While trawling through the paranormal information on About.com, I discovered an interesting article entitled ‘Why People Believe the South is the Most Haunted in the Country‘. Since I’m the Southern Belle of this group (sorry ScoobyFan, Florida doesn’t count – LOL) I felt it my Southern Duty to both read and write about this article.
In summary, the author offers five reasons why it is believed the Southern states are more haunted than the Northern states. The first theory is that it’s simply because people tend to stay put for longer periods of time. This is true because you can go just about anywhere in any state and find at least one family who has been in the area over several generations. Many people here in New Orleans have lived here all of their lives and cannot fathom moving away.
The second theory is the entertainment factor. Not so much television and movies, but the old kind of entertainment. Many stories of haunted places have been told over and over as a form of entertainment long before television or movies were invented. One story that might’ve started out as a tale to entertain, could’ve easily morphed into something “true”.
The third theory is slavery. The majority of the Civil War was fought in the South. If one accepts that the majority of hauntings occurr where a very violent death happened, then yes all of these tragic sites will be haunted. But I don’t believe that ever single soldier who fought and died on those fields return to haunt the place of their death.
The fourth theory is based on the landscape. As the author states, “One might also believe there are more ghosts in the South because there is simply more room in which to spot them.”
The fifth theory is simply based on the fact that there is more renovation that goes on here and more tearing down and rebuilding on land. Again, if one accepts the theory that residential hauntings are often the result of changes being made to a house that the spirit of the previous owner “isn’t happy with” or is too unfamiliar, it’s a plausible theory.
My own theory about why the South could be considered more haunted than the North supports the second theory, in part as well as the fourth. Settlements (and cities) in the South are so widespread that it allowed for pockets of smaller settlements far removed from city life, where superstitious beliefs flourished and were maintained even up to today. I’m not saying by any means that it’s a lack of education, but more like a different religious conviction that allows them to be more open minded than the city folk of the north.
The Witching Hour 
Well, as your Yankee friend (giggles) I must say…that is a very interesting way of looking at it! And the theory of the the beliefs remaining even through the modern times makes a lot of sense. I know that there are certainly a large number of locations in the South that are haunted.
I do think that some spirits are unrested because of the violence of their death…and the crime of slavery is one that left a tragic mark behind. I would hate to think of the slaves being unable to rest though…so much of their life was spent toiling away at hard labor, and they deserve respect and rest in their life after.
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I think a lot of that has to do with length of habitation and the density of the population. New England, which is in the north, has a lot of ghost stories. Being that that’s where the first colonists of the United States settled, it’s been more densely occupied for some time. Second to New England, are the southern states, which have been occupied for a similar duration of time. Though, in comparison, New England is substantially smaller than the south. Still, I tend to think it’s not just location or events that occur in an area that contribute to hauntings… because it’s generally accepted that more densely populated areas have higher crime rates and therefore, the potential for tragedy to occur increases.
It’s also difficult to tell who has more hauntings… it could be that the people in the south are a little more attuned to the paranormal because of more cultural aspects. Louisiana, for example, with its roots in VooDoo is a little more open to ghosts and hauntings than the puritan roots in the northern states, which had their own witch hunts to root out the supernatural. While one area embraced a supernal legacy, the other avoided it.
… and let’s not get into the southwest. (Woo! Yay, Arizona!) I think stories here are as rich with legacy… but I think, because the southwest is so spread out people tend to neglect the fact there area places here that could very well be considered the most haunted places in the country. =)
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