ghost stories



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Ghosts on Campus


Well, well. I was telling you in the ETSU Memoirs that ETSU is supposed to sit on an area that contains extra dimensional gates. Some are supposed to be in the air, and some on the ground. A map from the 1700's depicted the area ETSU is located in as having these gates. The main areas that we knew of were Lucille Clement, Powell Hall, Taylor Dorm, Sherwood Library and Gilbreath Theatre. There are a lot of instances of paranormal activity that I, and my roommate Joe witnessed personally. In this section of my site we will explore these TRUE life stories.

The first mention I heard of was in Lucille Clement a woman's dorm on the far side of campus. There are two intriguing stories there that can be verified by dozens of people. The first one is that on the fifth floor of Lucille Clement. Joe my roommate was visiting a "Friend" in one of the rooms there. It was close to 11 at night, and a sound came from the hallway. He heard marbles dropping on the floor in the hall, and the sound of a small boy playing. They went out into the hall, but no one was there. Others looked out as well, only to see nothing. They went back into their room, and it was about 20 minutes later, and they heard the sounds again. Once again they checked the hall, and nothing was there. Some of the other girls told Joe that they often heard the noise, but no one has seen anything, but many have heard the small child and the sound of marbles dropping on the floor. The second paranormal event in Lucille Clement comes from the fourth floor. Joe was visiting one of his "Friends" there and heard a baby crying. The sound came from the next room over. The girl Joe was visiting said she heard it every so often, but that there was no baby next door. Her and her roommate then told Joe the story about a girl in the 60's became pregnant, and she did not tell her parent's. She was afraid of what they would say so did not tell anyone. She actually delivered the baby herself, then stuffed the new born into a shirt and shoved it in the drawer. The infant shortly suffocated. They did not know if the girl was caught, but they know from time to time you hear a baby crying for it's mother.

You will notice Joe is involved in every story. He's sort of like a magnet for chicks and Ghosts.

The Haunted Theatre

The Next Event as you may have guessed had Joe involved. Geesh at this own rate he should have his own website, any how, let me get back on track. Joe, as most should know, was a
Theatre major. Well being that the Theatre was on one of the "Gates" in Gilbreath Hall there was some unusual experiences there. The first experience Joe had was during a play called "The Shadow Box". This was a play about death and dying. Joe was the Stage Manager. During one of the plays, Joe was in the control booth with 2 sweeties. The control booth, for those who are Theatre Illiterate, is where Cues are given, the lights are controlled, and sound is controlled, it's at the back of the house or auditorium. Well, Joe was there giving cue's, and noticed someone walk behind the girl controlling the lights and the person just looked out at the play. The control room door is locked, and there would have been a ton of light enter the room if the door would have been opened. The girl get's shiver's and chills as the stranger walked behind her. Then the stranger walks behind the girl controlling the sound. She then get's shivers, and chills. The stranger then just walks through a strange door at the far side of the control room, that no one had access to open. Joe was sort of in shock. The two girls didn't see anything just felt cold and chill. Joe then described the person he had seen to the two. Then after the play, they took him to the picture of the person he had described to a tee that was kept in a remote location. The picture happened to be of the deceased Sydney Gilbreath, whom the building was named after.


The Freddy Story

Well now this is how do I say it probably the scariest story of my life. It literally started in High School. Joe my roommate got a Freddy Kruger doll in Gatlinburg. It was very realistic from it's clothing to it's leather boots. It was only about 5 inches tall, and Joe kept it in his locker at school. Well, when we got to college Joe still had the Freddy Kruger doll. It was odd but from time to time the doll would be in a different place like someone kept moving it around. Well one day me and Joe were just hanging out in our room. Joe was up on his bed, (which was on the opposite wall from my bed), and I was lounging on my bed, and we were reading comics. Well Joe gets up and walks to the sink, and mentions did someone move the Freddy Doll again and shows it to me. He say's it was just over on my desk. To help explain it better here is a drawing of our room layout.
diagram
I was looking at him the whole time since I was facing out toward the room reading. I grunted something and he said oh well, and put the doll back down, and went straight back to his bed, and climbed up and started reading again. Then about 30 minutes later Joe looked up to ask me something, then froze. I was like what. He then asked did you move the Freddy doll......... I tho
ught this was a weird question and said no, why? He said, well, uhhh it's above your light. I looked up and the Freddy doll is on it's stomach looking down at me from on top of my light. I knew Joe had not came by my bed when he went to the sink since I was looking at him the whole time, and he knew I hadn't moved, but had to ask for sanity's sake to see if I had moved the doll. I about died when I saw it looking down at me. At that moment I decided were getting rid of it. It was more like GEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH, were getting rid of that thing! Well, the first logical step for us was to microwave it!....... well I said logical for us. The doll was cloth and plastic, and had No metal in it what's so ever, but when we put it in the microwave it sparked like mad. Well, next we thought we will burn it. I got the lighter and the hairspray and used a whole bottle of hairspray, but it would not burn. Even non flammable material will melt at that temperature. So, we resorted to our next plan, we ripped the doll apart, and still no metal even inside, and flushed the doll. Well, it seemed like the thing to do. We were rid of it. Well, the next day in our news paper the doll's head was in the news paper, at that point I was ready to go home and quit ETSU. We flushed the head again, and if it would have reappeared, the ETSU memoirs would have been a lot shorter. The bad thing about this story is it is true.

