The Most Haunted Hotels In Boston

Posted: 01.03.2025 | Updated: 01.03.2025

As a city that played an integral role in the founding of the United States, Boston is rich with historical events and locations, many of which are haunted. The city has its fair share of haunted houses, theatres, and restaurants, but there are also a shocking number of haunted hotels in the city. The ghosts that haunt these hotels are chilling reminders of the dark side of Boston’s history and the many tragedies that befell those who never checked out of their lodgings.

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What Is The Most Haunted Hotel In Boston?

Determining the most haunted hotel in Boston is no easy task. There’s the Charlesgate Hotel, which has a history of hauntings dating back to its time as a dorm in the 1980s and 90s and may have housed a satanic cult. Then there’s the Liberty Hotel, which was formerly a prison. To this day, guests are adamant that some inmates are still serving their sentences. Perhaps most haunted of all is the Omni Parker House, where the original owner has appeared at the foot of a guest’s bed in the early morning hours. Each hotel has its own unique, creepy story that sets it apart from others in Boston. 

Omni Parker House

The original Parker House opened in 1855, but the current structure was completed in 1927. Famous and infamous guests included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, and John Wilkes Booth. Booth stayed at the hotel a week before the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Hauntings at this swank hotel were first reported in 1940 and have only increased over the years.

The most active spirit at the Omni Parker House is the original owner, Harvey D. Parker, who has been seen wandering the halls of the 10th floor. One woman staying in Room 1012 reported waking up to see a large man with a beard standing at the foot of her bed. He smiled at her, and as she smiled back, the man vanished. Only later, the woman saw Parker’s portrait and realized he was the ghostly man at the foot of her bed.

Other apparitions, along with orbs, have been seen on the 10th and 11th floors of the hotel. A former resident of Room 303 still haunts his former lodgings, and guests have complained of the smell of whiskey and cigars throughout the room. Sometimes, guests will open the door to their room after hearing people whispering outside, only to find the hallway completely empty. Elevator 1 is also known to stop on the 3rd floor for no reason. Security has been called to Room 1040 multiple times after complaints of a loud party taking place, only to find that the room isn’t occupied. In the oldest section of the hotel, a shadow figure wearing a stovepipe hat has been reported. 

The Liberty Hotel

Before it was a luxury hotel, The Liberty was a prison. Formerly known as the Old Charles Street Jail, the prison opened in 1851 and operated until 1973. During this time, it housed notorious criminals such as James “Whitey” Bulger and Albert DeSalvo, better known as the Boston Strangler. Political activist Malcolm X also spent time at Charles Street, and writer Henry David Thoreau was briefly jailed there after he failed to pay a poll tax. 

By the 1970s, the Old Charles Street Jail was known for its deplorable conditions as well as cruel and unusual punishment. A group of prisoners even sued the prison due to the inhabitable living conditions. Rather than make the necessary renovations to the Old Charles Street Jail, it was closed and sat vacant for nearly two decades. It was purchased in 1991 and spent the following 16 years being renovated. It opened as The Liberty Hotel in 2007. Despite the luxury upgrade, the hotel maintained the prison’s central atrium, catwalks, and cell doors. It could be that these echoes of the past are what keep the ghosts active.

Over the years, there have been reports of a Woman in White who haunts the hotel kitchen. Apparitions of guards and inmates have also been seen in the kitchen and throughout the hotel. One guest claimed she saw the figure of a man outside her window on the hotel’s seventh floor. The ghost of a young girl has also been spotted in the hotel, but it’s unclear how her spirit ended up there.

The Charlesgate Hotel

Built in the 1890s by renowned Boston architect John Pickering Putnam, the Charlesgate Hotel has earned a reputation for being one of the most haunted buildings in Boston. The Charlesgate functioned as a hotel until 1947, when it was sold to Boston University, which used the massive building as a dormitory. Emerson College used the Charlesgate for the same purpose from 1981-1995. It was during this time that stories of hauntings began to circulate.

Emerson College students reported huge gusts of cold wind that would slam doors shut, toilets that flushed on their own, and sightings of apparitions. One in particular, the Man in Black, was seen by multiple witnesses near the elevators. It was believed that the mafia had owned the hotel at one point, and this dark spirit could be a deceased mobster or a victim of the mob.

The Charlesgate did have its fair share of tragedy before becoming a dormitory. In 1908, a hotel resident named Westwood T. Windram shot himself with a revolver while his wife was in the other room. The suicide of a student during the hotel’s days as a Boston University dorm was also said to have occurred. There are even claims that John Pickering Putnam’s daughter died in the hotel and that he later took his own life, but both claims are verifiably untrue.

One other claim made about the Charlesgate is that a demonic cult lived in the building before Emerson College took possession of it. Whatever happened there, Emerson College administration allegedly forbade the use of Ouija boards inside the dorm. Of course, that made their use all the more enticing. 

Haunted Boston

From prisons to dormitories, the haunted hotels of Boston have lived many lives. You can learn about all the city’s haunted happenings by booking a ghost tour with Boston Ghosts today! Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and keep reading our blog for more real Massachusetts hauntings.

Sources:

http://newenglandfolklore.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-haunted-charlesgate-ghosts-college.html