BURLINGTON CITY, N.J. — For years, stories have been told about the ghosts of inmates who were once lodged in the old Burlington County Prison.

There was Joseph Clough, who was executed in the prison courtyard in the mid-1850s for stabbing his mistress to death.

Shortly after his death, guards and inmates reported hearing moaning and the sounds of rattling chains from his empty death-row cell, according to the Web site www.prisonmuseum.net. Items left in the cell would levitate, and many guards and prisoners began seeing apparitions.

In 1999, workers transforming the prison into a museum reported hearing loud noises and voices, and feeling rapid changes in temperature, the Web site states. Items that were reported missing would later turn up in rooms the workers never entered.

Now a group of ghost hunters will try to determine whether apparitions really lurk throughout the brick-and-mortar prison on High Street, which housed criminals from 1811 to 1965.

The crew from the SciFi cable television network show “Ghost Hunters” will visit the museum later this month in an attempt to determine whether the building is truly haunted.

“Ghost Hunters” follows the exploits of The Atlantic Paranormal Society, a group of paranormal investigators who travel the country to research possible ghost sightings and hauntings.

The group sets up infrared cameras and sound recorders at each location overnight. After examining their findings, the group says it reports anything that was discovered that couldn't be explained.

“Ghost Hunters” selected the prison museum because crew member Dave Tango was raised in New Jersey and his father and uncle, both former police officers, toured the prison and found it “creepy,” SciFi channel spokeswoman Adrienne D'Amato said.

D'Amato declined to say exactly when the “Ghost Hunters” crew would be at the museum because she said they didn't want to attract a crowd. She said about 80 percent of the investigations the crew conducts reveal no presence of ghosts.

“In a lot of cases, they find nothing,” D'Amato said.

That doesn't mean that a program featuring the prison museum won't air, she said. If the episode is televised, it would be during the show's fourth season next year, D'Amato said.

The prison, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was designed by architect Robert Mills, who later designed the Washington Monument, the U.S. Treasury building and the U.S. Postal Service headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Among the prison's more famous inmates was Albert DeSalvo, better known as the Boston Strangler. The prison was opened as a museum a few years after it was closed to inmates.

For several years, the Prison Museum Association, in cooperation with the county Board of Freeholders, has transformed the prison into a haunted prison, complete with roaming costumed characters and a walk-through maze.

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