Haunted Case File: Fort Worden
Case Summary
Location: Fort Worden Historical State Park, Port Townsend, Washington, USA
Established: 1898; military operations began in 1902
Case type: Multi-location haunting case file, including a January 2024 investigation
Reported hotspots: The Bricks; Alexander’s Castle; the batteries and tunnels; the Commanding Officer’s Quarters; the Guard House; Point Wilson Lighthouse (a separate, nearby legend)
Primary reports: Footsteps, moans, whispers, apparitions or figures, unusual smells, ghost lights, equipment responses, and a sense of being watched
Case status: Open. The January 2024 report records the team’s experiences; many public lore claims still lack named witnesses, dates, or original records.
After the team’s sessions at Alexander’s Castle, Melissa Becker and Christel England heard what sounded like heavy footsteps moving up and down the stairs toward the bedroom while they slept. Melissa got up to check. She found no one there.
That is a firsthand account from our January 2024 investigation. It tells us what two people heard and what happened next. It doesn’t tell us what caused the sound.
That difference, between a report and an explanation, is where this case file begins.
Case Overview
Fort Worden is a former U.S. Army coastal-defense post in Port Townsend, Washington. Its history includes decades of military use, a period as a juvenile treatment center, and its later life as a state park. The ghost stories now attached to the grounds range from footsteps and moans in the batteries to apparitions, odd smells, and unexplained lights.
The ghost stories don’t all point to one building or one spirit. Some are linked to specific places, such as the Guard House, the Commanding Officer’s Quarters, and the Bricks. Others are told about the fort as a whole, with no clear location, date, or witness attached.
This case file looks at the reports as reports. It keeps documented history, a witness’s own experience, secondhand lore, and an investigator’s interpretation in separate lanes.
Fort Worden’s Dark History
Several deaths and tragedies are often brought into Fort Worden’s paranormal history. Captain Frank Thornton died by suicide in the Bricks in 1911. William Payne, a maintenance worker associated with Alexander’s Castle, died in a cistern under mysterious circumstances that our earlier report describes as unresolved. Corporal Henry Johnson was murdered in 1908, though the often-repeated claim that he was killed at Alexander’s Castle is wrong: our historical research places the murder at the band barracks.
These events give the stories a real historical setting. They don’t establish that any of the people involved haunt the fort.
Crows Nest Bluff: An Unresolved Murder and Missing Soldiers
In “Under the Crow’s Eye,” Ghostly Activities examines the 1910 death of Private Robert B. Dumm, whose body was found below Crows Nest Bluff, and the discovery of unidentified remains nearby. The article also reviews soldiers recorded as deserters whose disappearances raised suspicion among their fellow artillerymen. It presents a possible pattern of robberies and murders, but the wider series was never formally solved, and the identity of the nearby remains is not certain.
That history matters to the beach haunting reports, but it doesn’t prove that the reports involve Dumm, the unidentified soldier, or any other missing serviceman. The historical connection is a plausible explanation, not an established explanation.
Eyewitness Reports
The Bricks: Footsteps on the Stairs
A haunt directory describes heavy footsteps going up and down the stairs toward the bedroom as the Bricks’ most consistent reported phenomenon. The account does not identify a witness or give dates, and I have not found a firsthand public account that traces this story to its origin.
Our own investigation adds a separate report from Alexander’s Castle: Melissa Becker and Christel England heard loud footsteps going up and down the stairs while they were asleep. Melissa checked the building and found no one. That was their experience at Alexander’s Castle, not a confirmation of the Bricks legend.
The Batteries and Tunnels: Moans, Whispers, and a Watched Feeling
A local newspaper says hikers and campers have reported hearing moans in the hallways of abandoned barracks and in the fort’s tunnels. Other lists repeat claims of phantom footsteps, whispers in the batteries, apparitions on the parade grounds, ghost lights, and the feeling of being watched.
The broad pattern is familiar, but the details are thin. The public accounts I found don’t name the hikers or campers, give dates, identify a particular battery, or describe how the witnesses ruled out ordinary sounds. Until we can trace the reports to people who experienced them, these remain secondhand claims.
Crows Nest Beach and Bluff Trail: Shadow Figures, Cold Spots, and Unease
Ghostly Activities’ “Under the Crow’s Eye” notes decades of reports along the Fort Worden waterfront. Visitors describe figures at the edge of the beach that disappear when approached, cold spots, and a strong sense of unease in the brush below the bluff. The article places these accounts near the area where Dumm’s body and the nearby unidentified remains were found.
The location makes the stories compelling, but the published accounts summarized in the article don’t provide a witness list, dates, or original statements for each beach report. We can say that people have reported unusual experiences there, and that the area has a disturbing history. We can’t establish that the sightings are the ghosts of murder victims, nor the reported activity is caused by the murders.
The Commanding Officer’s Quarters: Strange Smells and a Figure in Purple
A paranormal site reports that visitors noticed smells described as burning coal, burning rubber, or hot sulfur near the front door of the Commanding Officer’s Quarters. It also features a photograph attributed to investigator Tomasina Doran of Seattle Ghost Investigators. The image is described as showing a purple-clothed male figure, with a face visible in a mirror.
The same account quotes Doran saying her team spent several nights investigating the house around Halloween and came away with evidence they considered compelling. The public version does not supply the investigation date, the original image file, the names of everyone present, or a detailed account of the smell reports. Those are reasonable follow-up questions before treating the stories as independent, recurring experiences.
