Sorority House Ghost Story I searched until I heard a story that gave me the chills. It comes from right around the block from where I live on campus, at one of the sorority houses at the University of Maryland. I collected this story the weekend of April 2nd, at my fraternity house. I asked my friend, a junior from Pikesville, if she knows any ghost stories. Her face lit up as if she was dying to tell me this story since the first time we ever met. She asked “you never heard the story of the ghost in the sorority house?” I replied no. The normally quiet woman demanded my attention away from the TV and went into her story. "Many years ago a bunch of girls in my house [supposedly] were drinking and celebrating a girl’s 21st birthday party.” She went on to explain that drinking in sorority houses is forbidden by the university, and that a sorority would get thrown out of their own house if the university or the police ever found out. My friend told this story very well. I felt like I should turn out the lights and give her a flashlight to hold up to her face. She went on to say that, according to the legend, everyone was very drunk and pushed the birthday girl to keep drinking. It is tradition that the birthday boy or girl takes 21 shots on his or her 21st birthday. Unfortunately for this young woman, she passed out before she made it to her benchmarked 21st shot. The women, terrified that if they brought her to a hospital they would get into trouble for drinking in their house, took the birthday girl to her bed and tried taking care of her themselves. Before midnight (when she would have turned 21), the young woman died of alcohol poisoning. Ever since that night, the sorority house has been haunted. The storyteller told me that a friend she knows once had her keyboard pulled out of her desk in the middle of the night and the keys mysteriously started moving on their own. She said that toilets inexplicably flush and the sinks in the house sometimes turn on without anybody touching them. The storyteller made the legend very believable in the way she described young women who I know who have had ghost encounters.
One of my personal favorites is the ghost of Wood Hall. This apparition takes on the image of a little boy. Numbers of Wood Hall girls have seen him. Erica Gray and roommate Ashli Webster deal with this ghost all the time. When asked about the paranormal occurrences in their room, Erica said, "Pretty much every night, he flicks the channels on the TV and turns the lights on and off. Every once in a while he types random shit on the computer... I don't care though as long as he doesn't try to rape me or something. [laughter]" They aren't the only ones who have seen this little boy. I've even had my own instances of cold chills in my 75-degree room, flickering lights, and even a quick glimpse of a child standing at the end of a dark hallway at 3 in the morning.
The story was told to me by one of my high-school classmates, who is a resident of the town of Atco. The nineteen year old young man is currently a sophomore at Clemson University and describes himself as being a Roman Catholic of half Italian-American and half Irish-American decent. The young man also noted that he is normally very socially conservative and a staunch Republican. His father is employed as a general contractor and his mother runs her own catering company. He describes himself as a “self proclaimed expert of all things related to the Atco Ghost.” He cannot remember the specific date when he first heard the story, but stated that he can remember knowing most of the details to the story for most of his life. He also claims to have attempted to see the ghost on only one occasion and after what he saw, he refuses to ever go back to that area of town at night. The following is an almost word for word account, which he checked to ensure its accuracy, of the lengthy story as he retold it to me ...
There are several other stories that I wish to share with you, but I will do so in Chapter 12, It’s All in the Photographs: The Ghost Writers. My daughters Stephanie and Megan, Ken O’Keefe, Scarlett McGrady, Leigh Schillings Edwards, Jon Matney, and I make up the key members of this team of paranormal investigators. Pamela Wilson Berry serves as an auxiliary member.
Since I come from the Eastern Shore of this state, I was surprised to hear a ghost story I was previously unaware of. The story takes place in a park in Salisbury. The person who told me the story is a 19-year-old sophomore at the University, and we spoke about it one evening after dinner. He believes it to be true, because one of his friend’s siblings has apparently experienced the ghost firsthand. I tape-recorded his narrative:
I was told a story about one of Cloudcroft's more famous ghosts when casually lounging in the undergraduate student physics lounge at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a group of students during a lunch break before class. This occurred during early April, 2005. I inquired whether anyone knew any ghost stories or folklore. A friend of mine volunteered that she knew several ghost stories from her travels. The storyteller was a 23-year-old Caucasian female from an upper-middle class family in Baltimore. She currently lives in Crofton, MD, and is a physics and astronomy major.
There’s a haunted house in Dover, Delaware called the Governor’s Mansion, where all of the Governors of Delaware have lived. If you go to the house yourself, you might see or experience a couple different ghosts. One evening, a guest to the house passed an old man dressed in old-fashioned clothes while going down the stairs for dinner. Once at the table the guest asked the owners who the person was. The curious owners asked for a description of the man. The description that the visitor sent chills down the spines of the owners, as it was an exact description of the owner’s father who had been dead for many years, and nobody else was in the house. The father had also been known for getting drunk a lot, so to this day he can still be seen drinking any liquor left out in the open. The mansion is also known for being a part of the Underground Railroad, so lots of slaves were always coming and going through the house at night. One night the house got busted and one of the runaway slaves ran and hid in a big tree in the yard. The slave was up there for a while and was already tired from his journey to the house.