Gilbreath's Lights

Well, well, well, another true ghost tale. This started one night when Al, Joe and myself were playing an electronic laser tag type game called survivor shots. (Much better than laser tag) We were in Gilbreath Theatre at about 1:00 A.M. in the morning. Well, we had a few good rounds and had decided to head to the play ground at University high on ETSU Campus. Well, let me explain to those not as informed about Theatres how the lightening system works. You have two different types of lights in the theatre first you have the house lights, sort of like your home lights that you can either turn on, off, or fade on and off. Then you have the stage lights that you can program, or set to do all kinds of different effects either individually or together. The house lights are all together, if one goes off all go off. Well, back to the tale, Joe hit the main breaker on the master board, which kills all, and I mean all lights in the theatre. One moment all the house lights were one, and next most went off??? All the lights should have went off. Joe hit the main breaker, but the house lights stayed on in the shape of an L ????? Were not exactly sure why an L. Al, thought it was a trick Joe was trying to pull, since he was the Theatre Technical Guru. If they were the stage lights Joe could have easily accomplished this. But since it was the house lights Joe would have had to went up to the cat walk, and unscrew all but the lights that remained on. One minute all house lights were on, then next when the power was cut, an L remained. Well, Al started to get a little nervous when Joe promised there was no way he could do that with just a flip of the switch. Al, stood at the front of the stage and said, "If this is Sidney Gilbreath blink twice!" The lights in the shape of an L blinked twice. We were a little disturbed by this, but intrigued as well, what if he could give us the winning loto numbers. Well, we stood there for an hour asking questions. The lights would blink once for No, and twice for yes. We were young and never thought to ask why he was still at Gilbreath Theatre. We were a little self absorbed, and asked mostly about things regarding our self. Finally we left and went to University High, and when we came back to the theatre about an hour later all the lights inside were out.


These are some stories from around the internet.

--Ghost's of ETSU--



I have been a student at ETSU for 3 yrs now. I have heard alot of good stories about ETSU. I even learned that it is supposed to be one of the most haunted Schools in the United States.I have talked to a few of the Staff and teachers, I did get a few good stories from them but one thing i did learn was that the Higher up you go the less they want to talk about the Hauntings on Campus. Most of the Stories you will read here came from either Students or teachers at ETSU.

Gilbreath Hall

  header One of the most famous ghosts resides in Gilbreath Hall, named for Sidney Gilbreath, the founding president of the University in 1911 and the resident specter of the building. Gilbreath's ghost apparently watches over the place, closing doors and windows left open by mistake and turning off unnecessary lights. He is believed to reside on the top floor of the building which is blocked off, the only way to access the top floor is through a janitors closet on the floor below.

Here is another story about Gilbearth, Thanks Tina - my roommate was in the computer lab one night typing something for her UIT class, when all the computers started turning on by themselves. The lab instructor said it could be A) power failure, B) power surge , or C) the ghost. Right when he told her that, she got a large cold chill- like something cold walked by. She hasn't been back.

Jays note: I talked to a janitor in Gilbreath and She admitted to the strange happenings and said that he seems to be more active before before a storm.

