Lawrence is coming up on its 180-year anniversary. Throughout those many long years, the university’s ever-evolving story has allowed a glowing campus culture to flourish. However, 180 years is a long time, and so it’s no surprise that a more eerie side of the “Lawrence difference” has developed alongside our campus vibrancy; you can’t have “Light! More light!” without a little dash of darkness to contrast, after all. Ask nearly any person on campus and they’ll let you in on this little secret: from rooms that seem to have a life of their own to our own hometown Nessie, Lawrence University is more than a little haunted.
The first reported incident of paranormal activity was recorded in an article in The Lawrentian at the turn of the 20th century. One unsuspecting night in Ormsby Hall — Feb. 14, 1899, at around midnight, to be exact — numerous residents reported hearing many unnerving sounds: a deep groan, the sound of dogs barking, two men talking — at the time, Ormsby was an all-women dorm — and someone walking up the stairs. The ladies wasted no time arming themselves with knickknacks from umbrellas to hat pins to fruit knives, ready to, as the article reported it, “conquer or die.” Though the confrontation, or rather non-confrontation, ended in a stalemate, the ghost remains tethered to Ormsby, christened later with the name of Mrs. Haversham.
Still, if you think this spooky encounter is just a story from our student newspaper a century and a quarter ago, you may want to think again. Strange run-ins in Ormsby have not ceased by a long shot. Rather, they have just presented themselves differently. Take junior Sam Brewer’s experience, for instance. He was once an Ormsby Hall CA, and in his time there witnessed some rather unsettling instances. He reported that one of the Campus Safety officers at the time performed a seance in a second-floor room and claimed that there was a presence in the room with them. Of course, there’s no way to know for certain that the stories surrounding Ormsby are true. Junior Miranda Follmann suggested pressure changes due to the building’s age may be to blame for the creaking and groaning. Still, while not believing there’s truly an Ormsby ghost, she thinks it adds a whimsical and spooky vitality to our historic campus and its culture. Brewer conceded that there’s always the possibility that the little thumps he heard from the ceiling may have been the people on the third floor, but there’s really no way to know for sure. What’s certain is that Ormsby may house a few more residents than we are aware of.
What the old accounts of hauntings at Lawrence don’t mention are the incidents that have emerged more recently. Kohler Hall joins the list of paranormal dorms on campus with an eerie account reported by first-year Jonathan Xique. Xique had just finished a late-night study session and went to use the restroom on Sep. 27 around 1 a.m. It was there that he noticed it: a pair of slippers in the stall next to him that looked like they had seen far better days; he claimed they looked as if they had just gotten scuffed on an outdoor trail. As he was washing his hands, he heard a deep growl that startled him, but upon looking back, the slippers had disappeared, and the stall door was ajar. Yet, nobody had left the bathroom. Still, the worst was yet to come; upon returning to his room and peeking out the fisheye peephole on the door, a figure that looked as if it had suffered a fall on a trail emerged from the bathroom. Terrified, Xique opened the door to check if this person — that’s what it looked like, at least — was okay, but they were gone. No door opened or closed. No elevator was called. Nothing. To this day, Xique dares not venture near the bathrooms of Kohler Hall past a certain time of night.
The Wriston Art Galleries may not have been haunted at one point, but things may have changed for the spookier recently. Many a night, junior Evan Portzline found herself down in the studios long after hours, working on pieces for her art classes. She reports that all is well until after the 2 a.m. mark.
The strange noises she hears after that, she said, are not ones someone would expect to hear in a building as new as Wriston. To make matters more eerie, she also reports that the room starts to feel more cramped than it should for one person alone, as if someone — or something — is in there with her.
Portzline also recalled the unnatural heat in one of the rooms on the lower level. When asked if there could be some logical explanation for this phenomenon, such as warmth escaping from the kiln, she dismissed the suggestion, revealing that this room is on a level below the kiln. After all, heat rises; it doesn’t fall. Though she said there may be some reason for this mysterious happening, she has yet to come across one.
They say every theater has a ghost, and Stansbury Theater is no exception. Archivist Erin Dix, who has since left Lawrence, documented in her Haunted Lawrence file that a Campus Safety officer reported hearing a woman ask “Hark! Who goes there?” At first, he assumed it was part of some old-timey play the students were rehearsing for. Needless to say, he was shocked to find he was the only living being in the theater upon seeing two supposedly human figures cloaked by the curtain, seated only by the air as they levitated there. Numerous other accounts in Dix’s report recount lights flickering on and off and the sound of someone — though perhaps it’s better to say something — screaming. Fifth-year Zhanna Weil reports to have seen things move out of the corners of their eyes after hours when nothing but the ghost light glows in the seemingly unoccupied theater.
We turn now to perhaps the most unexpected location afflicted with abnormal activity: the bustling and welcoming Warch Campus Center. Weil brings to our attention the curious case of Green Man, a human-esque entity they report lurks around the building’s second floor, the cinema most of all. Being a part of Lawrence’s annual production of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” with rehearsals in the cinema, Weil and the cast have had their fair share of catching glimpses of this human-looking thing as it waits in the surrounding shadows. The “Rocky” cast has even started to pay homage to their resident cryptid by having a cast member dress up as Green Man for the show. Though it never does anything as far as Weil knows, it’s always there, watching from Warch’s darkest corners.
Even the immediate surroundings of Lawrence don’t seem to be free from their own paranormal lore. Senior Madeline Forman reported seeing a hand sticking out of the Fox River while walking the trails behind Lawrence on numerous occasions. Once, when she looked away from the protruding limb, she claims to have heard a woman’s scream. Weil, too, said they’ve heard talk of a “big creature” lurking beneath the water’s surface just behind our university.
The second half of Lawrence’s motto reads “veritas est lux,” or “truth is light.” Anyone who’s experienced all the light Lawrence has to offer can say without a doubt that this is true. However, every so often, the truth at our university might just also be hiding in the shadows.