Adults Only The Dead Do Not Forget Richmond Ghost Tour

Begin at the Reconciliation Triangle Statue, a memorial connecting Richmond with Liverpool, England, and Benin in West Africa through the history of the slave trade. This stop introduces the central theme of the tour: reconciliation is not the same as forgetting. Guests will hear how Richmond’s role in slavery, sale, separation, and forced movement shaped Shockoe Bottom and left stories that still demand recognition.(15 min)

This stop brings together two of Shockoe Bottom’s most powerful and painful histories. The Richmond African Burial Ground was once a burial place for free and enslaved Black residents before being neglected and nearly erased from public memory. Nearby stood Lumpkin’s Jail, known as the Devil’s Half Acre, where enslaved men, women, and children were confined before sale. Guests will hear how burial, confinement, memory, and erasure became part of Richmond’s haunted landscape.(15 min)

17th Street Market was one of Richmond’s busiest commercial spaces, filled with vendors, wagons, animals, travelers, taverns, gambling, vice, and violence. This stop explores how everyday trade, dangerous nightlife, and the larger economy of Shockoe Bottom existed alongside the buying and selling of enslaved people. Guests will hear why old market districts often collect stories of lingering footsteps, voices, unexplained smells, and shadows after the crowds are gone.(15 min)

The former Libby Prison site marks one of the Civil War’s most notorious military prisons. Union officers were confined in a warehouse never designed to hold them, facing hunger, cold, illness, uncertainty, and the slow loss of hope. Guests will hear about the suffering inside the prison, the famous 1864 tunnel escape, and how the building eventually disappeared while the memory of what happened there remained much harder to remove.(15 min)