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Spooky Maryland

The ruins of the Patapsco Female Institute, a former girls' boarding school in Ellicott City, Md.
The familiar ghosts of the Patapsco Female Institute
If you dare to explore the Patapsco Female Institute, one thing is certain: you won’t be alone. Three familiar ghosts will be at your side. They’re known as Annie, The Shadow and The Gentleman. They all have their own stories and they are all locked in time at the Institute.
Candy Warden brushes leaves and grass off the grave marker for Hilda Maria Gray, one of several people buried alongside pets in the Rosa Bonheur Memorial Park in Elkridge.
Mystery and scandal haunt pet cemetery on coveted Howard County land
A famous old pet cemetery hides in the shadows of Howard County’s new apartments. And someone’s moving the graves.
Reporter Julie Scharper peeks out of one of the solitary confinement cells in the basement of the old Northern District police station.
Way down in the hole: Exploring Hampden’s creepy solitary-confinement cells
The basement in The Castle in Hampden is a grim remnant of another era: a duo of dark, dank solitary confinement cells.
Dwayyo
Meet the Dwayyo, Maryland’s lesser-known foe of the Snallygaster
The exact roots of the Dwayyo story — and even the creature’s name — are sparse, according to Susan Fair, an author and retired librarian who has written about local cryptids.
Witch Board Museum Baltimore is a self-guided tour through the fascinating history of spirit, witch, and talking boards, including the enormously popular Ouija board, which began in Baltimore in the late 1800s .
Baltimore’s Witch Board Museum chronicles the history of the enigmatic Ouija
Witch Board Museum Baltimore takes you on a strange trip into the history of one of the city’s oddest inventions — the Ouija board.
An Annapolis Tours and Crawls Ghost Tour turns around a corner of St. Annes Parish in Annapolis, MD, on Oct. 18, 2024.
Big Ghost is coming for Mom and Pop Ghost — and winning tour tickets
The way the US Ghost Adventures markets itself in some cities is so similar to longer-running local ghost tours that customers become confused, owners say.
A small bandstand-like building blares spooky music and uses smoke machines to turn the area around it green. Fort Howard Dungeons has many sites like this one, but they do not allow flash photography inside. We managed to take this one without a flash before it got too dark.
Dungeons and Dundalk: History and horror collide at Fort Howard
The Fort Howard Haunted Dungeons are spooky, scary fun.
The exterior of the SS John W. Brown in Baltimore on Friday, October 18, 2024.
Once used during WWII, the S.S. John Brown takes on new life as a ghost ship
The ghost ship has become another way the crew can sustain itself in the face of high maintenance costs.
An illustration depicts a woman being burned at the stake for the crime of engaging in witchcraft, circa 1692. (Photo by Kean Collection/Getty Images)
These Maryland women were accused of witchcraft. Their crime? Having power.
Women who possessed special knowledge, such as midwives or herbalists, were more likely to be accused of witchcraft, as were women in need, including widows and beggars.
The Ouija board gravestone of Elijah Jefferson Bond, who patented the device, is now the most-visited landmark in Baltimore’s Green Mount Cemetery, according to Talking Board Historical Society chairman of the board and founder Robert Murch.
Ouija boards, John Waters and the lost grave of Elijah Bond
The strange and improbable story of how a storied filmmaker happened upon a historic discovery.