Dr. Josephus Hall House

Built in 1820 as classrooms for Salisbury Female Academy, this house was purchased by Dr. Josephus Hall and his wife Mary in 1859. Hall served as a surgeon for the Confederate Prison during the Civil War. Four generations of the family lived here.

The Dr. Josephus Hall House stands in Salisbury, a historic home built around 1820 as a two-story frame dwelling. The building first served as the Salisbury Academy girls' school until about 1825, educating young women in an era when such opportunities were rare. But it was Dr. Josephus Hall who would transform the property and tie it forever to one of the darkest chapters in American history—the Civil War and the notorious Salisbury Confederate Prison.

Dr. Hall purchased the home in 1859 and began transforming it into a grand Southern residence. When war came, he served as chief surgeon at Salisbury Prison, providing what medical care he could to the thousands of Union prisoners held in conditions that would become infamous. A son-in-law also provided medical expertise at the prison. It is believed that Union prisoners sometimes recuperated within the Hall House itself, their suffering briefly eased within its walls before they were returned to the horrors of the prison compound.

In 1865, Union General George Stoneman conducted his raid through North Carolina. When federal troops arrived in Salisbury, they took over the front part of the Hall House, paying rent to the Halls who retreated to the back of their own home. The family lived alongside their occupiers, a strange coexistence in the final days of a devastating war.

The grounds of the Hall House include a cannon once used at Salisbury's Civil War Prison—a silent reminder of the violence and death that surrounded this place. The prison itself was one of the deadliest in the Confederacy, with thousands of Union soldiers perishing from disease, starvation, and exposure. Many of those men passed through Dr. Hall's medical care, and some may have drawn their last breaths in rooms where the Hall family later continued their lives.

Historic Salisbury Foundation now operates the Hall House, offering special tours that explore the lives and deaths of its inhabitants. The Ghost Guild, a paranormal research organization, has investigated the property, confirming it among their documented haunted locations. They were praised as "one of the best teams we have had here" by those familiar with the site.

While the foundation emphasizes that their tours focus on history rather than ghost hunting, the weight of death that surrounds the Hall House is undeniable. A surgeon who treated dying prisoners, Union soldiers who convalesced and perhaps died within these walls, and the shadow of one of the Civil War's most notorious prisons—all of it has left an imprint that visitors can feel. In Salisbury, where so many suffered and so few survived, the Dr. Josephus Hall House stands as witness to horrors that history has not forgotten.