Haunting Tale Persists at Washington & Jefferson College

observer-reporter - There was a good explanation for why the curtains would suddenly rustle as if they were brushed by a ghost at the president's mansion at Washington & Jefferson College.

Until the siding was replaced two years ago, the outside wood on the Victorian house was weather-worn to the point where gusts of wind could actually blow through the walls.

But those repairs have done nothing to sway a belief that the ghost of a Confederate officer haunts the stately three-story house that's filled with antiques.

Former presidents even claimed to have seen the spirit of a wayward Southerner who supposedly was captured and hanged in the front yard along East Wheeling Street, according to current W&J President Tori Haring-Smith.

She said she cannot dismiss the possibility ghosts exist because she has known too many intelligent people who believe in them.

For example, Jim Longo, chairman of the college's education department, is a ghost hunter who has been called upon to exorcise ghosts from buildings across the country, she said.

"I have never seen a ghost, never laid eyes on a ghost," said Haring-Smith, the seventh W&J president to reside in the mansion, which was donated to the school in the 1920s.

She inherited the ghost story that has been around for decades at the college, founded in 1781 and known as the 11th oldest in the United States. The tale even is mentioned as a promotion tool on the school's Web site.

"I've heard some weird things go on the third floor," said Chris Wilson, 20, a junior who walked up to the house to photograph it Sunday. "I heard she (Haring-Smith) never uses the upstairs much. Maybe there is a reason for that."

Workmen have been known to leave the third floor after hearing marching sounds there while no one else is in the house, Haring-Smith said.

She has seen coat hangers mysteriously sway in an otherwise empty closet. Her cats sometimes sit and slowly turn their heads as if they are watching someone walk across the room, she said.

The natural gas fireplaces in the house, as well as the televisions, sometimes turn on and off without help, she said.

But the ghost story falls apart at its seams because the house was built in 1892, nearly three decades after the war between the states ended.

"That make no sense," Haring-Smith said.

Neither does the story about the ghost named Abigail that reportedly sweeps the halls of McMillan Hall, built in 1793 when W&J accepted only men as students. She has been to blame for doors opening and closing seemingly on their own.

"What a woman would be doing in an all-male college ...," Haring-Smith said.

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