Inn at Cemetery Hill Review: Sleeping Beside Gettysburg’s Most Famous Cemetery

Hello, spooky cats!

For another dark tourism hotel adventure, we returned to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and stayed at a property with possibly the most ominous hotel name in town: The Inn at Cemetery Hill.

With a name like that, you expect ghosts to come standard with the room.

Unlike places such as the Farnsworth House or Tillie Pierce House, however, the Inn at Cemetery Hill does not feel like you're sleeping inside an old Civil War-era home. Our room looked much more like a conventional hotel room. What makes this property particularly interesting for dark tourism is where it sits.

The inn is adjacent to Gettysburg National Cemetery and only yards from Cemetery Hill, one of the most fiercely contested positions during the Battle of Gettysburg. The hotel's own historical account notes that Confederate lines came within roughly 200 yards of the present inn site and that some of the fighting on July 2 occurred across the street.

So even if the hotel itself isn't a creaky 1860s mansion, the land surrounding it certainly has enough history to keep a paranormal investigator busy.

We spent the night, tested the room, explored the property, ate the included breakfast, and conducted a separate ghost hunt.

Here's what staying at the Inn at Cemetery Hill was really like.

Why Cemetery Hill Matters

Before we get to the hotel room, the location deserves some attention.

Cemetery Hill was one of the most strategically important positions during the Battle of Gettysburg. Union troops rallied there after fighting on July 1, and Confederate forces attempted to seize the hill during a major assault on the evening of July 2. At times, more than 50 Union cannons occupied the heights.

After the battle, Soldiers' National Cemetery was established on the hill. More than 3,500 Union dead were reinterred there beginning in the fall of 1863, and Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address during the cemetery's dedication on November 19, 1863.

And the Inn at Cemetery Hill is right beside all of it.

The Jennie Wade House—where Gettysburg's only civilian fatality of the battle was killed—is also only a short walk from the hotel.

For a dark tourism traveler, the location is hard to beat.

But Is the Inn at Cemetery Hill Actually Haunted?

This is where things become a little murkier.

Before our visit, I found stories online claiming that Room 205 was particularly haunted. There are also paranormal accounts floating around involving soldiers, apparitions, unexplained knocks, and other activity supposedly experienced at the inn. Recent guest reviews even occasionally mention paranormal experiences.

However, I could not find a strong historical source connecting Room 205 to a specific documented death or event.

More importantly, the inn's own historical information does not claim that the present hotel building served as a Civil War hospital or that a soldier died in Room 205. Instead, its history focuses on what happened on the surrounding ground during the battle.

That's an important distinction.

There are online stories claiming the building was a hospital during the battle, but I couldn't verify those through reliable historical sources. Given that, I would treat the Room 205 stories as paranormal folklore unless better documentation surfaces.

And there is nothing wrong with folklore—as long as we don't quietly promote it to "historical fact" when no one is looking.

The Mystery of Room 205

Naturally, once I read that Room 205 was supposedly haunted, I wanted to find it.

Except...

I couldn't.

I wandered around looking for Room 205 and began wondering whether the internet had invented an entire hotel room.

The Inn at Cemetery Hill actually consists of multiple accommodation areas. The current property has 51 rooms, with accommodations in its Baltimore Street building, Steinwehr Avenue building, and Village Suites building. Some rooms have balconies, porches, or private entrances.

So Room 205 may have been located in a section we didn't explore, may have been renumbered, or the story itself may simply be inaccurate.

I never solved that mystery during our stay.

Maybe Room 205 is so haunted it disappeared.

Convenient.

Our Room at the Inn at Cemetery Hill

Our actual room was much easier to locate.

Compared with many of the historic inns we've stayed in around Gettysburg, this felt like a standard modern hotel room.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

You walk in and get exactly what most travelers expect: a regular hotel bed, television, chair, refrigerator, coffee maker, private bathroom, and enough space to move around without climbing over antique furniture.

The room included:

• A large bed
• Television
• Refrigerator
• Coffee maker
• Full-length mirror
• Chair
• Private bathroom
• Hair dryer
• Toiletries
• Several towels
• A private balcony

There was no microwave in our room.

