Oakwood Cemetery

Established in 1869, this 102-acre cemetery is one of the largest in North Carolina, containing Confederate soldiers, governors, and notable citizens. The Gothic Revival chapel and elaborate Victorian monuments create an atmospheric landscape.

Oakwood Cemetery was established in 1869 on a wooded hillside in northeast Raleigh, and over the century and a half since, it has grown to encompass 102 acres and more than 20,000 burials. Its rolling paths wind through an extraordinary collection of Victorian and Neoclassical monuments, past the graves of five North Carolina governors, seven U.S. senators, Confederate soldiers in a dedicated memorial section, and generations of the state capital's most prominent families. But one grave draws more visitors than any other, and the figure that watches over it has become one of Raleigh's most enduring legends.

The Spinning Angel, as locals call it, stands over the grave of Etta Rebecca White Ratcliffe, born in 1880. Etta married William Ratcliffe, a wealthy knitting factory owner, and by all accounts lived a comfortable life until illness overtook her. In 1918, Etta was committed to Dorothea Dix Hospital, the state psychiatric institution across the city. She died there within a month at the age of thirty-eight, with the cause recorded as a cerebral hemorrhage. Modern medical understanding suggests she may have been suffering from a brain tumor rather than mental illness -- a tragic misdiagnosis that confined her to an institution in the final weeks of her life. Her grieving husband commissioned a striking memorial: a carved stone angel whose face was sculpted in Etta's own likeness. Unlike many cemetery angels that feel symbolic and distant, the Ratcliffe Angel is hauntingly human, with expressive, deeply detailed eyes that seem almost alive.

The legend that grew around the statue holds that the angel's head spins. According to the most common version of the story, on Halloween night at midnight, the carved head rotates twelve full times on its stone neck. Visitors throughout the year report a less dramatic but equally unsettling experience -- the angel's eyes appear to follow them as they walk through the cemetery, tracking their movements no matter their angle of approach. Despite decades of these claims, no one has ever captured photographic or video evidence of the angel actually moving. The family of Etta Ratcliffe has been aware of the legend and, according to published accounts, they are not upset. They have said they are pleased to have their ancestor be part of such a popular piece of local lore.

Beyond the Spinning Angel, Oakwood Cemetery carries the quieter haunts expected of a burial ground with more than 150 years of interments. The Confederate section, where approximately 500 soldiers are buried, generates reports of shadowy figures moving among the headstones at dusk. Visitors have described cold spots that appear on warm days, the sound of footsteps on gravel paths when no one else is in sight, and an occasional sense of presence near the older Victorian monuments. The cemetery is open daily to the public, and guided walking tours explore both its history and its ghost stories. The Spinning Angel remains the main attraction -- a monument to a woman who may have been wrongly confined, whose stone likeness watches over Oakwood with eyes that many visitors swear are watching them back.