The Deep South - Off the Beaten Path

About midway along Alabama's main artery of I-65 sits Montgomery, Alabama. Montgomery offers many points of interests, such as the State Capitol, the Rosa Parks Museum, and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, but a lesser known attraction is Huntingdon College. Some of the more famous alumni of this small, private, Methodist-affiliated institution are Senator Jeff Sessions and novelist Harper Lee. Huntingdon was also featured in Tim Burton's movie Big Fish.

The names of Huntingdon buildings also provide a glimpse into Alabama history. Take, for example, Bellingrath Hall. William A. Bellingrath purchased the Coca-Cola franchise of Montgomery in 1903. His brother Walter became head of the Mobile Coca-Cola franchise. These enterprises became some of the most successful franchises in the United States. Near Mobile, it is still possible to tour the home and famed gardens of Walter Bellingrath.

Aside from these facts, Huntingdon is probably most famous for its ghosts. In fact, it may be one of the most haunted colleges in Alabama, if not the South. Huntingdon was originally founded in 1854 in Tuskegee, Alabama as a women's college. Now in Montgomery, it is home to a cast of otherworldly souls who roam the oldest buildings of the main 58-acre campus. In 1934, the college became co-ed, setting the stage for both sexes to witness the campus' paranormal activity. By that time, it had also acquired its present name. The cadre of aged Oak trees that overshadows the college's red-brick, gothic-style buildings, lends its ghost stories a palpable believability. (The campus, incidentally, was designed by the Olmsted_Brothers of Central Park landscape fame.)

The most notable specter of Huntingdon, The Red Lady or Martha, haunts the top floor of Pratt Hall, a women's dormitory. No one has inhabited a dorm room on the fourth floor for several decades. Sorority chapter rooms, however, occupy either end of the floor. Some of the sisters have reported hearing noises or experiencing flickering lights late at night upon leaving their chapter rooms. Women who live on the floor below have been awakened by noises described as "furniture moving" above them. Others have experienced waking in the wee morning hours to discover their room's overhead light switched on.

Far from being circumspect, residents of Pratt Hall and its adjoining dormitory, Hanson Hall, have integrated Martha's legend into an annual event. During the fall, upperclassmen arrange for the two dorms to "lose power" with permission from supervisors. Freshmen residents are kept in the dark, both figuratively and literally. One resident dresses as The Red Lady and walks the halls. Other residents trail behind banging on doors. The commotion has been known to frighten even the most cynical freshman.

As legend has it, Martha attended Huntingdon when it was the Women's College of Alabama. Supposedly, Martha's mother had attended Huntingdon and her father insisted that she do the same. Far away from her home in New York, Martha became despondent. Some versions of the story claim that Martha's unhappiness stemmed from a bad romance, but all versions seem to agree that Martha's roommates abandoned her one by one, until alone and friendless, she walked the dorm's halls each night wearing a red robe. The story goes that she would open the other women's doors and stare, never saying a word.

Days passed, and when no one saw Martha, the dorm president investigated. In the most popular version of the story, Martha was found lying in a pool of blood as a result of her slit wrists. An obscure version claims that red ants ate her. Records have never confirmed nor denied the story, but residents of Pratt Hall believe that a spirit, whether or not it is The Red Lady, resides on the top floor.

Here's the catch, the suicide on which the myth is based probably occurred on the Tuskegee campus, but this likelihood has done nothing to quiet residents' claims. For further information about Huntingdon's Red Lady, pick up a copy of Thirteen Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey written by Kathryn Tucker Windham (an alumni) and Margaret Gillis Figh.

In addition to the legend of the Red Lady, Huntingdon is home to Frank, a ghost whom librarians say re-arranges the less frequented, narrowly rowed stacks of the Houghton Memorial Library's fourth floor. The Green, a park-like lawn in the middle of campus, is also said to be haunted, in addition to several other buildings. For further information about these stories, refer to Daniel W. Barefoot's Haunted Halls of Ivy: Ghosts of Southern Colleges and Universities.