A look at two of NYC’s oldest and most haunted churches: Trinity Church and St. Paul’s Chapel, two famous houses of worship in Manhattan’s Financial District with cemeteries tucked into their churchyards.
Highlights include:
• Disinterring corpses to free up space in the cemetery
• A body (and ghost?) with a missing head
• Edgar Allen Poe’s possible cemetery cottage
• 2:30 am church services
• A child’s Egyptian-style sarcophagus found during a playground’s construction
• A look at some of the forgotten evils that happened in Manhattan
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Pictures of Haunted Trinity Church and St. Paul’s Chapel
Ruins of Trinity Church from Etchings of Old New York, Illustrations from “Old New York: from the Battery to Bloomingdale” by Eliza Greatorex and M. Despard (1875)
Trinity Church from Walks in Our Churchyards: Old New York, Trinity Parish By John Flavel Mines · 1896
St. John’s burying ground, from the New York Public Library’s collections
St. John’s burial ground from the New York Public Library’s collections
View of the churchyard of St. Paul’s Chapel from Etchings of Old New York, Illustrations from “Old New York: from the Battery to Bloomingdale” by Eliza Greatorex and M. Despard (1875)
St. Paul’s Chapel from Etchings of Old New York, Illustrations from “Old New York: from the Battery to Bloomingdale” by Eliza Greatorex and M. Despard (1875)
St. Paul’s seen from the south side; from Etchings of Old New York, Illustrations from “Old New York: from the Battery to Bloomingdale” by Eliza Greatorex and M. Despard (1875)
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Sources consulted RE: Haunted Trinity Church and St. Paul’s Chapel
Books
- Real Hauntings by Hans Holzer (1995)
- This House is Haunted by Hans Holzer (1997)
- Walks in Our Churchyards: Old New York, Trinity Parish By John Flavel Mines · 1896
- Ghosts of Manhattan: Legendary Spirits and Notorious Haunts by Philip Ernest Schoenberg · 2009
- Etchings of Old New York, Illustrations from “Old New York: from the Battery to Bloomingdale” by Eliza Greatorex and M. Despard (1875)
- Relics of Manhattan [electronic resource] : a series of photographs, from pen and ink sketches taken on the spot (1869) by Eliza Greatorex
Websites
- https://www.businessinsider.com/the-haunted-history-of-lower-manhattan-2015-10
- https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wall-streets-slave-peddli_n_1147314
- https://www.nps.gov/afbg/learn/historyculture/enslavement.htm
- https://peoplesworld.org/article/slavery-in-new-york-uncovering-the-brutal-truth/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade
- http://www.slaveryinnewyork.org/history.htm
- http://www.slaveryinnewyork.org/about_exhibit.htm
- https://www.nps.gov/afbg/learn/historyculture/enslavement.htm
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_New_Netherland
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_Kieft
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kieft%27s_War
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Amsterdam
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Church_(Manhattan)
- https://untappedcities.com/2017/06/09/the-top-10-secrets-of-nycs-st-pauls-chapel/?displayall=true
- https://didyouknowfacts.com/the-headless-ghost-of-st-pauls-chapel/
- https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/blogs/archivists-mailbag/trees-inside-st-pauls-chapel
- https://untappedcities.com/2017/06/09/the-top-10-secrets-of-nycs-st-pauls-chapel/?displayall=true
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Paul%27s_Chapel
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mark’s_Church_in-the-Bowery
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_New_York_(state)#Half-slavery
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_the_Blacks_(Manhattan)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_African_Methodist_Episcopal_Zion_Church
- Information about Little Africa and the history of Black people in Greenwich Village: https://greenwichvillage.nyc/blog/2020/02/10/look-black-history-village/
- https://atlantablackstar.com/2015/06/16/burial-remains-tell-the-story-of-new-yorks-little-africa/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/02/nyregion/in-their-footsteps.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algonquian_peoples
- https://untappedcities.com/2015/02/25/today-in-nyc-history-a-1643-massacre-of-the-lenape-almost-dooms-new-amsterdam/
- https://www.ncai.org/resources/resolutions/national-american-indian-holocaust-museum
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Burial_Ground_National_Monument
- https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/blogs/trinity-notes/ghosts-trinity
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Church_Cemetery
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_J._Walker_Park
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_Burying_Ground
- https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/blogs/archives/mummy-trinity-church
- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/74852371/mary-elizabeth-tisdall
- https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/mary-elizabeth-tisdall/
- https://keithyorkcity.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/st-johns-graveyard-little-leaguers-now-play-ball-above-10000-corpses/
- https://nycemetery.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/st-johns-cemetery/
- https://nycemetery.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/st-marks-in-the-bowery-churchyard-and-cemetery/
- https://nycemetery.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/st-pauls-chapel-churchyard/
- https://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/544841964/
- https://www.flickr.com/photos/75469677@N00/4420876543/in/set-72157623465293193/
- https://www.6sqft.com/10-offbeat-spots-that-reveal-new-york-citys-haunted-history/
- https://ny.curbed.com/maps/new-york-city-haunted-buildings-halloween
- https://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2015/10/the-ghost-of-peter-stuyvesant-may-still-haunt-the-east-village.html
- https://www.nypl.org/blog/2010/02/02/where-st-johns-old-burying-ground
- https://nypost.com/2014/10/25/the-hidden-cemeteries-of-nyc/
- https://www.6sqft.com/what-lies-below-nycs-forgotten-and-hidden-graveyards/
- https://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2010/05/burying-ground-below-ballfield-james.html
- https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2389220
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Church_Cemetery
- https://the-line-up.com/haunted-churches
- https://nyghosts.com/st-marks-church-in-the-bowery/
- http://www.weirdus.com/states/new_york/ghosts/st_marks_church/index.php
- https://nyghosts.com/st-marks-church/
- https://forgotten-ny.com/2014/07/adam-allyn-comedian-trinity-church-cemetery/
- https://the-line-up.com/ghosts-st-marks-church-in-the-bowery
- https://the-line-up.com/the-headless-ghost-of-st-pauls-chapel
- https://untappedcities.com/2017/06/09/the-top-10-secrets-of-nycs-st-pauls-chapel/?displayall=true
- https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/blogs/archivists-mailbag/church-wee-hours
- https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/blogs/archivists-mailbag/trees-inside-st-pauls-chapel
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mark’s_Church_in-the-Bowery
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Turney_Stewart
- https://gomadnomad.com/2011/10/25/new-york-city-haunted-cemeteries/
- http://www.liparanormalinvestigators.com/haunted-places-on-li/the-five-boroughs/trinity-church-cemetery/
- http://www.scoutingny.com/the-masked-lady-of-broadway/
https://nyghosts.com/st-marks-church/ - https://keithyorkcity.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/st-johns-graveyard-little-leaguers-now-play-ball-above-10000-corpses/
- https://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2010/05/burying-ground-below-ballfield-james.html
Don’t miss our past episodes:
- The Renwick Ruin:
- Investigating the Hawthorne Hotel:
- The Haunted Grove Park Inn, Asheville, North Carolina
- Haunted Asheville, North Carolina
- New York City Potter’s Fields
- Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York (Part 1)
- Archbishop John Hughes, aka Dagger John: Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York (Part 2)
- The Haunted Luxor Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas: Part 1
- The Haunted Luxor Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas: Part 2
- A Victorian Lunatic’s Fort: Fort Maxey, Blackwell’s Island, NYC
- The Roosevelt Island Lighthouse, or The Blackwell Island Light, NYC
- The General Slocum Disaster, Hell Gate, New York City
- The Haunted Hell Gate, New York City