Ghost Story of a Hell House

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Ghost Story of a Hell House The legend that I collected is a popular local myth about an old building and its resident out in the woods near the story's location. The person who told this story to me is my roommate; he is a white, middle-class, twenty-year-old who is studying government and psychology. I collected the story from him in our apartment one Tuesday night, sitting on our couch amidst a group of friends while listening to some loud music. The teller’s performance of the story is important to note. Due to the loud music and distracting atmosphere, the story was not told very smoothly. The teller made a lot of pauses and had to repeat himself several times. Furthermore, the teller did not know any solid facts, such as specific dates. Everything that he mentioned in terms of time were clearly estimates, as indicated by his facial expressions and verbal pauses. The teller prefaced the story by trying to get me to recognize the location of the Hell House. We had gone hiking around the state park where near the house, and he explained its location by saying “you know that hill and those woods near the train tracks at the bottom of the mountain…Well, Hell House is over near there. I’m sure you’ve seen it dude.” I admitted that I knew where it was so that he would go on with the story, even though I was certain I hadn’t seen any creepy looking houses when I was over in that area. He continued the story by explaining that the place was originally “Mount Saint Mary’s” college in Old Catonsville, Maryland during the 1800s. He then said “oh right, it was actually a women’s school.” He paused here for a minute and then carried on to tell me that most of it burned down in the 1930s and a whole lot of people died. After a moment he said “actually it may have been the 10s or the 20s, I’m not so sure.” The only thing that remained after this fire was an old burnt up house that the groundskeeper lived in and continues to live in. The teller then said that the groundskeeper was “seriously old and weird” and that he is not sure whether he is alive or dead, but he made sure to emphasize that “if he is still alive he is probably real [expletive deleted by author] old.

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