Chesapeake Ghost Tours offers haunted tours in 10 historic towns – 15 tours during Halloween Week.
Chesapeake Ghost Tours, in Somerset County, Maryland has scheduled 40 October tours that feature ten towns spanning eighty linear miles across Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A storyteller leads each tour and reveals the folklore and haunted history of a featured historic town. The towns are Easton, Cambridge, St. Michaels, Ocean City, Berlin, Princess Anne, Pocomoke, Denton, Snow Hill, and Crisfield. The company will also have storytelling sessions for those who prefer not to walk, and a special “inside” tour of the company owner’s haunted Victorian home in Marion Station.
During Halloween week there are 15 ghost tours. 13 of those fall on Halloween weekend. Each ghost tour lasts just under two hours and most have a nighttime stroll through a graveyard. Some of the tours include unusual features like healing trees, elementals (non-human spirits), river walks, or walks into a haunted forest. Tickets must be purchased in advance through the company’s website or by phone.
Collectively, the ghost tours cover over 150 stories of the haunted Eastern Shore – stories that include Bloody Henny and the LeCompte Curse (Cambridge), The Town Dog Killer (Denton), The Ghost in the Governor’s Mansion (Snow Hill), The Haunted Carousel (Ocean City), the Child Spirit at the Atlantic Hotel (Berlin) and Easton’s haunted courthouse. All of the walks were written and crafted by company owner and author, Mindie Burgoyne.
October 21st, 22nd & 23rd, the Burgoynes offer an inside tour of their home in Marion Station to guests who are lucky enough to get tickets before they’re sold out. “Our home is what inspired me to write about haunted places,” states Mindie Burgoyne. “When we bought our home in 2002 strange things started to happen. Then the incidents got scary. When the incidents became terrifying we put the house up for sale, and that was only thirteen months after moving in.” Though most of the activity has quieted down, the Burgoynes still experience unexplained events from time to time, which they talk about as they guide guests through their home. Living in that house has inspired Mindie Burgoyne to write four books and scores of articles on haunted houses and properties.
Today Chesapeake Ghost Walks delivers over 200 ghost tours each year to more than 5000 guests, and the ten walks comprise the largest cluster of regional heritage walks in America. To date the haunted tours have been featured in The Washington Post, CBS News, The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Week Magazine and on National Public Radio and scores of local media outlets. The tours are conducted year-round and include ghost walks, bus tours and storytelling sessions.
When asked what her favorite tour is, Mindie Burgoyne responds, “It’s hard to pick, but my favorite is probably Ocean City because all of the haunted stories link to happy times – good times. The scariest tour is probably Pocomoke because guests get to walk into a forest that has a 200-year haunted legacy. I love Cambridge with its most haunted street in Maryland – 14 sites in two city blocks – it’s like haunted overload. Snow Hill has the only haunted site featured by a national cable network – The Snow Hill Inn. Berlin has its walking dead and some super strange energy forces. But Princess Anne is the most disturbing tour with content so harsh that we don’t sell kid’s tickets. Sometimes that walk even scares me. Of course I love them all, and all of the tours are scary in their own way.”
More information on the ghost tours is posted on the Chesapeake Ghost Walks website where there is a calendar of events, a full page describing each ghost tour and thirty-five ghost stories about haunted sites featured on the tours. The company also has a YouTube channel where Burgoyne tells some of the stories in a “Haunted Minutes” series.
