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National Park After Dark

304: America’s Oldest Ghost Tour. Harper’s Ferry National Historical Park.

National Park After Dark

Audioboom Studios

True Crime, Places & Travel, Wilderness, Society & Culture, Sports

4.84.6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2025

⏱️ 68 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the 1970s Shirley Dougherty moved to Harpers Ferry West Virginia and started experiencing strange occurrences. And she wasn’t alone. Residents were quick to tell her their experiences with the paranormal, and she eventually complied them into a book - a text that became the foundation of what she claims to be America’s’ oldest ghost tour. Today, Danielle brings us on our own through one of the country’s most spooky locations.

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Sources:


Articles: National Park Service, Fergus M. Bordewich,The Gilder Lehrman Collection, PBS, 12 WBOY, The WV Independent Observer, HauntedHouses.com,  Library of Virginia, West Virginia Haunts and Legends, Only In Your State

Videos: Expeditions in Education, The Hauntings of Harpers Ferry

Podcasts: Stuff You Missed In History Class

For a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodes

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

We all have our own ways of getting to know new places when we travel. Some buy guidebooks and craft perfectly planned itineraries, while others roam the streets and see what they stumble upon. When we arrive somewhere new, many of us flock to museums, bars, and hiking trails trying to get a sense of a place we're still

0:21.8

itching to understand. We can see a new city through the lens of its food, its history,

0:27.0

its architecture, or its nightlife. There are many sides to every place we visit, multiple worlds

0:33.0

all contained within one. But for some, there's yet another dimension that they are eager to explore

0:38.9

when arriving in a new place, the paranormal. In hundreds of cities across the U.S.,

0:44.6

you can sign up for walking ghost tours, and these tours stop at sites that have haunted

0:49.2

reputations while curious travelers tag along, hoping for a chance to brush arms with the city's most notorious ghosts.

0:56.3

These ghost horrors are a thrill, but they're not all fun in games.

1:00.6

Many of the most frightening ghost stories are rooted in real events that took place on street corners,

1:06.4

in homes, in churches, and the effects of these tragedies still reverberate around communities in

1:12.2

very real ways hundreds of years later. There are countless of these tours across the globe,

1:17.5

but today we are going to be telling the story of what many consider to be the oldest ghost

1:22.3

tour in the United States and the history that preceded it. Every year, tourists travel to West Virginia to see a side

1:29.4

of a town called Harper's Ferry that you can only experience up close and in the dark.

1:37.4

Welcome to National Park After Dark.

1:40.3

Music dark. Well, if I've ever heard an episode that you have ever heard an episode that you have curtailed to your interests, this would be it.

2:07.7

This is it, baby.

2:08.9

I'm so excited.

2:10.0

Your bread and butter right here.

2:13.2

Hi, everyone.

2:14.5

My name is Danielle.

2:16.1

And I'm Cassie.

...

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