Riverside Cemetery
Founded in 1885 as a garden-style cemetery in the Montford neighborhood, Riverside is the resting place of roughly 13,000 people, including authors Thomas Wolfe and O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), Confederate generals, North Carolina governors, and senators. Part of the grounds saw fighting connected to the 1865 Battle of Asheville, and visitors over the years have reported hearing phantom gunshots and cannon fire and even glimpsing Confederate soldiers among the graves. Others describe the laughter and chatter of unseen children along the wooded paths. The cemetery is the only graveyard stop on several Asheville ghost tours, and visitors leave pennies on O. Henry's stone in honor of the opening of 'The Gift of the Magi.' The combination of Civil War history, famous literary dead, and the quiet wooded terrain has made it a fixture of the city's ghost lore.
📍 53 Birch Street, Asheville, NC 28801, Asheville, NC · Get directions