Chesapeake and Ohio Canal — phantom soldiers and drowned mule drivers of Maryland

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, stretching 184 miles from Georgetown in Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland, operated from 1831 to 1924. The canal was the scene of numerous drownings, accidents, and violence during its operating years — mule drivers, lock keepers, and boatmen died along its length from falls, drownings, disease, and murder. The canal path, now a national historical park, is the site of persistent ghost reports. Hikers and cyclists on the towpath have described seeing a spectral mule team pulling a phantom canal boat, the sound of a lock mechanism operating when no one is at the lock, and the figure of a Civil War soldier standing at the edge of the canal. During the Civil War, the canal zone saw military activity, and soldiers from both sides died along its banks. Near specific locks and aqueducts, visitors have reported hearing splashing and cries for help from the water, as though someone is drowning. The canal's Paw Paw Tunnel — a 3,118-foot passage carved through a mountain — is considered especially eerie, with visitors reporting voices echoing inside the tunnel and the sensation of someone walking close behind them. The combination of the canal's isolated rural setting, its tragic operational history, and its Civil War connections makes it one of Maryland's most haunted landscapes.