Unitarian Church Cemetery

The second oldest church in the city, built in 1772 and rebuilt in 1854, features a cemetery where the Unitarians wanted to be buried so the dead and nature could be intertwined. The overgrown paths hide tragic love stories.

The Unitarian Church Cemetery in Charleston is the oldest Unitarian church graveyard in the South, tucked behind the church at 4 Archdale Street in the heart of the historic district. The cemetery is famously overgrown, with ancient headstones half-swallowed by creeping ivy, twisted tree roots, and tangles of wild vegetation that give it the appearance of a place that time and nature are slowly reclaiming. It is also the setting for one of Charleston's most romantic and enduring ghost stories -- the legend of Annabel Lee, believed by many to be the inspiration for Edgar Allan Poe's final poem.

According to the Charleston version of the legend, a young woman named Anna Ravenel, a member of one of the city's most prominent families, fell deeply in love with a soldier named Edward Allen who was stationed at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island. Anna's father, a proud and protective man, did not approve of the match and forbade the relationship. But Anna and Edward continued to see each other in secret, meeting in the garden of the Unitarian Church Cemetery among the graves and the moss-draped oaks.

Anna fell gravely ill -- some versions of the story say from yellow fever, others from a broken heart after her father forced the lovers apart. She died before Edward could reach her side. Her father, consumed by hatred for the young soldier he blamed for his daughter's death, refused to allow Edward to attend the funeral. To ensure that Edward could never find Anna's grave and mourn her, the father had six different graves dug and filled throughout the cemetery, with no tombstone to mark which one held his daughter's body. Anna was buried in an unmarked grave, lost among the hundreds of others in the overgrown churchyard.

Edgar Allan Poe was stationed at Fort Moultrie as a young enlisted soldier from November 1827 to December 1828. Whether the story of Anna and Edward predates Poe or was later constructed to explain the poem's Charleston connection remains debated by historians. Poe's Annabel Lee, published shortly after his death in 1849, tells of a love so powerful that even death cannot end it -- a love in a kingdom by the sea. Charleston, with its harbor, its forts, and its ancient churchyards, fits the poem's setting with eerie precision.

Visitors to the Unitarian Church Cemetery report seeing the ghost of a young woman in white moving among the graves, particularly at dusk and after dark. She appears near the areas where the unmarked graves are believed to be, drifting between the headstones as if searching for something -- or someone. The apparition is translucent, peaceful, and heartbreakingly sad. Some visitors have reported hearing a woman's voice softly calling a name, though the words are never quite clear enough to make out. Cold spots appear without explanation in the humid Charleston air, and several visitors have described an overwhelming feeling of loss and longing that descends on them as they walk through the cemetery's overgrown paths.

Today the Unitarian Church Cemetery is open to visitors and is a popular stop on Charleston ghost tours. The overgrown, atmospheric grounds provide one of the most photographed settings in a city full of beautiful graveyards. Whether the ghost who walks among the graves is Anna Ravenel searching for her lost love or simply the weight of centuries of burial and grief pressing against the thin membrane between the living and the dead, the Unitarian Church Cemetery remains one of the most hauntingly beautiful and emotionally powerful sites in Charleston.