The Van Dyck Lounge restaurant and brewery was once a jazz club that opened in 1947. Many big names played here, including Earl Hines, Teddy Wilson, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. It is rumored to be haunted by the ghost of a brothel worker who was killed in a stairwell.
Van Dyke Lounge
Yesterdays Royal
At Yesterdays Royal, a Victorian-era restaurant and ice cream shop, you may find a ghostly woman who haunts the dining room. Another ghost, nicknamed Jack, is said to inhabit the second floor.
Country House Restaurant
Country House Restaurant originally opened way back in 1710 as a farmhouse. It’s believed to be haunted by a beautiful ghost, Annette Williamson, accused of being a spy and hanged by the British during the Revolutionary War. Her apparition has been seen in the kitchen and on the stairs and has been heard crying. She also tinkers with light bulbs, draining their power. Restaurant patrons have seen her apparition in the dining room and the restrooms as well.
Hamilton College
At Hamilton College’s North Residence Hall, a ghostly Revolutionary War-era messenger has been seen in the halls. The apparition has been known to point at people and disappear through walls. And two other buildings are said to be haunted by the spirits of family members who lived there when they were private residences: the Admissions Building and the Alumni House.
National Emergency Training Center - St. Joseph's College
The National Emergency Training Center was once St. Joseph’s College, which until 1973 was a Catholic girls’ school established in 1809. Witnesses at the former college claim to have seen the ghosts of Civil War nurses who were carrying buckets of amputated human limbs and heard the sounds of soldiers screaming in pain. Hospital smells and apparitions of college founder Mother Seton also have been reported.
Michigan State University
Michigan State University reportedly has an abundance of haunted sites, including the University Garden, the Physical Plant, Williams Hall, and Mayo Hall, where the ghost of namesake May Mayo plays a piano and the Red Room is rumored to have been the setting for past Satanist rituals. Also said to be haunted are Holmes Hall, where a ghost is believed to tinker with the elevator, and Fairchild Auditorium, where a small ghost boy is said to reside. Hubbard Hall has lights that go on and off along with running footsteps and spooky laughter, and Mason Hall’s basement sports the ghost of an elderly man. Rumor has it that he suffocated here in 1975.
Ohio University
Ohio University has a few different spots that are said to be haunted: The Brown House is haunted by donor Millie Brown, who peers out a window; also the phantom sounds of kids splashing in a long-gone pool have been heard in the back yard. The Delta Tau Delta fraternity house was said to be haunted by a poltergeist for a while, ever since 2 brothers stole a tombstone from nearby Simms Cemetery. The haunting stopped after they returned it. An apparition of a woman in 1950s duds was spotted in Jefferson Hall in 1996, along with lights switching on and off, toilet paper rolls unrolling and sounds like marbles being dropped. And a ghost called Laura resides in Crawford Hall. She died when she fell from a fourth-floor window.
Smith College - Sessions House
The historic Sessions House dorm at Smith College campus was originally built in 1710 with a secret passageway inside which the owners could hide from attacking Native Americans. It’s haunted by original builder Captain Jonathan Hunt’s granddaughter Lucy and her lover, Johnny Burgoyne, a British general whom she met when he was held captive in the house during the Revolutionary War. The hidden passageway was their meeting place of choice. When he was sent back to England, he promised to return to Lucy, but never did; their spirits are said to live on together in this house. Other house legends include one of a woman who killed her children with an axe, mistaking them for burglars, and two students who fell to their deaths while searching for the hidden passageway.
Lincoln Memorial University - Grant Lee Hall
The historic Grant Lee Hall dormitory building at Lincoln Memorial University was once part of a hotel, which caught fire in 1904, killing a woman and her child on the fourth floor. Her ghost has been seen in a red dress, including one day in the 1950s when the building caught fire again. She was witnessed at the fourth-floor window yelling for help. Witnesses also hear footsteps on the stairs, knocks at the doors, and doorknobs turning by themselves.
Penn State University
Several buildings at Penn State University are allegedly haunted, including Pattee Library, said to be visited by the spirit of Betsy Aardsma, stabbed to death in the stacks in 1969. Schwab Auditorium is haunted by a former university president (who, incidentally, also haunts the Botany department building) as well as a noisy spirit who inhabits the attic.
