Rutland Prison Camp: Ruins in a State Park

Historic photo of Rutland Prison
Camp Cemetery, courtesy of
The Rutland Land Conservancy

Few reportedly haunted locations are as open to the public and readily accessible as Rutland Prison Camp. You can drive right up to most of the sites of interest, and do so legally, assuming it's daytime. The site has long since been abandoned, so visitors must use caution and explore at their own risk, but responsible ghost hunters should have no problem checking everything out without incident. This is on the short list of places I would recommend visiting if you're looking for ghosts, not because I think they're there, but because you won't be bothering anyone.

The ruins of Rutland Prison Camp are located in what is now the Rutland State Park. The park is 300 acres and has lots to do. You can go swimming, have a picnic or even take your boat out when you come to scope out the camp.

Rutland Prison Camp opened in 1903. It had a big country house for the superintendent, prison dorms, solitary confinement cells, a farm for the prisoners to work and a root cellar for storing vegetables. Four years after it opened, a tuberculosis hospital was built to treat prisoners with consumption. The prison was not open for long. It was abandoned in 1934. Not all of it was left to rot, though. Most of it was destroyed, but a few structures remain.

The root cellar is still largely standing. It's in an overgrown hill and barely recognizable, but you can still walk in and check out all the vulgar graffiti covering its walls. Solitary confinement still stands, though it is open to the elements. The small cells give visitors an idea of how claustrophobic confinement would have been. There is also a drainage tunnel, as well as some other crumbling walls and foundations. The tunnel is full of debris and runoff. As far as I can tell, people don't actually go in anymore.

My personal favorite bit of the Rutland Prison Camp grounds is down Charnock Hill Rd. Go to Goose Hill Cemetery and follow the trail beyond it. There, you will find a marker where crosses once marked the graves of 59 inmates buried there. Sadly, there is no Pet Sematary.

There isn't much in the way of spooky ghost stories related to Rutland Prison Camp. The place housed low-level criminals, or at least those who had been convicted of low-level crimes, so there aren't even stories of murderers or executions to give the place a creepy vibe. All I could find was one story about the ex-warden's wife haunting the location where her house used to be. Of course, any records of an ex-warden's wife dying there are elusive.

Check out some photos of when the prison was still standing. Feel free to post your photos and experiences in the comments section.