Ghost Hunting North Carolina: Your Travel Guide to the State's Most Haunted Places

by Kala Ambrose

Overview

Explore North Carolina like never before—visit its most haunted locations that are open to the public.

Whether you love to travel, are fascinated by the paranormal, or both, get ready to tour North Carolina in a totally new way! Ghost Hunting North Carolina guides you to 23 fascinating and historic places, including forts, hotels, plantations, the State Capitol building, and more. Every location is open to the public, and here’s the catch: Every place is reportedly haunted!

Join author Kala Ambrose on a paranormal investigation to discover the creepiest corners of the Tar Heel State. Read the author’s account of her visit to each site, and learn about its history—as well as the ghosts said to reside there. Then grab your gear and hit the road as you visit each location first-hand. Every entry comes with an address and website, plus photographs of these unforgettable destinations. Kala’s tips and suggestions allow you to maximize the enjoyment of each experience.

From Ocracoke Island’s swaggering spirit (which might be the ghost of infamous pirate Blackbeard) to Civil War apparitions at Fort Fisher to Asheville’s Grove Park Inn, where the “Pink Lady” roams the halls, this book presents eerie hideaways that even lifelong residents might not know about. Part travel guide and part fireside read, Ghost Hunting North Carolina puts you in the middle of the state’s haunted history.

Each entry includes

• historical overview of the haunted place
• ghost stories associated with the location
• advice on visiting—if you dare

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781578604098
Publisher:	Clerisy Press
Publication date:	09/09/2025
Series:	America's Haunted Road Trip
Edition description:	2nd Revised ed.
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Kala Ambrose is an award-winning author, renowned intuitive, wisdom teacher, intuitive interior decorator, podcaster, and lifestyle coach. Known as Your Travel Guide to the Other Side®, Kala helps entrepreneurs, wisdom seekers, and visionaries live their best lives. Author of six books, Kala is considered one of the country’s foremost experts on mystic spirituality and psychic/intuitive ability. She discusses life-enhancing topics on her podcast, The Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show.

Read an Excerpt

The Spirited Revival of Bellamy Mansion

Dr. John Bellamy was a man of fortitude, and the mansion he built is a spectacular example of North Carolina architecture. Located in downtown Wilmington, the 22-room mansion is a stunning example of Greek Revival style. The mansion gives the impression of being a most inviting place; the formal gardens draw you in with their delightful colors and scents, and the towering columns give the sense of strength and stability. It’s easy to imagine a carefree life spent here by Dr. Bellamy, his wife, Eliza, and their 10 children. Dr. Bellamy was a prominent and highly regarded physician and businessman in the area. Along with his medical practice, he owned a turpentine distillery, served as a director of the Cape Fear Bank, and was a stockholder of the Wilmington Railroad. While walking through each room, images of tea parties, elaborate dinners, and mint juleps on the veranda come to mind.

The Bellamy family moved into their new home in March 1861. The life of Dr. Bellamy and his family was not without strife, though. Two months after the family moved in, the state of North Carolina seceded from the Union to enter the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy.

Dr. Bellamy was the owner of several plantations, and his slaves had been forced to do some of the construction of the Bellamy Mansion. One of the most well-known slaves was William Gould, who escaped from the mansion’s slave quarters in a rowboat, which he navigated down the Cape Fear River until he encountered a Union ship. His diary reports that he boarded the ship and immediately joined the Union Navy.

As the war began, the Bellamy family continued to reside in their home until an epidemic of yellow fever struck the area. The disease, coupled with nearby Fort Fisher falling to Union troops, led the family to retreat to their country home, Grovely Plantation.

The Union army captured Wilmington, and General Joseph Hawley claimed the Bellamy Mansion as his headquarters and home. He refused to allow Dr. Bellamy to enter the mansion and went so far as to deny him entrance to the city of Wilmington. The Union government seized control of southern land, business property, and homes during this time, and it took years for Dr. Bellamy to recover his home. Almost four years later, in 1865, Dr. Bellamy traveled to Washington, D.C., to receive a presidential pardon in order to have his home returned to him.

After the war, the family began to restore the home. Mrs. Bellamy decided to build a black wrought iron fence around the house so she could create a formal garden. This garden is still lovingly tended to this day and can be enjoyed on the tour along with the rest of the mansion.

The black wrought iron fence caught my attention. There are supernatural teachings that state that wrought iron is reputed to hold spirits inside the area where the fence is built. Ghosts need energy to manifest, and iron, as a conductor of electricity, will ground the ghost when it comes into contact with the iron. Wrought iron fences around cemeteries were used in this capacity: They worked as a barrier to keep unwanted spirits beyond the fence and also to contain spirits that reside inside the fenced area. Iron horseshoes were also hung above front doors in the old days, as they were said to bring good luck by keeping a house free from unwanted spirits.

Unknowingly, when Mrs. Bellamy had the wrought iron fence constructed around the mansion, she may have created a barrier that holds ghosts inside the Bellamy Mansion today.

The Bellamy children grew up to be successful in their own rights, including John Jr., who became a US congressman. I found it intriguing, though, that out of the four daughters, only one married (Belle). One of the girls, Kate, died in infancy. The other two daughters, Eliza and Ellen, lived out the remainder of their lives together in the Bellamy Mansion. Eliza passed away in 1927, and Ellen died in 1946.

