Streetlamp at Conn. Photo courtesy of Sophia Angele-Kuehn.
On the evening of Friday, October 28, with lights dimmed and curtains ominously drawn, Larrabee common room was host to a special ghost stories lecture by Professor T.J. Wellman, visiting assistant professor of religious studies and one of Central Campus’s Residential Education Fellows. REF programs were introduced in 2009 and allow faculty members to work closely with students and present informal talks, plan educational programs and host study breaks in the residence halls after hours. The event was particularly well attended with over 40 students stopping by over the course of the evening, and running from 8 to almost 11 PM.
Professor Wellman noted early on that his talk was going to focus specifically on things that happened to him, or that he was able to directly source and credit.
With that, he dove right in, telling his first personal experience that took place within the past year in none other than Blaustein Humanities Center. Wellman noted that occasionally he works late into the night, and even with the Campus Safety officers passing through, the building can be “creepy as hell,” particularly with motion-sensor lights that seem to go on and off on their own.
On one particular night, while using the copier on the third floor around 11:30 PM, Wellman recounted, “I just had this sense that somebody was behind me.” Unsure of what could have possibly triggered this sensation, the self-proclaimed “agnostic ghost skeptic” proceeded to search the entire building and its numerous classrooms.
“I go to haunted houses whenever I can,” Wellman said. He called campus safety, asking them to also search the entire building, just to be sure no one else was in the building. Soon after, Officer Shamus Denniston came over, who usually searches the building around 3 AM to see if any professors have fallen asleep in their offices.
After Wellman shared his experience, Denniston shared a story of his own. Standing in the foyer at the bottom of the stairs where one can see all the way up to the third floor railing, he looked up and very clearly saw someone looking over the railing down at him. But by the time, Denniston made it back up to the third floor to search the area, there was no one to be found.
Wellman made a point of saying he believed most ghost stories are cumulative: “We’re often primed and ready and waiting for things to happen.” In this particular case, though, since he had not previously been aware of Denniston’s experience, Wellman doesn’t feel he was primed for the creepy event to occur.
Wellman then went on to discuss a ghost hunt that took place in Palmer Auditorium. He and a number of other campus safety officers were granted overnight access to the building.
After asking the group of students whether they had ever heard of “Ruth,” Wellman noted that she is one of the ghosts that most of the staff at Connecticut College is aware of.
Ruth was a New London patron who often attended the shows and concerts held at the college many years ago. Her eventual death was unknown to most of the community, and it appears that even up to six months after her death, fellow audience members would comment on her presence at shows, only to be corrected by neighbors who knew she had died several months before. Apparently, her death did not prevent her ghost from continuing to attend the performances.
Lore has it that Ruth continus to visit on the occasion, sitting in her favorite spot on the left side of the Palmer audience balcony (if you’re on stage and facing the audience). Wellman himself admitted to sitting in that section intentionally, hoping to catch a glimpse of the woman, most recently at the Senior Dance performance last year.
Another creepy event that Wellman witnessed occurred when lights above the balcony in Palmer were turning on and off on their own, in sequence. He even captured the occurrence on film.
“It was as though people were pacing consistently, and that they were invisible except for the shadows of their feet.” Wellman mentioned that he’s been back there since, in hopes of seeing a ghost or some supernatural phenomenon.
Wellman then went on to ask if any of the students in the common room had heard of the little girl in Harris. “Early mornings, often before students arrive,” Wellman divulged, “a young girl who can’t be more than about 5 or 6 years old stands by the frozen ice cream machine, and then disappears.”
Wellman maintains that this is something that happens with some frequency, as opposed to other ghost sightings. Furthermore, dozens of reports have come from people who do not know each other, nor do they know anything about the history of the girl’s sighting. “The girl is often so visible and realistic, that the witnesses are initially concerned that there’s a child in the building,” Wellman added.
But why would there be a little girl there in the first place? Wellman said he had done some research and found out that Harris was actually built over a demolished neighborhood – unfortunately nothing else is known as far as why the girl might still reappear every now and then.
Sarah Kosofsky ’12 commnted that after walking back to her room in Wright late one evening, looking in through doors of Harris, she saw what seemed like a group of 10 people running. She says that she herself does not believe in ghosts, and thinks she might have been hallucinating. However, another student attending the event insisted they knew someone who had seen something similar.
Gallows Lane is another notorious and well known haunted area on campus, located on a hill in Connecticut College’s arboretum where New London executed convicts were hanged. The infamous “Arboretum Scream” is something that often occurs at night, often heard by late night wanderers. The scream has happened frequently enough that even the New London Police know about it, and will often send new recruit policemen to go search the area, knowing that they’ll never be able to source the sound.
To this, one student inquired, apologetic for possibly debunking the claim, if screeching owls might be responsible. To this, Wellman replied, “Don’t ever apologize for debunking.” Debunking, he believes, is absolutely essential in dealing with the unknown and making sense of things that aren’t readily explained. Wellman then admitted to the possibility of screech owls, but that it certainly couldn’t be traced to mountain lions or mongrel coyotes, since they don’t exist in Connecticut.
One student attending the common hour, Pete Konowski ’12, offered a personal recounting of his own, where “it appeared as though someone’s scream had been cut short on the Fire Trails.”
Returning to campus buildings at Connecticut College, Wellman spoke of a class he taught in Fanning 419, where he said that, as a professor watching his students enter the class on a regular basis, “it seemed like every time someone walked in, they would deflate,” as though the energy were just being taken out of them from an overwhelming presence.
One student inquired about Knowlton and the validity of the story of girls committing suicide in the building due to Coast Guard cadets refusing to marry them. To this, Wellman replied, “It seems like that story only really pops up with the running of the Haunted House,” which took place Friday evening as well. “But wouldn’t they be dead year-round?” Wellman pointed out that often “what starts off as fiction can become disassociated and become the lore of the building.” He thinks they may be partly the case for Knowlton.
Wellman acknowledged that by attending ghost hunts and going places late at night, he was definitely “asking for trouble” to begin with. Nevertheless, he remains agnostic about the existence of ghosts.
“I don’t know what causes them, but people desperately want to explain why these things happen,” Wellman explained. He went on to discuss what he described as “proof of agency,” enabling one to vouch for a ghost’s existence and being a person or something we could interact with.
After having exhausted the topic of scary events on Conn’s campus, he settled into some stories of some of his friends who had actually gotten used to living in haunted houses, even asking for his assistance in asking ghosts and “Little Men” to move with them.
What was particularly stirring were the two times when, after telling stories of the “Little Men” running across the living room at his friends’ house, and the mysterious feet belonging to an unknown figure seen by a repairman in the small town of Newark, Delaware, another student at the event admitted to having heard the exact same things happening to one of her own family members, who lived near Philadelphia. Wellman, though initially surprised, noted that the proximity of the two cities, and insisted that it was quite possible and actually common for similar things to occur.
At that point, Wellman commented that most ghosts just want people to know they’re there and that they existed. Then they stop.
And then, just at that moment, the lights in the Larrabee hallway went out, to a few gasps.
“Whenever I do this talk, weird things happen!” Wellman proclaimed. It was only then that one student in the group remembered it was due to the “Are you afraid of the dark?” event that ran from 10-11 PM to save money and energy for a better Floralia. •
