Ghosts at the Rossborough Inn in the University of Maryland
The University of Maryland has a rich history dating back to its founding in 1856 as the Maryland Agricultural College. Built between 1804 and 1812, The Rossborough Inn is the oldest building on campus today (Ghost Tour, 2). With its history, it is no surprise that the Inn has been a hotspot for ghost activity. Knowing that there have been numerous reports of ghosts at Rossborough, I visited the Inn to ask current employees at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, located in Rossborough Inn, if they themselves had experienced anything bizarre or if they had known others who had. I entered the small office where three women were talking and with their permission asked about their experiences with ghosts at Rossborough. Upon asking my question, all three smiled, although shaking their head, they indicated they had not. However, they all had heard of the stories, and one of the women replied and told me to speak with the University Archivist. She told me that she has spoken with the archivist, and upon learning the stories, she said that she “got freaked out and really wanted to go home.”
The next day, I contacted the University Archivist by phone to inquire about the happenings at the Rossborough Inn. She was happy speak with me, and indicated that the Rossborough Inn has been a hotspot for legends of paranormal activity, having more “sightings” than most any other building on campus. In addition to sharing with me one story of the Inn, she also sent me a script of a ghost tour that she has given on campus that includes other reported happenings at the Inn as well as the history of Rossborough. The story she shared with me tells of a dining services ...
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... of the Rossborough Inn use hospitality and kindness to help us understand. In doing so, even though operating in a time of violence and warfare, the Rossborough Inn can reflect the love and care that represent the core values of the Inn and the University.
Works Cited:
Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981.
“Haunted Maryland”. September 12, 2006. UM Newsdesk. Retrieved March 30, 2006 from http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/culture/2006/Halloween/Rossborough.cfm.
McCombs, Alan J. “Ghostly Tales Offered of University Tours.” October 27, 2006 Maryland Newsline. Retrieved March 31, 2006 from http://www.newsline.umd.edu/etcetera/specialreports/campusconnections/ghoststory102706.htm.
Turkos, Anne and McAllister, Liz. Ghost Tour. University of Maryland. October 16, 2006.
“We have travelled from Florida to Radford, Virginia on four different occasions to investigate St. Albans,” said Terri. During that time they have experienced a plethora of paranormal activity, including the sounds of disembodied voices, the vision of a full-body apparition, having an investigator slapped by an unseen hand, disembodied growling, and a disappearing door, among others.
friend that his ghost usually appeared when there were tourists in the building. She wasn’t sure
The storyteller told me the story of the Goatman in a mutual friend’s dorm room at night. I had come to the dorm room to ask my friend if he knew any urban legends of ghost stories from around campus or the state of Maryland. The storyteller, a 21-year-old biology major, shouted excitedly from the couch that she knew one. She is from Beltsville, Maryland. Her mother is a lawyer and her father is a math professor. My friend and I sat down on the couch and listened intently as she told the story: The Goatman from Beltsville.
St. Albans Sanatorium is a destination known by serious paranormal investigators as a place where they can seek answers to the mysteries of what lies beyond death. Some of these investigators were able to find resolutions for themselves to a number of these age old riddles through their experiences at the sanatorium. The frightening and true stories found within the pages of this book are about these inquisitive investigators’ encounters with The Ghosts of St. Albans Sanatorium.
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.
Maryland Ghost & Spirit Association. “Maryland Hauntings—St. Mary’s County.” Access date: 6 April 2005. 2000-2005. http://www.marylandghosts.com/locations/stmarys.php.
I have lived in Baltimore for quite some time now, and it is impossible to live in the area and not know that there is a ghost story associated with the Admiral Fell Inn at Fell Point (a section of Baltimore located right on the harbor). The man who told me this story is a very well educated, 61 year old credit union CEO. He told me the story over dinner, with me trying to shush the rest of the guests because they all wanted to tell their own versions. I have included his version of the Ghost of Admiral Fell below, excluding only names and comments from others:
So this past year I heard a ghost story from my mom’s coworker and friend. Her daughter recently purchased an old row house in Philadelphia. She lives there with her husband and they have a daughter, who was about two years old. They started to notice REALLY [eyes get large] weird things happening around the house, it was really eerie and started to make them nervous. Their daughter has a playroom in the attic, and she used to say, actually, she still says that there is somebody up there. She describes him as an African American male--well she says it’s a “Black man”--and she says he sits there and watches her play. When she told her parents...
The Storyteller claimed she once watched a documentary on television about the ghosts of Gettysburg, and it told a strikingly similar story of a ghost in a floppy hat saying the same words to many tourists who were taking pictures at Devil’s Den. Similar stories have been told involving a man in a floppy hat at Devil’s Den. One tells the story of a woman visiting the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. After experiencing no paranormal activity, she sarcastically challenged any ghosts of Devil’s Den to come home with her. A few days later she saw a man wearing a floppy hat and loose shirt in her house. She saw this vision many times, but it would always disappear very quickly. She believed this was a ghost from Devil’s Den accepting her challenge (U.S. Civil War History and Genealogy).
The following ghost story involving a ghost named “Anna” was first told to me by a person who lives near the ghost site. A New Jersey native, this girl was an eighteen-year-old college student. She came from a middle-class, predominantly white, suburban neighborhood. This story about Anna’s ghost was told to a group of other college students and me while eating dinner at the campus diner. The storyteller, I, and our group of friends began to discuss the things we teenagers do to occupy ourselves on weekend nights when we’re bored. Another friend of ours mentioned that she and her friends would trespass into an old, abandoned house in her neighborhood just for thrills. The storyteller then announced that she knew of this road in her hometown of Totowa, New Jersey that is haunted by a teenage ghost named Anna who is dressed in a white gown and was killed by a car while on the road. The storyteller did not know the exact name of this road; she claims that it is now only referred to as Anna’s road. She also did not know when the accident occurred and had not been there herself, but she asserted that a friend of hers had seen the ghost and verified the story for her. She then proceeded to enlighten her audience:
Built in 1910 by Hezekiah Eastman Hatch, Hatch’s Camp (later named St Ann’s Retreat, but most commonly known as The Nunnery) has had plenty of time to surface mysterious tragedy information. Many of these stories are told by local teens/young adults to visitors, many of which attend Utah State and are intrigued by the information given. The variations of the story ranges anywhere from Nuns bearing devil children, to Ghost Dogs chasing you if you trespass or even the children born to the Nuns being killed or scarified in the pool or fireplace. Though they make great ghost stories while camping up in the canyon, the facts behind Hatch’s Camp will make this story seem less spooky.
Cheung, Theresa. The Element Encyclopedia of Ghosts & Hauntings. Element Encyclopedia Series. Unknown: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 2008.
If students are aware of their ability to be involved in the Haunted House, they are more likely to participate. One way to accomplish this is by increasing advertising on campus. If students are offered incentives for participating, they will. Gift certificates from area businesses and free food will entice students to donate their time. Faculty involvement is crucial for the success of the Haunted House. Our findings indicated that students would volunteer if faculty offered class points to them for doing so.