Haunted Places in Richmond

The vampire was a dying man, the tunnel is sealed with the train still inside it, and Poe is buried in Baltimore. What is actually here, and what it costs.

The tunnel is still sealed, with the train inside

On 2 October 1925, while the Church Hill Tunnel was being reopened for use, about a hundred and ninety feet of it came down on a work train. Four men were killed and two of them were never recovered. Rescue attempts brought more of the roof down, and in 1926 the decision was made to fill the tunnel with sand and plug both portals - with the locomotive and its ten flat cars still inside. They are there now. There is nothing to visit and nothing to enter, and any tour offering the tunnel is offering the ground above it.

The Richmond Vampire was a dying man

The legend says rescuers found a blood-covered creature with jagged teeth and hanging skin crouched over a victim, that it ran for the river, and that it was chased into the W. W. Pool mausoleum in Hollywood Cemetery. The likeliest original is Benjamin Mosby, twenty-eight, the locomotive's fireman. He was at the firebox when the roof came down; the steam scalded him, taking his skin and breaking his teeth, and he got out and ran. He died the next day. The Pool mausoleum, dated 1913, was attached to the story later and has nothing to do with him. Tours still sell the creature.

Hollywood Cemetery is a working burial ground

It holds two presidents - Monroe and Tyler - along with a great deal of the Confederacy and, since 1922, the Pool mausoleum that people leave things outside. It is open to walk in daylight and free, and it is one of the better nineteenth-century cemeteries in the country on its own terms, terraced above the James River. It is also somebody's family plot. The vampire story has made one tomb into a set piece, which is worth remembering when you stand in front of it.

Poe grew up here. He is not buried here.

Richmond has the best claim on Poe's childhood and early career, and the Poe Museum has been here since the 1920s - but it occupies the Old Stone House, the oldest residential building in the city, which there is no evidence Poe ever entered. The memorial garden behind it was built from bricks salvaged from the Southern Literary Messenger building, where he genuinely did work. Poe himself died in Baltimore in 1849 and is buried at Westminster there, originally in an unmarked grave. It is a good museum. It is not a haunted house, and it does not claim to be.

Free, paid, and what a tour is for

Hollywood Cemetery is free and open in daylight, and it is the best thing on this list. The tunnel cannot be visited by anyone. The Poe Museum charges. So a Richmond ghost tour is buying you narration over open ground - which is a fair trade if the narration is honest, and a poor one if it is still selling you a vampire instead of a scalded fireman who was twenty-eight.

The entry price is cheaper than three quarters of US ghost tours, which start around $25, so this is genuinely cheap for a ghost tour rather than just cheap.

Richmond ghost tours

3 of the 3 Richmond tours we track . Ordered by review depth.

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Questions people actually ask

What happened to the Church Hill Tunnel in 1925?
On 2 October 1925 roughly a hundred and ninety feet of the tunnel collapsed onto a work train during reopening work. Four men died and two were never recovered. Further rescue attempts caused more collapse, so in 1926 the tunnel was filled with sand and both ends were sealed, leaving the locomotive and ten flat cars entombed inside. It has never been reopened, and there is nothing at the site to enter.
Where is the Richmond Vampire tomb located?
The W. W. Pool mausoleum in Hollywood Cemetery, built into a hillside and dated 1913. The legend attaches it to the 1925 Church Hill Tunnel collapse two miles away. It is worth knowing what the story most likely began as: Benjamin Mosby, the twenty-eight-year-old fireman on the trapped locomotive, escaped the tunnel scalded by steam with his skin hanging and his teeth broken, and died the next day. Hollywood Cemetery is free to walk in daylight.
What is the most famous cemetery in Richmond, Virginia?
Hollywood Cemetery, laid out in 1847 on terraces above the James River. Presidents James Monroe and John Tyler are buried there, along with much of the Confederate leadership, and it holds the Pool mausoleum of Richmond Vampire fame. It is free, open in daylight, and good on its own merits as a nineteenth-century landscape cemetery - the ghost story is the least interesting thing about it.
What are the underground tunnels in Richmond, Virginia?
The Church Hill Tunnel is the one people mean - a rail tunnel under Church Hill, sealed since 1926 with a train inside it. Richmond also has the remains of the James River and Kanawha Canal works and assorted nineteenth-century culverts and rail cuts. None of it is open to visitors, and the tunnel in particular is filled with sand rather than merely closed.
Is Edgar Allan Poe buried in Richmond?
No. Poe grew up in Richmond and worked here as an editor, and the Poe Museum has been in the city since the 1920s, but he died in Baltimore in 1849 and is buried at Westminster Hall and Burying Ground there - at first in an unmarked grave, and under a monument from 1875 paid for by Baltimore schoolchildren. The Richmond museum occupies the Old Stone House, which there is no evidence Poe ever went inside.