranger of 34 years, Bob Crickenberger, reports seeing no ghosts — and being stopped in his tracks once, by the sudden smell of smoky canvas near the pen site.
The lighthouse is routinely billed as the most haunted in America. Its own preservation society's website asks, dryly, who issued that classification and why — while acknowledging the place is steeped in history, paranormal and otherwise, and noting that too much ghost advertising mainly produces Halloween break-ins.
What remains
Point Lookout became a state park a century after the war; the lighthouse, raised to two stories in 1883 and duplexed in 1927, has been restored by the Point Lookout Lighthouse Preservation Society and opens on select days as a museum. Between the hospital that left nothing above ground, the camp that left nearly 4,000 dead, and a keeper register full of shortened careers, the file does not lack for candidates — only for proof.
Point Lookout Light is a lighthouse that marks the entrance to the Potomac River at the southernmost tip of Maryland's western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, south of the town of Scotland in Saint Mary's County, Maryland, USA. The lighthouse is located in Point Lookout State Park. The lighthouse is now open to the public, as of May 2025, as a museum during the summertime.
Point Lookout LightThe long record
- 1830Built
Lighthouse constructed
- 1830History
The 1830 lighthouse is preserved within Point Lookout State Park. The record dates it to 1830-01-01. Point Lookout Lighthouse's history is documented — launches, crews, and losses all on record before the lore begins. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The detail is preserved in 'Point Lookout State Park'. The date is part of the site's documented spine.
- 1863History
Point Lookout held a Union prison camp (1863–1865) where thousands of Confederate prisoners died of disease and exposure. The documented date is 1863-07-01–1865-06-30. Point Lookout Lighthouse's history is documented — launches, crews, and losses all on record before the lore begins. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. Sources including 'Point Lookout State Park' carry the record. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.
- 1863Prison Camp
Point Lookout prison camp
The record of claims
A paranormal directory attributes a photographed figure at Point Lookout to a Civil War soldier — the most specific of the claims attached to a lighthouse that stood beside a prison camp where thousands died. The photo is investigator material; the attribution to a prisoner is lore doing math on real grief.
Investigators and staff have reported disembodied voices, footsteps, and apparitions in the Point Lookout lighthouse for decades — lore covered by regional press and paranormal groups since the light was still working. The site earned it: a Civil War prison camp and hospital stood on the point, and the death ledger ran long.
Regional paranormal literature and press describe Point Lookout as among the most haunted American lighthouses; reported phenomena include disembodied voices, footsteps and apparitions attributed to former keepers and to the Civil War dead of the adjacent prison camp and hospital site. Crews leave marks on vessels long after they muster out, and Point Lookout Lighthouse in Lexington Park, Maryland had crews enough. It's a documented legend: the telling is real, the contents remain folklore. 'Point Lookout State Park' carries the account. Every community keeps one story like this; this is theirs.
Two accounts on file
Lighthouse associated with documented regional history.
The lighthouse above a Civil War prison camp—widely called Maryland’s most haunted lighthouse.
Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite.
Point Lookout Lighthouse is a lighthouse in Maryland. Lighthouse associated with documented regional history. John Donahoo built the lighthouse in 1830. Reported lore and claims include: A paranormal directory attributes a photographed figure to a Civil War soldier.
Point Lookout Lighthouse is the 1830 light at the Potomac-Chesapeake confluence—above the site of a Civil War prison camp where ~4,000 Confederates died. Its documented dark history underlies a well-known haunting reputation investigated repeatedly by paranormal groups.
Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite.
Discovery record. Coordinates, earliest legend source, independent history and current visitor rules require further verification.
Lore enrichment; VERIFY task auto-queued.
Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite.
Alleged entities
Investigators and staff have reported disembodied voices, footsteps, and apparitions in the lighthouse—lore covered by regional press and paranormal groups for decades. The presence goes by Spirits attributed to Civil War prisoners and former keepers. The account has been recorded since 20th century. A vessel with Point Lookout Lighthouse's service record gives the reports an unusually crowded roster to draw on. Sources including 'Point Lookout Light' keep the claim in circulation. The name travels further than the proof; the sightings keep renewing the lease.
Documented history
John Donahoo built the lighthouse in 1830. The vessel's documented service record is the record the rest of the file stands on. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The record appears in 'Point Lookout Lighthouse'. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest.
Verified historyMaryland Department of Natural ResourcesPoint Lookout held a Union prison camp (1863–1865) where thousands of Confederate prisoners died of disease and exposure. The documented date is 1863-07-01–1865-06-30. Point Lookout Lighthouse's history is documented — launches, crews, and losses all on record before the lore begins. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. Sources including 'Point Lookout State Park' carry the record. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.
The 1830 lighthouse is preserved within Point Lookout State Park. The record dates it to 1830-01-01. Point Lookout Lighthouse's history is documented — launches, crews, and losses all on record before the lore begins. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The detail is preserved in 'Point Lookout State Park'. The date is part of the site's documented spine.
Sources on file
- 01Point Lookout LighthouseMaryland Department of Natural Resources · government · A1
- 02Point Lookout State ParkMaryland Haunted Houses · directory · A4
- 03Point Lookout State ParkMaryland DNR · government · A1
- 04Point Lookout LightWikipedia · encyclopedia · A4
Field notes & open questions
Discovery record. Coordinates, earliest legend source, independent history and current visitor rules require further verification.