Haunted Cape May Locations

Cape May has been a getaway since before the American Revolution, which makes it the oldest seaside resort in the country. Almost three hundred years of summers have passed through this small town at the southern tip of New Jersey, and with that much history comes a long ledger of loss. People came here to escape, to recover, and sometimes to die, and the town has never been very good at letting any of them go.

The sea shaped the place and took its share of it. Ships wrecked within sight of the shore, sailors drowned in the bay, and yellow fever and other epidemics swept through the crowded resort during its busiest decades. Tragedy and leisure have always lived side by side in Cape May, and the spirits that linger here are tied to both.

Then there's the architecture. A fire nearly wiped the town off the map in 1878, and what rose from the ashes is the largest collection of Victorian buildings in the United States. Those grand hotels and mansions were preserved almost exactly as they were, which means the rooms where Cape May's history turned dark are still standing — and still, by many accounts, occupied.

Put it together — the age, the sea, the disease, the perfectly preserved old houses — and you get a town that consistently ranks among the most haunted places on the East Coast. The Emlen Physick Estate may be the most famous of its haunted buildings, but it is far from the only one with a story to tell.