The house stood quiet until 1972, when the nonprofit Bellamy Mansion Corporation began restoration of the home in order to preserve the mansion. A few weeks after restoration began, a fire broke out in the home, destroying a large portion of the interior. The house was stabilized after the fire, and interior restoration resumed in 1992.

In 1994, the fully restored Bellamy Mansion opened as a museum offering tours of the house and gardens. As I visited the Bellamy Mansion, I kept myself open to receiving any energetic disturbances inside the home and was on the lookout for ghostly activity. The northeast corner of the land is where the original slave quarters were located, and it can’t help but be a somber area. Beyond this section, what I felt most around Bellamy Mansion was peaceful and restful. I felt a strong feminine presence in several parts of the mansion. While a spirit did not appear during my time at Bellamy Mansion, I could feel her energy. My feeling was that it was one of the sisters who lived most of her life in the home and simply never left.

Local stories suggest that daughter Ellen, who passed in 1946, still haunts the home. There are reports of hearing her wheelchair moving around various parts of the home. People have reported seeing a woman in a ball gown near the front door and on the front porch. Smudged handprints have also appeared overnight on the wall in Ellen’s bedroom and been found by staff the next day.

There are also a few reports of a Union soldier seen walking through the home, but most likely, this is an energy imprint, which is a time loop of captured energy that replays itself on a frequent basis. With an energetic imprint haunting, the ghost does not interact with the living, nor are they aware of the current time. The energy imprint just plays and replays the action, which was charged with the emotional intensity of such a strong nature that it has left behind an energetic recording.

Bellamy Mansion may be haunted, but the energy of the mansion is warm and welcoming, and Miss Ellen seems to enjoy opening her home to guests. The Bellamy Mansion hosts weddings and other special events throughout the year, and the caretakers of the home, both living and in spirit, appear to be pleased with the results.

Table of Contents

Welcome to America’s Haunted Road Trip

Introduction

East Carolina: The Coast and Outer Banks

• The Spirited Revival of Bellamy Mansion (Wilmington)
• The Haunting of the USS North Carolina Battleship (Wilmington)
• The Life and Legend of Blackbeard’s Ghost
• Civil War Ghosts of Fort Fisher (Kure Beach)
• The Ghosts of Currituck Beach Lighthouse
• The Haunted Soldiers of Fort Macon (Atlantic Beach)
• The Flaming Ship of New Bern
• The Lost Colony of Roanoke (Roanoke)
• Beautiful Nell Cropsey Still Waits in Elizabeth City
• The Ghosts of Somerset Place (Creswell)
• Touched by the Lady in Black
• Southern Hospitality Extends into the Afterlife at the Blount-Bridgers House (Tarboro)
• The Wandering Ghosts of Nags Head
• Full Moon Highlights the Ghosts of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse (Cape Hatteras)
• The Lonely Ghosts of Foscue Plantation
• The Attmore-Oliver House and the Weeping Arch of Cedar Grove (New Bern)
• Blackbeard the Pirate and the Old Burying Grounds (Beaufort)

Central Carolina: The Piedmont, the Triangle, and the Triad

• Miss Deborah Still Looks After You at the Star Hotel (Star)
• Devil’s Tramping Ground, Chatham County
• Visit with the Guardian of Korner’s Folly (Kernersville)
• Whispers from Beyond the Grave at Cabe’s Land Cemetery
• Ghosts Fuel the Fire at Stagville Plantation (Durham)
• Haunted Tours in Greensboro, Charlotte, Raleigh, and Asheville
• The Flying Photographs of Mary Turk at Mordecai Plantation (Raleigh)
• Governor Still Working at the State Capitol Building (Raleigh)
• ESP and Parapsychology at the Rhine Research Center
• So Comfortable That Guests and Ghosts Never Want to Leave the Carolina Inn (Chapel Hill)
• The Brown Lady of Chowan University
• The Haunting Bentonville Battlefield Driving Tour (Four Oaks)
• Prohibition and the Ghost of the Page-Walker Hotel (Cary)

West Carolina: The Blue Ridge Mountains and the Foothills

• The Vanderbilts Who Never Left the Biltmore Estate (Asheville)
• Joshua P. Warren’s Asheville Tourism Center and Free Museum
• The Gentle Touch from the Pink Lady at the Grove Park Inn (Asheville)
• The Legendary Brown Mountain Lights
• The Juxtaposition of Asheville, from Healing Resorts and Endless Views to the Mass Murderer of Asheville and the Haunted Gallows Trail (Asheville)
• The Inmates of the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad Tunnel, Dillsboro
• The Mysterious Vortex of Mystery Hill, Blowing Rock
• The Legend of Blowing Rock and the Green Park Inn (Blowing Rock)
• Mass Murderer Charlie Lawson, Germanton
• The Haunting Charm of Charlotte’s Fourth Ward and the Old Settler’s Cemetery (Charlotte)
• The Sad Preacher in the Chapel of Rest, Lenoir
• Haunting Theme Parks of North Carolina

Ghost-hunting Travel Guide

Visiting the Haunted Sites of North Carolina

Ghostly Resources

Further Reading

Acknowledgments

About the Author