Halloween hauntings occur across campus

by MEAGHAN VAN DYKE

News Editor

Halloween on a historic campus can mean more than just costumes and school-sponsored events. For UMW students, October brings back the question of whether or not they believe in the ghost stories told to them at orientation.

Mary Washington’s presence on the site of a Civil War battlefield has inspired countless ghost stories in buildings across campus. 

For junior English creative writing major Sarah Moon, some buildings on campus have felt “haunted,” even though she hasn’t witnessed a ghost or paranormal figure firsthand.

“I also think that my freshman dorm, Westmoreland Hall, is haunted only because the vibes were just off,” she said. “So it’s just like a vibe thing more than like a physical ghost.” 

She also sees the paranormal as an explanation for repeated campus anomalies, such as the Combs Hall elevator continuing to break down.

“It breaks all the time. Why? I don’t know,” Moon said.

Riley Munford, junior communication and digital studies and studio art double major, also believes that the supernatural is an explanation for out of the ordinary occurrences on campus. When she was living in Westmoreland Hall, Munford claims she had encounters with a ghost who lived in the dorm.

“There was this one very, very present spirit that interacted with us really heavily in freshman year,” Munford said. “Like we would come back and things would be knocked over, and just a lot of inexplicable things would happen with the lights or with objects in the room.”

Munford says that she and her roommate came in contact with the Westmoreland Hall ghost and identified her as a female student who died in the residence hall before their time at Mary Washington. According to Munford, they constantly felt her presence in the room and nicknamed her Temperance.

“Every now and then, we just felt like she was nearby, just hanging out, because we could communicate with her and tell that she was there,” Munford said.

Westmoreland Hall is not the only place Munford has felt what she calls a “spiritual presence” on campus.

“There have been times where I’m walking alone or with a small group on Campus Walk and I can just feel like a presence in one direction or another, and I’m able to just look that way and identify what’s there,” Munford said. 

Junior English creative writing major Hannah Holstrom remembers rumors of ghosts she heard during her time living in Virginia Hall.

“I know that on campus, like when I lived in Virginia Hall, a lot of other people would tell me that it felt creepy sometimes,” Holstrom said. “There was a rumor that someone died in there and a lot of people believed that it was haunted and that there was a ghost.”

Holstrom personally does not believe in ghosts. She does, however, believe that buildings have an energy that could make something feel “haunted,” and understands that could be a reason many of her peers feel uneasy in certain places around campus. 

“I believe that if something happened in a place like the place holds on to like that history, even if there’s not a ghost, I think a place can still have an energy to it,” Holstrom said.

Teresa Larrea -Santillan, a senior philosophy and Spanish double major, also heard stories of the ghost in the Virginia Hall basement. 

“I didn’t think it was haunted. It seemed pretty okay in there, but I had to go do laundry late at night, I was a little scared,” Larrea-Santillan said. 

UMW students may not all believe in the traditional sheet ghost superstitions associated with Halloween, but the over 100 year old campus still holds a sense of mystery for even the most staunch unbelievers.

“Sometimes walking around campus late at night can be a little spooky, but I don’t know if that’s because there are ghosts. I mean, there might be, there probably is,” Larrea-Santillan said.