Current listings show that room amenities can vary, so it's worth checking the exact room type when booking.

The Balcony Was a Nice Surprise

One of the coolest features was our private balcony.

Balconies aren't something we get with most of our hotel rooms, especially at this price level.

The downside?

Sound travels.

People outside were revving motorcycles and cars, and we could hear plenty of activity through the balcony area.

We visited during February, so it was cold and the balcony did not have chairs set out. During warmer weather, it would probably be a nice place to sit and take in Gettysburg.

The official hotel site confirms that some rooms have private balconies and porches, so if that's something you want, look carefully at the room type before booking.

Not Many Outlets

The room did not have many convenient electrical outlets.

This may not matter if you're traveling with a phone charger and that's it.

We travel with cameras, recorders, lights, chargers, batteries, EMF meters, ghost-hunting gadgets, and enough electronics to make the room look like we're trying to contact NASA rather than the dead.

Bring a power strip.

This felt almost like staying on a cruise ship, where available outlets become valuable real estate.

The Bathroom

The bathroom looked clean and included the usual basics.

There was a hair dryer, toiletries, towels, and a standard shower setup.

Nothing about the bathroom screamed "historic haunted hotel." It was simply a regular hotel bathroom.

Which, after some of the microscopic bathrooms we've encountered in historic Gettysburg inns, can actually be refreshing.

No claw-foot tub.

No shower curtain attacking your body.

No plumbing controls requiring an archaeological degree.

Just a bathroom.

The Squealing Shower

The shower did have one entertaining feature.

It squealed.

For part of the shower, the plumbing made a noise that sounded like air escaping from a balloon.

Fortunately, it did not continue the entire time.

The water itself became nice and hot. The pressure was weaker than I prefer, but it was perfectly usable.

So the shower passed.

The ghost screaming from inside the pipes remains unconfirmed.

The Bed

The bed was comfortable.

In fact, I slept better here than I normally do in hotels.

Nothing woke me during the night.

No footsteps.

No voices.

No mysterious figure beside the bed.

No Civil War soldier asking me to move over.

Considering we specifically chose a supposedly haunted hotel, that may sound disappointing—but from the hotel-review side of things, a quiet night's sleep is definitely a positive.

Exploring the Hotel

Naturally, I wandered around the property to see what I could find.

There were vending machines, an ice machine, stairs, elevators, laundry facilities, and various hallways to explore.

The hotel currently advertises free parking, complimentary Wi-Fi, breakfast, pet-friendly options, and a 24-hour front desk.

The elevator was a little confusing at first. I wasn't entirely sure it was moving.

That is always reassuring.

But it worked.

Unlike some of the genuinely antique elevators we've encountered at historic hotels, nothing about this one seemed particularly supernatural.

The Breakfast Was Surprisingly Good

Breakfast was included with our stay, and I was pleasantly surprised.

The hotel currently describes it as a complimentary "Simple American" breakfast served in the main building.

During our visit, the breakfast area had plenty of choices and one of the better hotel coffee machines I've encountered.

I take hotel coffee very seriously.

Bad hotel coffee is one of the few forces more powerful than paranormal activity.

The included breakfast added a lot of value to the stay, especially since we could eat before heading out to explore Gettysburg.

Black-Light Ghost Hunting

I brought a black light with me because I wanted to experiment with whether ultraviolet light might reveal anything interesting during a paranormal investigation.

I hadn't really seen other ghost hunters using one at the time, so why not test it?

Mostly, it made the room look creepy.

We did spot some strange-looking areas under the light, but black lights can reveal all sorts of perfectly earthly things—detergents, cleaners, fibers, bodily fluids, residue, and substances I would frankly prefer not to identify in a hotel room.

Nothing we saw gave us any reason to believe UV light had revealed a ghost.

It did, however, make me reconsider how closely I wanted to inspect hotel carpeting.

Some experiments are best left unfinished.

The Location Is the Real Attraction

The strongest reason to stay at the Inn at Cemetery Hill is location.

The property is adjacent to Gettysburg National Cemetery and close to the battlefield, Jennie Wade House, museums, ghost tours, restaurants, and shops.

You can park your car and walk to many attractions.