The Guard House: The Angry Sergeant
A haunted-sites listing tells of a sergeant who supposedly died after accidentally shooting himself while on duty in the Guard House. The story describes a shy or angry male presence, sometimes seen as a shadow. The page also relays investigator Fiona Bloom’s account of brightly colored lights near the Guard House and a blue figure that appeared in a photograph, though Bloom said she had not seen the figure when she took the picture.
Bloom’s account is a named investigator’s reported firsthand experience, preserved in a later online summary that points to her own investigation report. I have not been able to review that original report in this research pass. The sergeant’s identity and the accidental-death story also need confirmation from historical records before they’re presented as fact.
Point Wilson Lighthouse: Maria Looking for Her Son
A separate story belongs to the Point Wilson Light Station. In the version shared by a lighthouse volunteer, the ghost is Maria Hastings Littlefield, wife of the first keeper. She is said to move through the keeper’s house, searching closets and drawers for her only son, who drowned, and to disappear when someone enters the room.
The volunteer traced the story to two versions in print, including a 2010 newspaper article and Ray Jones’s Haunted Lighthouses. The volunteer also said that none of the lighthouse group had seen anything unusual during the restoration and tours. Point Wilson is part of the park, but this is a distinct lighthouse legend, so it belongs at the edge of the Fort Worden file rather than being merged into the stories about the batteries or barracks.
Our investigation
In January 2024, Ghostly Activities and friends investigated the Bricks and Alexander’s Castle. Our published ghost hunt report includes the investigation background, the history we used to plan the sessions, our interviews with people working at the fort, personal experiences, and the equipment responses.
A few moments from that report belong in this case file because they are firsthand witness accounts:
The Bricks
At the Bricks, the team investigated Unit 16A, associated with Captain Thornton. In Unit 16B, team members heard what sounded like an intruder in Unit 16A. Melissa reported footsteps in the hallway and what sounded like someone rummaging through food on the kitchen table. The team checked the rooms and found no one. They later found the main lobby door ajar, though it had been locked earlier.
In Unit 16B, the SLS Mini displayed what looked to the team like a child reaching toward Rachel. That is an interpretation of a device image, not a visual sighting by a person.
Alexander’s Castle
At Alexander’s Castle, the team ran sessions focused on William Payne, Corporal Johnson, and John Alexander. The North Head Technique produced responses on the Onvoy Ghost Box and Ovilus 5, and a REM pod activated after the team asked questions about Johnson’s murder. During a separate cistern session, the team received no responses.
After the sessions, Melissa and Christel heard the stair footsteps while sleeping. Melissa checked the building and found no one.
These observations are part of our field record. The devices’ words, lights, and figures need to be reviewed alongside the people present, the room conditions, and ordinary sources of sound or movement. The full account is in Fort Worden Ghost Hunting Report.
What the Haunted Record Supports
The Fort Worden stories have a strong setting and a few vivid reports. Some accounts have named investigators. Others come through local news or haunted-location pages without names, dates, or original testimony. Several websites repeat the same story clusters, so repetition online does not necessarily mean multiple independent witnesses.
One local article says the first verified reports of spirits appeared after the park opened in August 1973. It does not identify a contemporary 1973 report, so the date should be treated as a claim about the lore’s origin, not a verified start date.
For now, the most responsible assessment is that Fort Worden has a documented paranormal reputation, but the public witness record is uneven. Some people report unusual experiences. The available accounts don’t establish a supernatural cause.
What’s Next?
The next useful work is not another broad list of ghost stories. It is source tracing.
- Find the earliest report that places the ghost stories at the park after its 1973 opening.
- Seek the original report and photograph from Fiona Bloom’s Guard House investigation.
- Ask Tomasina Doran or her team for the original Commanding Officer’s Quarters image, the date and location, and the notes from the investigation.
- Interview current or former staff about the smells, moans, and other reports. Ask for the first time they heard each story and whether they experienced it themselves.
- Find firsthand accounts of the Bricks footsteps and the tunnel moans, including dates, locations, other witnesses, and environmental conditions.
- Trace the waterfront and Crows Nest Bluff reports to named witnesses, dates, and original accounts; compare the reported locations with the historical record without assuming a paranormal connection.
Until those gaps are filled, Fort Worden remains an open case with a rich history, a lively body of ghostlore, and a small number of specific witness accounts worth following.
Sources and related reading
- Ghostly Activities, “Fort Worden Ghost Hunting Report”
- Ghostly Activities, “Under the Crow’s Eye: The Unsolved Murders at Fort Worden”
- Leslie Kelly and John Nelson, “Port Townsend is full of ghosts, cinematic and otherwise,” The Spokesman-Review, October 7, 2022
- Mary Williams, “A spooky stop on our Puget Sound Loop,” Gig Harbor Now, September 26, 2024
- HauntedHouses.com, Fort Worden Commanding Officer’s Quarters
- HauntedHouses.com, Fort Worden Guard House
- Point Wilson Lighthouse, “Hauntings at Point Wilson?”
- Hauntpedia, Fort Worden ghost stories and reports
Have you had a spooky encounter at Fort Worden? If so, tell us all about it in the comments below. Thanks for reading Ghostly Activities. Much appreciated and take care!
