The Hauntings of Gettysburg College
Stevens Hall, completed in 1868, is considered the most haunted residential building on campus. (William Oehler/The Gettysburgian)
A Collection of Ghost Stories from the Nation’s Most Haunted College
By Noah Simkiss, Contributing Writer
In the nearly 240 years since its founding, Gettysburg has established itself as a town of legend. It has become a dream destination for history buffs who visit the town to marvel at the cannon balls planted in Civil War era buildings and walk the battlefields of one of the most influential military engagements in United States history.
But the town is known for more than just its history. For many, Gettysburg is known most of all for its alleged paranormal hauntings.
Sites like the Jennie Wade House, the Farnsworth House and the battlefield itself boasts countless paranormal stories, attracting ghost hunters and thrillseekers who hope to experience the supernatural in what has been described as the most haunted small town in the country.
This reputation inspires many people’s most pressing question for Gettysburg residents: have you seen any ghosts? For some students, the answer is yes.
Among the College’s many ghost stories is the tale of “blue boy,” who is said to haunt Stevens Hall — the fourth oldest building on campus which still serves as a residence hall. According to campus legend, in the late nineteenth century a young orphan boy fled the mistreatment of his own home in the middle of a harsh, snowy winter and ended up at the door of Stevens Hall.
Trying to protect him from the cold, female students living in the hall at the time took him inside and let him into one of their rooms. But when a school official later knocked on the girls’ door, there was nowhere for him to hide. In a panic, they placed him on the window ledge outside, out of sight of the official. When the girls were finally free to rush back to the window ledge and bring the boy inside, he was nowhere to be found.
Although we will never actually know what happened to the blue boy of Stevens Hall (in all likelihood, this story is nothing more than a legend), residents still claim to see his cold, blue face pressed against the glass of their windows, accompanied by all kinds of unusual events.
One student from the class of 2015 previously described an experience she had in Stevens Hall during the field hockey preseason. “I was the only one living in Stevens Hall,” she said in a Gettysburgian article back in 2014. “One night I heard footsteps down the hall, and above me. When I looked around the next day, there was no one else in the dorm.”
The College’s ghosts are not limited to Stevens Hall. Mac Waldron ’26 recounted a story from her first year at the College, where she claims to have experienced the supernatural in the basement of Hanson Hall.
“I was sitting in the common room and the door opened inwards just a little bit, so I couldn’t see who it was,” she said. “I yelled that it was okay to come in, but I heard nothing and the door slammed shut. I went outside, and there was nobody in the hallway.”
Describing the layout of the Hanson Hall basement, she added, “It’s a really long hallway. If someone is walking away in that hallway, you can see them. So unless someone can sprint that length in less than five seconds, the door opened and slammed itself.”
Another first-year dorm, Huber Hall, possesses claims of its own set of bizarre instances where two students reported ghostly incidents in the same third floor room but in different years.
“I was sound asleep one night last year and I woke up to my alarm clock going off, beeping 12:00 even though I didn’t set it. When I pulled the cord out of the wall, the clock didn’t turn off,” said the first student.
Another student previously described her own paranormal experience, stating, “I woke up one night to a pressure on my chest, and I heard someone dragging across the floor. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, every single item on me and my roommate’s desk had been thrown onto the floor.”
While we can never truly know the origins behind the plethora of ghostly stories emerging from Gettysburg College, there doesn’t seem to be a single building on campus where someone hasn’t experienced something they can’t explain. As we approach the spookiest time of the year on — allegedly — one of the most haunted campuses in the nation, make sure to keep your eyes and ears open for blue faces in the window or unusual footsteps in an empty hallway.
This article originally appeared on page 17 of the No. 2 October 2024 edition of The Gettysburgian’s magazine.
