The Green At Dover

Laid out in 1717, The Green is one of Dover's oldest public spaces and the site where Delaware ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1787. Its ghost story is unusually well documented: Samuel Chew, chief justice of Delaware's Supreme Court until his death in 1744, is said to have taken up a habit of wandering the green and calling out to passersby after dark, disturbing the town's sleep badly enough that in 1745 residents dug a symbolic grave on the green and held a full mock funeral, complete with tolling bells and clergy, to lay his restless spirit to rest. Locals still describe an irritable figure moving among the tombstones and across the green at night.