This story, although somewhat unique in its exact plot, contains many elements that make it a typical and traditional ghost story. These elements suggest common fears in today’s society of people in general, and children specifically.
The particular story I collected takes place in Philadelphia, where ghost stories are plentiful. Philadelphia is an old city with a rich cultural heritage, and our founding fathers made history in the place that was once our nation’s capital (Eidmann). Many believe that their spirits and spirits of those from colonial times still lurk around. It is easy to feel like spirits are around when in a place where many people have lived and died before, and in a place that is filled with old buildings and landmarks. All of these factors make this city a perfect place for a ghost story.
My teammate originally heard this story from her classmates during her junior year in high school. My teammate had no problems remembering the story; she was more worried that I would think she thought it was true. There were pauses in her story telling as I wrote down what she said. She related the story with little emotion or suspense. The laughter in the background also affected the impact of the legend because it is difficult to be scared when there is laughter all around. My teammate also did not make a significant effort to enhance the effect of the story through hand motions or vocal tone inflections.
In a cemetery in Baltimore there is an enormous black marble figure by the grave of a deceased general. It’s a magnificent statue of a grieving woman, cloaked in darkness, a black angel…named Black Aggie. During the day the statue’s arms mourn the tombstone [slight pause] but at nightfall, the statue eerily gazes on. If anyone were to return her terrifying stare, they would be struck blind! Supposedly during a full moon the ghosts of the dead would rise from their graves and meet at Black Aggie’s feet. My friend’s father’s fraternity wanted to scare all of their new members, and during one of the initiation nights, they ordered all the fresh candidates to spe...
There are many different preconceived ideas about what it means to be in a sorority, and many of them are not good things. When I was in high school, if I heard the words “sorority sister” I would immediately think of drunk party girls who was most likely failing all their classes. That was my preconceived idea of what it meant to be a member of these groups, but after I have encountered various members of sororities, I know now that I was wrong. A sorority is defined as a social group for females that are in college. There are very many different sororities all over the United States, and they can be distinguished by the Greek letters that make up their name. Most people think that sororities are just for popular
When one usually thinks of a hearing a ghost story, the setting is dark with flickering light (such as around a campfire or in a basement with bad lighting) and, of course, it is nighttime. Needless to say, when I heard this story during the middle of the day on a Friday, I was a little taken aback. When prompted for any urban legends or ghost stories a white, female friend of mine immediately responded with, “Have you ever heard of de Sales Academy?” With my negative response, the nineteen year old student jumped into her story:
Over the recent break, I mentioned to a friend that I needed to write about a ghost-related urban legend. He offered to tell me about Glenn Dale Hospital, which is supposedly a famous ghost legend in Maryland. Since I am a lifelong Maryland resident and did not know about the hospital, I was eager to hear the story. The story was told in the living room of a house by a 19 year old white male native to southern Maryland. He is from a middle class family and his father and mother are a construction worker and a homemaker, respectively. He heard the story from another friend who claims to have visited Glenn Dale Hospital.
The Nelly Butler hauntings is referred to as the first recorded ghost story in American history (LiBrizzi 5), and possibly the most exciting hauntings to date as there are still many unsolved mysteries. The apparition appeared on more than 30 separate occasions to over 100 witnesses in Sullivan, Maine, just over fifteen years after the American Revolution (5-6). Although the Nelly Butler apparition is one of the most convincing ghosts of all time, it was subject to suspicions of fraud. These claims turn out to be groundless as the evidence reveals the ghost to be genuine.
Of course I didn't ask my mom or dad. Nobody shall know. October 26 1998, haven’t recorded in a while. I've been paying attention to the thing in my house, but today changes everything I don’t think we have one I think we have many. Today I go in the basement to see what is down there. I open a door labeled, CONCEALMENT CHAMBER. I open it anyway I find bones and organs in jars. I almost threw up. I had to be stealthy leaving the basement, I was told not to be down there by my parents order. I went to check in the attic that had a built in step ladder. I went up there and there was dead animal carcases as my body stimulate my body. As I steadily leave the attic after almost throwing up in the attic which was a closer call than the basement. I go in my room to write it down and on my wall it says fury. I have no clue why this thing is angry. October 31, 1998 It's Halloween and I am not ready to have this ghost pop out of nowhere and kill me and put my organs in the basement. I take precautions. I don’t have the audacity to capture this ghost. So I just go out trick or treating. I don’t want to come back with the house in flames but I have to go trick or