Burleson Hall


The ghost of Burleson Hall seems to be connected to Christine Burleson, a popular professor who taught Shakespeare for decades. Late in life, she came down with a debilitating disease that ran in her family. She ended up in a wheelchair and in the early 1970's committed suicide. Her ghost has been blamed for a variety of phenomena in the building from a woman's moaning, to voices and other strange sounds. Many believe though that her ghost has inhabited a portrait of her father, David Sinclair Burleson. It has eyes that seem to follow you when you look at it and according to campus tradition, the eyes in the photo are not David Burleson's at all..... but Christine's!

Mathes Hall


Mathes Hall is another reportedly haunted spot on the campus. The spirit here, whoever it might be, tends to follow around the maintenance workers while they are cleaning at night. Many of them have reported being followed by disembodied footsteps that stop whenever the staff member does. Another worker claimed that she heard mysterious crashing sounds from an upper floor while she was otherwise alone in the building.

Cooper Hall


The ghost was said to be a very sad young woman, the daughter of wealthy businessman George Carter, who had donated the land on which ETSU was built. Alice , as the students call her, fell in love with a young man but her parents refused to let them marry and she committed suicide by ingesting a lethal dose of rat poison. Carter was grief-stricken over the loss of this daughter and he immortalized her image in a stained glass window that was installed in the family home. When Carter died in 1936, the college purchased the house and named it Cooper Hall. It was then opened as a dormitory for senior women. It was then that the haunting began. A female voice was heard singing in the halls and unearthly screams sometimes filled the night. Objects disappeared, turning up in other places. Some of the girls complained that they felt as if they were being watched. Most of these strange events took place in the vicinity of the stained glass window. Later, When the house was abandoned, the window was removed. It has since been lost. The stories of the haunting of Cooper Hall continued for years and even after the building was no longer used, the strange tales continued. A Johnson City historian named Ray Stahl was writing a story about the haunting and made an amazing discovery about the history of the house and the Carter family.... George Carter had no daughter! The only child of the Carter's had been James Walter Carter, although from photos of the time, he was a beautiful child with long, flowing hair like a girl's. Apparently, his parents had never gotten over the fact that he had been a boy. Stahl believes that Jimmy was the model for the stained glass window...but he cannot argue the fact that generations of students and maintenance workers have had contact with some sort of spirit in the building. After Cooper Hall was closed as a dormitory, the building became office space and a campus radio station. Several students and janitors encountered the ghost during this time period also. The building was finally torn down in 1984 and while university officials claimed that it was because the old building would cost too much to renovate.... many of the staff believed that knew the real reason the building was destroyed. According to them, they could find no one who was brave enough to inhabit the place with the ghosts.

Dossett Hall

I used to live on campus at E.T.S.U (East Tennessee State Uni). I lived in Dossett Hall. My friends and I would always laugh when something out of the ordinary would happen and say it was Nell Dossett (the lady the dorm was named after). Mind you, this is/was an old building but the water would turn on when no one was around the sink. Cold spots in the hallway and in the room. When I went there we only had a phone in the hallway for everyone to use. Many times the phone would ring late at night and no one be there. I would just be outside my unlocked door with me having no key and the door would slam shut (wind or whatever)and when I tried to open it, locked!! Little tricks like that Nell would play on us. Take it or leave it. Ghost or just things that happened.

Lucille Clement Hall


This story was sent in by a good friend of mine named Mandi.

I lived in Lucille Clement Hall last year and there are many different ghosts and spirits that live in the dorm. The spirit of Lucy still roams the halls. There was one girl who said that Lucy followed her through out the dorm. One night she woke up and looked over at her roommates bed. There was someone standing over her but she knew that she had locked the door....She woke her roommate up to tell her what was happening. She looked up and said go back to sleep, it's just Lucy, you know that.....I woke up really early one morning and went to the bathroom which was outside my door. While I was in there, I heard the elevator open and the fire door open, but no room door.....I waited a sec and then stepped out. There was no one in the hall and no open doors besides my. I went to my room and when I walked in the door, I got a chill and ran to my bed. No more late night trips to the bathroom for me!! There is also the little boy on the roof who likes to play marbles. As it was told to me, he was the son of a janitor who was playing on the roof one day when he got too close to the edge and fell off. One the other floors you can hear when the person above you drops something. Well, you can hear it on the fifth floor too, the top floor. There is nothing up there to fall. I only heard the noise once but certain residents heard it all the time. I've also heard that the steps were haunted. I've heard 2 version of who it was. I heard that it was a janitor and that it was from one of the people in the plane crash on the intramural fields. I also heard that the crash wasn't fatal so I'm not sure who it actually is. I just know that when you come up the steps by yourself that you feel like someone passes you. The elevator is also suppose to be haunted. It opens for no reason without anyone in it and sometimes it takes you to the 2nd floor when you pushed 1 and there is noone waiting to get on. The elevator is old though and is probably the reason that it does that. Who knows though. I hope that this helps you some. Take care and let me know if you find anything else out

Yoakley Hall



Here is another story sent in by a fellow clasmate at ETSU. Thanks For the Story Tina =).

