--Ghost's of ETSU--
Jays note
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
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 admited 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.
Karen
Lucille Clement Hall
Jays Note
This story was sent in by a good friend of mine named Mandi.
Mandi
mandalynn18@juno.com
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 roomates 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 intermural 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
Jays note
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?