Saint Anselm College offers eerie history, accounts of hauntings

Ghostly figures seen wandering the halls and lights flickering mysteriously on and off in a century-old ivy-covered building on a foggy October night-this isn't an episode of Ghost Hunters on the Sci Fi channel, this is Saint Anselm College. Campus legend says that in the early 1900s, a monk committed suicide in Alumni Hall, where his ghost now haunts. His phantomlike facade can even be seen in the first floor window of the building, in the background of an infamous Coffee Shop photograph. This story has become part of the popular culture of the current student body, and has several variations, but beyond the basics, little else is known. I set out to gather more information, and fill in this story with some background and find the truth. The truth, I discovered, is that this monk-suicide story is completely false, and that Saint Anselm, in actuality, is even more haunted than everyone thinks.

"Well first of all, on every college and university's campus, there are stories, and stories get passed on from one generation of students to another. There have been stories about hauntings and ghosts and so forth," says a source close to the Crier. "There's no story that I'm aware of about a monk [having done that]. I can see how that [story has] taken on a new life, but a monk is never said to have committed suicide." But although this particular story was proven false, I was told that there are quite a few other, truer ones, many of which the general Saint Anselm population is not even aware of.

Take, for instance, the mysterious case of the "Devil Door", in a certain men's dorm. The door, my source tells me, has odd wood carvings, that, when you look at them in just the right way, the face of the Devil can easily be seen. "And it was said that if students opened that and went into that chamber they were never seen again," the source says. Though there is no story of a monk committing suicide, the fourth floor of Alumni is still haunted by a certain monk, who was seen "gliding mysteriously" through the upper floors of Alumni Hall, beginning decades ago when the upper floors were much more open than they are now. And then there's the story of a monk who was particularly gifted at the organ but played it in an exceptionally eerie manner. My source says that "he one time is said to have had an encounter with a supernatural creature, and the next day his hair turned totally white." And then there are the poltergeist happenings in student dorms. "There are stories about students being alone in dorms, at times of the year when most students are away, and hearing tremendous clanging and noises or arguments in the dorm and there's in fact nobody there." There have been reports of objects moving around on their own in one of the women's dorms as well, and sightings of serpents with "red glowing" eyes swimming in Polio Pond.

Having this opportunity to talk with someone knowledgeable about the College's ghost stories, I told my source about some paranormal activity my roommate and I experienced a week ago. Essentially, the water faucet in our room turned on by itself, the handle being turned as well. When I told my source about this, they immediately asked me what the date of this incident was, which I told him. This may have just been an isolated happening, but there are other odd reports of TVs turning off by themselves, and closet doors opening on their own. I asked my source what the meaning of these events was. "It is said by those who believe in them that the spirits use the ordinary accoutrements of life to make their presence known. There's nothing more ordinary than tap water, and a faucet, and yet, spirits have a way of signaling to us, sharing with us, certain bits of information. You have to be a sensitive soul, you have to be alert to it, you have to be willing to hear it," the source says.

Father Jerome Day, O.S.B, of the English Department, has much knowledge about the religious background of ghosts and the supernatural. I met with him to try to further uncover the truth and make sense of these events. "I would say that whatever our religious beliefs are, and I obviously share the church's beliefs on all of this, there are literary and folk traditions throughout the world that acknowledge the presence of ghosts. Ghosts are spiritual beings. They're the human soul whose future is not yet resolved. In any event the stories take on a very important character because the attitudes of men and women in every age toward death, toward the unknown, are always unresolved. Whatever the strange, the "other" is can terrify us. In the Celtic tradition this [time of year] was known as the great feast of "Samhain", the time when the borderland between the world of the dead and the world of the living was very fuzzy and it was the time for people to contact the living, if they were among the dead. In the Hispanic world and in the church calendar on November 1st is the Feast of All Saints and November 2nd is the Feast of All Souls, so all of these traditions kind of come together and become very powerful. Also the change of season--we're going from the season of life, and now in the fall it's dying. So you can see that there's a basis in nature, history, theology, and folk tradition for all of that. It is important to know that ghosts also occupy a very important place in literature. So there is a reality at least to the narrative of ghosts. Whether there is a reality to ghosts is another question."

It's important to acknowledge that like any popular legends, these stories undoubtedly have been evolving and changing as students come and go. My source tells me, "Some of these stories have been around for a long time-- I heard them as a student. What happens is they're malleable, so somebody comes a long and tells a story really well and creates a new one and now you're a new student and you hear it and you think it's been around forever." Though stories change and are affected by those who tell them, these basic tales of ghosts and such have been in the culture of Saint Anselm College for more than a century.