Yoakley Hall. Which was originally a Women's dorm, now offices, is haunted by a female resident who committed suicide there. She jumped from a room on the top floor. Women who lived in the room after her death would see a figure sitting in the window. When they would get to the window the figure would jump, but nobody would be there. Residents started moving out after several occurrences. So many people moved out that ETSU decided that they would turn it into offices. My freshman year here in 1996, my roommate was scheduled to live there in the fall. ETSU sent a letter explaining that Yoakley would no longer be a resident hall and that she would be living in Lucy instead. After I got here that Fall - I was told by an old RD that story. Spooky isn't it?

 


 

If there is an award for the most haunted school in Tennessee , then without a doubt, that award would go to the East Tennessee State University . There may be more ghosts here than in any other college in the south.

One of the most famous ghosts resides in Gilbreath Hall, named for Sidney Gilbreath, the founding president of the University in 191 1 and the resident specter of the building. Gilbreath's ghost apparently watches over the place, closing doors and windows left open by mistake and turning off unnecessary lights. One student even claimed that she saw an apparition of the former president framed in an upper window of the hall one night.

Mathes Hall is another reportedly haunted spot on the campus. The spirit here, whoever it might be, tends to follow around the maintenance workers while they are cleaning at night. Many of them have reported being followed by disembodied footsteps that stop whenever the staff member does. Another worker claimed that she heard mysterious crashing sounds from an upper floor while she was otherwise alone in the building.

The ghost of Burleson Hall seems to be connected to Christine Burleson, a popular professor who taught Shakespeare for decades. Late in life, she came down with a debilitating disease that ran in her family. She ended up in a wheelchair and in the early 1970's committed suicide.

Her ghost has been blamed for a variety of phenomena in the building from a woman's moaning, to voices and other strange sounds. Many believe though that her ghost has inhabited a portrait of her father, David Sinclair Burleson. It has eyes that seem to follow you when you look at it and according to campus tradition, the eyes in the photo are not David Burleson's at all..... but Christine's!

Of all of the hauntings on the campus though, none is as well remembered as the "screaming ghost" of Cooper Hall. The ghost was said to be a very sad young woman, the daughter of wealthy businessman George Carter, who had donated the land on which ETSU was built. Alice , as the students call her, fell in love with a young man but her parents refused to let them marry and she committed suicide by ingesting a lethal dose of rat poison.

Carter was grief-stricken over the loss of this daughter and he immortalized her image in a stained glass window that was installed in the family home. When Carter died in 1936, the college purchased the house and named it Cooper Hall. It was then opened as a dormitory for senior women. It was then that the haunting began.

A female voice was heard singing in the halls and unearthly screams sometimes filled the night. Objects disappeared, turning up in other places. Some of the girls complained that they felt as if they were being watched. Most of these strange events took place in the vicinity of the stained glass window. Later,

When the house was abandoned, the window was removed. It has since been lost. The stories of the haunting of Cooper Hall continued for years and even after the building was no longer used, the strange tales continued. A Johnson City historian named Ray Stahl was writing a story about the haunting and made an amazing discovery about the history of the house and the Carter family.... George Carter had no daughter!

The only child of the Carter's had been James Walter Carter, although from photos of the time, he was a beautiful child with long, flowing hair like a girl's. Apparently, his parents had never gotten over the fact that he had been a boy. Stahl believes that Jimmy was the model for the stained glass window...but he cannot argue the fact that generations of students and maintenance workers have had contact with some sort of spirit in the building.

After Cooper Hall was closed as a dormitory, the building became office space and a campus radio station. Several students and janitors encountered the ghost during this time period also.

The building was finally torn down in 1984 and while university officials claimed that it was because the old building would cost too much to renovate.... many of the staff believed that knew the real reason the building was destroyed. According to them, they could find no one who was brave enough to inhabit the place with the ghosts.

To be continued????????.............