Haunted Athens, Ohio - the Ohio University Campus

I loved Ohio University and the town of Athens even though I was only there for a year and a half. It wasn't because the football team was great (they weren't). It wasn't because the education was top notch. It wasn't because it was a quiet, beautiful town hidden away from growing cities- although that was part of it's charm. It was because Athens was haunted, spooky, and threw the best Halloween party in the nation. I had my fair share of ghostly experiences that pushed me from curious skeptic to a believer of the afterlife. I used to wander the abandoned asylum that is now known as The Ridges late at night to see if I would catch a glimpse of anything otherworldly. I have on few occasions.

In my first dorm room my refrigerator would open and close by itself- usually banging against my chair as I wrote papers for class. In another dorm room I had a clock that would not stay in its given space. It could usually be found on the floor somewhere across the room. I should have been scared, but I was mostly intrigued. According to the stories collected over the years, all of which are safely stored away in the Spook Files of the Ohio University library, I'm not alone in having ghostly experiences on the Ohio University campus. There is an extensive number of hauntings and encounters with ghosts on the campus, but I'm going to share a few of my favorites that seem to stand the test of time.

Alpha Omicron Pi House and Delta Tau Delta House
There's nothing I love more than a good ghost scaring Frat Boys and Sorority Girls. It's what all the good horror movies are made of. The Alpha Omicron Pi house is now the Sigma Phi Epsilon house, but there have been many other fraternities and sororities housed there. Before the house was used as a sorority or frat house, it was a house that was a stop along the Underground Railroad. It's said that when the house was just a private residence rumors had started that they were housing a large number of slaves. When the town had stormed the house they had only found one slave that goes by the name of Nicodemus hiding there. When Nicodemus tried to escape the rioting townspeople by escaping through a tunnel, he was shot and killed. Many people claim that Nicodemus still haunts the house and could be the reason so many of the Greek groups move in and out of the house.

The Delta Tau Delta house has a smaller story, and is no longer considered haunted. But there was a time when a group of frat boys decided to steal a headstone from one of the old cemeteries in Athens. They took the headstone back to their house and had a case of poltergeist of activity. The frat boys wised up, returned the headstone, and everything went back to normal. I don't know if it's true or not, but it just proves that vandalizing a graveyard is not a good idea.

Jefferson Hall, Washington Hall, and Crawford Hall
Jefferson Hall was the location of my first dorm. It wasn't scary enough that it was already an all girl's dormitory, but that I would often hear footsteps above the room- even though my room was on the top floor. Some people say they hear the sound of marbles being dropped coming from the attic. The biggest story about Jefferson Hall is the one about the group of students exploring the attic. They came across a lady dressed in clothing from the 1950s, floating above the ground. The group ran to find their R.A. and once they did, they couldn't get back into the attic. The door had been shut and locked. A lot of poltergeist activity has been reported in Jefferson Hall, from lights going on and off and slamming doors.

Washington Hall is haunted by a basketball team. The jury is still out on whether it is a mens team or a girls team that haunted the hall, but both of the stories are often told. Apparently there was a woman's basketball team that had traveled to Ohio University and stayed in Washington Hall. On the way back to their home from Ohio University, their bus had crashed. The team still haunts the dormitory where they spent their last night. Then there is the story of a mens basketball team that haunts the attic of Washington Hall, which used to be an all men's dormitory with a rec room on the top floor.

The Crawford Hall haunting is a recent story, starting with the death of a girl named Laura in 1993. Apparently Laura had fallen out of her window on the fourth-floor and died when she hit the sidewalk below. The weird part about the haunting is that most of the encounters happened on the first floor of Crawford Hall. The lights would flicker and there would be some poltergeist activity. The R.A. at the time sure had a scare though, when the door to his room had opened. All he saw was the outline of the girl, who apologized for waking him. When he went into the hallway seconds later, she was no where to been seen. He later found out his room had a view of where Laura had died on the sidewalk. People who live in Crawford say that you can't play the Bob Marley song "Laura"- it just won't work on any CD player.

College Green
College Green is the hub of the campus. It has a large, grassy area where you can lay on a lawn and read along side of the university's oldest buildings. Apparently all of these buildings that now house offices and classrooms were built on a Native American burial ground and on a quiet night, you can hear chanting of Native Americans.But that's not as weird as what you might see on College Green. Some people have claimed to see the ghost of a headless buffalo that has been given the name Stroud. Stroud was killed during the Civil War by a group of Confederate soldiers and still wanders the College Green of Ohio University.

West State Cemetery Angel
West State Cemetery is close to Uptown Athens, not far away from shops and off campus housing. In the front of the cemetery, there is a statue of an angel that is there to remember all of the unknown soldiers buried in West State Cemetery. People have claimed to see the angel flutter her wings as they walk by or have actually seen her weep. I haven't seen either of these things happen, but I know that the West State Cemetery is creepier than many of the other places on campus. Maybe it's because the graves date as far back as the 1800's, but it is an interesting place to see at night in Athens.

Of course there are many more ghosts and hauntings that happen at the Ohio University campus. Those above are just a few that have been passed down through the years for being really creepy or just really strange. Almost every student at Ohio University has a ghost story to tell of something in their room, or seeing something strange on the streets while passing a cemetery. If you ask to hear a ghost story, some at Ohio University will be willing to tell you their own.

　

Sources:
http://www.athensohio.com/whattodo/index.php?page=131&item=702

http://www.forgottenoh.com/OU/ou.html