The Westminster catacombs, a classic city haunt

Think a Halloween visit to the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground is an eerie experience? You should have been there as the catacombs tours began in the mid-1970s, when The Sun reported “visitors to the place can see the skeletons of those who are buried there.”

Now that was something right out of a horror film!

The catacombs at Westminster Presbyterian Church had been around for more than 100 years, but had fallen on tough times. In 1975, anxious to revive interest in the old church and raise money to help rehab and preserve both it and the surrounding burial ground, the tours were introduced. They proved a big hit, attracting some 2,000 visitors a year.

Certainly, they were one of the city’s most macabre attractions, with visitors seeing not only the occasional skeleton within the catacombs under the church, but decaying coffins, askew tombstones and disturbed graves. Signs were installed to lead the way, and mannequins representing some of the more famous permanent residents were put on display. The catacombs, long abused as a temporary home for vagrants and even as a handy storage space for the church’s janitors, had been cleaned up some, but still were in rough shape. And the Baltimore Presbytery, which oversaw the church and its congregation, were no fans of the tours: Executive secretary Richard R. Preston, according to a Nov. 19, 1977, Sun story, complained of the “carnival atmosphere” and labeled them “the most ghastly thing that’s happened.”

By summer1980, with the congregation gone and Westminster in the hands of the Westminster Preservation Trust, Inc., established under the leadership of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, the tours were back. They continue today.