Haunted Places in Alexandria

One tomb here records a woman whose name nobody ever learned, and one building on Duke Street held more than ten thousand people against their will. What Old Town has, and what it costs.

The Female Stranger

In 1816 a couple arrived in Alexandria and took rooms at Gadsby's Tavern. The woman was gravely ill and died there on 14 October. Her husband commissioned an expensive table tomb in St Paul's Cemetery, swore those who had attended her to secrecy, left debts behind, and never gave her name. The stone records only that she was a female stranger, and the date. Two hundred years of theories have not established who she was. It is a genuine mystery rather than a ghost story - the hauntings came later, and the tomb is the real object.

1315 Duke Street

From 1828 to 1837 the building was the office and holding pen of Franklin and Armfield, the largest slave-trading firm in the United States. More than ten thousand enslaved men, women and children were held there in those eight years before being sent south, most of them to Louisiana and Mississippi. It is a National Historic Landmark. The city bought the property in 2020, and it reopened in spring 2022 as the Freedom House Museum. This is the most significant site in Alexandria connected to human suffering, and it is not on the ghost tours.

Gadsby's Tavern

The tavern buildings date from the 1780s and 1790s and are the genuine article: Washington dined and attended the annual birthnight ball here, and the city has run the older building as a museum for decades while the newer one still operates as a restaurant. That combination is unusual and it is the reason the Female Stranger story has such a firm setting - the rooms she is said to have died in are still there, and you can be in them.

Old Town is the exhibit

The blocks below King Street are eighteenth and early nineteenth century in bulk rather than in isolated survivals, and the cobbles of Captain's Row are original. Walking them at night costs nothing and is the best hour available here. Alexandria's ghost tours work these streets, and they are working with real fabric - which is more than can be said for a great many towns that sell the same walk.

Free, paid, and what a tour is for

The streets, Captain's Row and St Paul's Cemetery are free. Gadsby's Tavern Museum charges. Freedom House charges little or nothing and is the one to make time for. A ghost tour here buys narration over genuinely old ground - a fair trade - but it will almost certainly not take you to Duke Street, and that is the gap worth closing yourself.

That sits in the typical band for the category, whose median is $30.

Alexandria ghost tours

2 of the 2 Alexandria tours we track . Ordered by review depth.

Questions people actually ask

What are the ghost stories of Gadsby's Tavern?
The central one is the Female Stranger: a woman who arrived in 1816 with a husband who never gave her name, died in an upstairs room on 14 October, and was buried under an expensive tomb in St Paul's Cemetery inscribed only to a female stranger. Her identity has never been established. The reported hauntings of the room and the tomb came afterwards; the documented part is the death, the secrecy and the stone.
Did George Washington eat at Gadsby's Tavern?
Yes. Washington was a regular at the tavern, dined there, used it for public business, and attended the annual birthnight ball held in his honour in its ballroom. The buildings date from the 1780s and 1790s and the older one is now a city museum, so the rooms he used are the rooms you walk through - one of the few places where that claim is straightforwardly true.
What happened in Alexandria, Virginia in history?
The part least often told is 1315 Duke Street. From 1828 to 1837 it was the headquarters of Franklin and Armfield, the largest slave-trading business in the United States, and more than ten thousand enslaved people were held there in eight years before being shipped and marched to the Deep South. The building survives, the city bought it in 2020, and it reopened as the Freedom House Museum in 2022.
Is Alexandria Old Town worth visiting?
Yes, and particularly in the evening. The eighteenth and early nineteenth century fabric survives in whole blocks rather than as isolated buildings, Captain's Row still has its original cobbles, and it is free to walk. If you have time for one paid stop, make it Freedom House on Duke Street rather than anything sold as haunted.
How long is the Alexandria ghost tour?
Most of the walking tours here run about an hour to ninety minutes and cover the streets around King Street, Gadsby's Tavern and St Paul's Cemetery - confirm with the operator, since routes and lengths vary and some run only seasonally. All of that ground is public and free to walk on your own; what you are paying for is the telling.