John Palmer Senior Editor

The ghost of Gertrude Angeline Bronson Class of 1895 haunts rom 318 in Main Building, and the College covered up her death. So charges an article from The Miscellany News published Halloween 1973, which claims, “For a number of years, residents of Main 318 have been victimized by hitherto unexplained phenomena. Reports have been received of chairs moving mysteriously about the room and of strange shadows lurking about the interior windows.”

And so another ghost tale enters the canon. Vassar, with its 160+ year-old Main Building, is no stranger to ghost stories and tall tales. Stories of ghosts haunting all of Vassar’s buildings are as old as the College itself. These competing ghost stories are often confused and interrelated, distorted through retellings and time. Most of them involve Main Building, and many of them involve Matthew Vassar. A few involve murder. They’re all a part of campus legend. Here are a few of them, as found in the archives of The Miscellany News:

Matthew Vassar Walks the Halls of North Tower

Apparently, the founder loved the College so much that he never left. So goes the tale that claims Matthew Vassar wanders the fourth floor of Main. But our deceased founder isn’t alone; there are also stories of women who hung themselves during their undergraduate career and continue to haunt their former rooms. A 1984 article indicates that two female students were murdered in rooms 422 and 423, and that their spirits, of course, remain in those rooms.

A 1994 story followed up on this supposed haunting. One girl who lived in a room in the north tower had “a mental vision of a noose hanging from one of the pipes.” But there’s more. “And then there were the noises,” the article continues. “Late at night, around 2 or 3 a.m., when everyone was asleep, [she] would hear a scratching noise out the window...a slow, methodical scratching sound.” The room used to be a double, and the two roommates did not get along. According to the article, “One day, when her trusting roommate’s back was turned, she crept up behind her and pushed her out the window. Soon after, unable to live with the guilt, she hung herself from the ceiling.”

Matthew Vassar Haunts a New Hackensack Road Farm House

One article cites a 1914 Poughkeepsie Enterprise piece, and tells of an appearance of Matthew Vassar to one family in an old farmhouse: “Friday night about 1 a.m., as near as Mr. Stonebridge was able to tell, he and his wife were awakened by a feeling as though cold fingers had been passed across their throats. They opened their eyes almost simultaneously and saw a ghost figure, which stood erect with finger pointed straight at them. Without sound the spectre moved away from the bed and vanished through the open window.”

According to the article in The Miscellany News, The New York Times picked up on a different haunting of the farmhouse, one that centers on the farmhand John C. Rogers. “His oldest daughter waked one night and saw the ghost of Vassar pacing back and forth over the floor without making a sound. The young woman screamed and brought her father to the bedroom, but by that time the wraith had vanished. The same thing happened the following night. The family then moved in haste.”

Henry Noble MacCracken, then the President of the College, had said that the house in question was not Vassar’s, but just a house he had owned, and was later destroyed.

Main’s Fifth Floor Haunted

This story may be a part of the murder tale in 423, but it takes place one floor higher. The valedictorian of a Vassar class in the late nineteenth century had first room pick, and she chose a fifth-floor room facing Ely Hall. The salutatorian wanted the room, but had second choice. The story follows that one day, the salutatorian pushed the valedictorian out the window. It is said the valedictorian still haunts that room, which has been unoccupied for years. The 1994 article in The Miscellany News says that housing officials accredit this to a lack of fire exits. Elizabeth Daniels, the College Historian, was quoted in the article as saying, “I’ve heard a rumor of an unoccupieed room on the fifth floor of Main, but I don’t believe there’s any substance to it.”

There are other stories, of course. Sanders Physics is haunted, to say nothing of the other academic buildings. So, the stories don’t end here—and they will certainly be a part of the College long after we’re gone as well.