Archives: April 2011 Archives: April 2011

In light of the 4^th installment of “Scream” (opening today), we have been feeling the need for a few scary stories. Allow us to introduce our new series: Freaky Friday. Each Friday, we will be telling the tales of spooky myths from college campuses across the country.

Without further ado, we bring you the ghost stories from Lancaster, Pennsylvania’s Franklin & Marshall, according to the F&M Library.

The history of Diagnothian Hall leaves it full of ghost stories.

Diagnothian Hall

Currently the F&M Registrar’s office and lecture hall, Diagnothian Hall was originally home to a Civil War hospital.  The building is now home to many-a-ghost story:

Around 2am one night, a music professor was listening to a recording of “Red Cross Nurse” when he heard moans, rattles and other sounds of a person in pain coming from the lobby on the other side of his office wall. When he went to investigate, the lobby was empty.

A few years later, “Haunted Landscape” was on the same professor’s stereo late one night when he heard the same sounds as before. He later made the connection between the war-themes of the songs he was playing and the building’s history as a Civil War hospital.

Other people that have worked in the building have reported occurrences of doors slamming when the building was empty and other odd noises. Creepy!

Don't get on the elevator at this library-- Who knows where you'll end up?

Shadek-Fackenthal Library

Now this is scary– 3 days prior to his death in 1950, Dr. Harvey Bassler wrote a letter to his farm’s caretaker telling him where to find the money he was owed after Bassler reportedly had premonitions of dying in a car crash. On March 14^th of that year, Bassler and Rudolph Hommel were on their way to the library when they hit the open door of a parked car, causing their car to launch into oncoming traffic, striking an oil truck head-on.  They both died in the crash.   

Bassler had been in the practice of using the northeast corner of what was then Fackenthal’s Library to organize his large collection of artifacts. After his death, reports of strange occurrences began cropping up, including elevators landing on the wrong floors and books found out of place in the bookstacks. Since renovations and the addition of the Shadek wing in the early 1980s, reports have subsided, but there is still the odd time when spooky sounds have been heard in the library, leading the campus to believe that Bassler’s spirit remains in the library.

Does your school have a spooky myth or scary story? Leave a description in the comments below and you could see it featured here!

Sleep tight.