That makes a huge difference in Gettysburg, particularly during busy weekends when parking downtown can become its own military campaign.

For someone building a dark tourism itinerary, this is an extremely practical base.

You can visit battle sites during the day, walk through town, take a ghost tour at night, and return to a hotel literally named after the cemetery beside it.

Subtlety was apparently not part of the branding strategy.

Does Being Near a Cemetery Make It Haunted?

Probably not by itself.

This is where I think the Inn at Cemetery Hill becomes particularly interesting from a skeptical paranormal perspective.

The hotel sits beside a cemetery containing thousands of graves and ground where soldiers fought and died. That naturally encourages people to interpret unusual experiences through a paranormal lens.

But proximity to death does not demonstrate paranormal activity.

The environment also provides plenty of potential false positives:

• Traffic
• Motorcycles
• Tourists
• Nearby businesses
• Other hotel guests
• Doors closing
• Plumbing
• Elevators
• Outdoor voices
• Wildlife
• Battlefield cannon demonstrations or other distant sounds
• Expectation created by Gettysburg's haunted reputation

If someone checks into a hotel called the Inn at Cemetery Hill, already believing Gettysburg is filled with Civil War ghosts, every knock at 2 a.m. suddenly becomes much more interesting.

That's why controls matter.

Did We Experience Anything Paranormal?

During the room-review portion of the visit?

No.

We had an extremely normal night.

I slept well. The shower squealed. Motorcycles made noise. The elevator behaved oddly enough to be mildly entertaining but not supernatural.

Nothing happened that I could confidently label paranormal.

We conducted a separate ghost investigation, but simply staying in the room did not produce a dramatic experience.

And that's okay.

A haunted reputation isn't supposed to guarantee a performance.

If ghosts exist, apparently no one has explained YouTube deadlines to them.

Who Would Enjoy Staying Here?

I think the Inn at Cemetery Hill works especially well for people who want the spooky Gettysburg experience without necessarily sleeping inside a cramped nineteenth-century house.

You get a much more conventional hotel room while still staying extremely close to some of Gettysburg's darkest historic locations.

It's a good choice for:

• Gettysburg battlefield visitors
• Dark tourism travelers
• Paranormal enthusiasts
• Ghost-tour fans
• Visitors who want free parking
• Travelers who want breakfast included
• People who like having a refrigerator
• Guests who prefer modern rooms over antique B&Bs
• Anyone hoping for a balcony

It is also currently pet-friendly in portions of the property, while another building is designated pet-free for guests with sensitivities.

What Could Be Better

Our biggest practical complaints were fairly minor.

The room could have used more electrical outlets, the balcony allowed quite a bit of outside noise into the room, and the shower pressure could have been stronger.

The shower also briefly performed its balloon-squealing impression.

None of that seriously affected our stay.

For paranormal investigators, the bigger problem is environmental contamination. This isn't an isolated historic house. It's an active hotel in a busy part of Gettysburg, so unexplained sounds need to be treated cautiously.

Final Inn at Cemetery Hill Review

I liked the Inn at Cemetery Hill and would stay there again.

The room was clean and comfortable, the bed gave me a surprisingly good night's sleep, the shower had hot water, the refrigerator was useful, breakfast was included, and the coffee machine earned my approval.

The balcony was a nice bonus.

Most importantly, the location is excellent.

You are staying only yards from Cemetery Hill, beside Gettysburg National Cemetery, and near ground where some of the most important fighting of the Battle of Gettysburg occurred.

Is the hotel itself haunted?

I don't know.

I found paranormal stories—including the mysterious Room 205—but I couldn't find convincing historical documentation supporting the more elaborate versions of those stories. What is well documented is the extraordinary amount of history immediately surrounding the property.

And honestly, that makes it interesting enough.

If you want a haunted Gettysburg atmosphere without sacrificing a comfortable, fairly conventional hotel room, the Inn at Cemetery Hill is a solid choice.

We didn't meet a Civil War ghost.

We didn't find Room 205.

But we got a balcony, a good night's sleep, excellent hotel coffee, and a cemetery filled with thousands of dead soldiers practically next door.

For a dark tourism trip, that'll do nicely.

Stay spooky, cats!