The Big 5: Ghost stories from Philly’s colleges and universities
Have you heard the one about the suicidal co-ed? The star-crossed lovers? The spirit that jilted Dick Clark?
Philly's collection of colleges and universities are rife with haunting tales of ghosts, unexplained occurrences and other things that go "bump" in the night. We've weeded out the tall tales and fables used to scare freshmen to compile a list of the top five corroborated collegiate ghost stories.
La Salle's exploring ghost: At the intersection of Belfield Avenue and Wister Street lies a warehouse owned and operated by nearby La Salle University. It's a non-descript building, used by the school's facilities management department for storage. Its past, however, is much more colorful: it began life as a textile mill sometime in the 18th Century and was believed to have been utilized as a makeshift hospital for wounded soldiers during the Revolutionary War, most likely those injured during the Battle of Germantown. It now seems that one of these soldiers has returned to seek shelter in the building.
For the past 10 years, members of the facilities management department have been reporting strange occurrences at the warehouse, such as lights flickering on and off and doorknobs rattling on their own. Chris Sorenson, one such staff member, said that he's seen some of these unexplained instances first hand. "I've heard toilets flush and footsteps when I'm the only one in the building," he said. "When I would check the building, I'd never find anyone there."
Despite this evidence, Sorenson only "halfheartedly believes" that the building is haunted, but admits that whenever he hears an unexplained noise, he finishes his business in the warehouse as quickly as possible.
Temple's Conwell gets some ghostly guidance: Temple University founder Russell H. Conwell claimed that he was visited by his wife multiple times after her death in 1889, usually in the bedroom of his residence at the university.
In a New York Times article dated December, 20 1919, Conwell explains that, in order to prove her existence, he asked his wife's ghost to find his misplaced discharge papers from the Civil War. The apparition told him the exact location of the papers: a black lacquered box hidden behind the bookcase in Conwell's library. The box had belonged to his late wife.
Still not satisfied, Conwell devised another test. The following evening, he asked one of his servants to hide his gold pencil in "some out of the way place" without telling him where that place was. When his wife visited him during the night, Conwell asked her if she knew where the pencil was. She did, and Conwell found it, "placed far back on the top shelf of the [medicine] chest."
After that, Conwell stopped seeing the ghost, but felt her presence near him, and asserted the truth of this story, until his death.
The tragic tale of Lillian Vickers: In 1901, Bryn Mawr College student Lillian Vickers burned to death in Merion Hall, the dormitory building where she lived. Philadelphia Inquirer clippings from the era state that the death was accidental, the result of a dropped match igniting Vickers' bathrobe. In reality, that was a fabrication meant to spare Vickers' wealthy father, not to mention the college itself, from any public embarrassment and bad publicity.
In a letter written to Vickers' father, then-Bryn Mawr President M. Carey Thomas revealed that the girl's death was a suicide. In the weeks leading up to her death, Vickers became depressed and withdrawn, believing that she had contracted leprosy from a missionary visiting the college. Thomas assigned two girls to watch Vickers and prevent her from harming herself.
On the night of her death, according to Thomas' letter, Vickers snuck away from her chaperones under the pretense of taking a bath, soaked her bathrobe in alcohol and deliberately set herself on fire.
In the century following her death, Vickers has been accused of haunting the residents of Merion Hall, still used today by Bryn Mawr College. Unexplained power outages, self-opening doors and mysterious noises have all been attributed to Vickers. Most recently, current Bryn Mawr junior Rachel Ohrenschall said she clearly heard a female voice singing while walking with a friend in Merion Hall, but found the room it was coming from completely empty.
Forbidden love at Ursinus: Several dormitories at Ursinus College are repurposed Victorian homes that carry with them a wealth of personal history. Schreiner Hall is one such dorm, and if its walls could talk, the students living there would be mortified.
At the turn of the 20th Century, the house that would later become Schreiner was owned by a family with a young daughter. According to information from Ursinus' archives, the daughter was in love with the young son of one of her neighbors. The parents of both lovers disapproved of the relationship and forbade them to marry. Eventually, the young man enlisted in the Navy and was killed in battle. In response, the girl killed herself in the house.
Multiple Schriener Hall residents have reported strange and violent incidents occurring in that room, including lamps gliding across the floor, windows and doors rattling and mysterious footsteps. One student reported that her clock started to run 15 minutes slow after one such "haunting."
West Chester University's playful spirit: Andrew Thomas Smith served as the president of West Chester University from 1920 to 1927 and was the first alumnus of the university to hold that position. Apparently, he loved the institution so much that he was unable to leave it, even after his death.
Smith's ghost has been sighted numerous times at Phillips Hall, the building that houses the university's concert theater. Faculty and students participating in productions at the theater have seen ghostly audience members appear and disappear randomly during rehearsals. Séances held in the building have reportedly conjured the smell of fresh flowers and strange glowing lights, in addition to lowering the internal temperature several degrees, according to Ghost Stories of Chester County and the Brandywine Valley.
Not even celebrities are spared from Smith's antics: the power once went out in Phillips Hall during a speech given by famed Philadelphian Dick Clark. As Clark left the building, he pointed out Smith's portrait, claiming that the former president suddenly materialized in front of him after the room went dark.