Haunted Libraries in Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Pennsylvania
Ohio
• Ashtabula County District Library. The ghost of Ethel McDowell, who was appointed librarian when this Carnegie building opened in 1903, haunted the library prior to an October 1991 fire that took place during a million-dollar renovation. Odd footsteps were heard in the second-floor storage area, and apparitions and cold spots were reported in the basement hallway.
• Circleville, Pickaway County Genealogy Library, Samuel Moore House. The ghosts of runaway slaves are said to haunt this 1848 building, a stop on the Underground Railroad. Slaves could have been kept in a secluded underground room connected with the basement beneath the sidewalk on Mound Street.
• Dayton, VA Medical Center, Patient Library. Center Historian Melissa Smith said she has felt an uncomfortable presence in the library, while others have seen a ghostly woman standing at the upper windows.
• Granville, Denison University, William H. Doane Library. A shadowy woman in an old dress sometimes wakes up napping male students on an upper floor.
• Hinckley, Old Library. A young woman in an old-fashioned blue dress and a man with a hat have been seen in this 1845 structure. After the building opened as a library in 1975, librarians began to keep a file on the occurrences. Books left out the night before would sometimes be reshelved, while others (especially Anne Rice novels) would be flung to the floor during the night. Others have felt an odd presence in the upper rooms, occasionally paper clips sail through the air, and a furnace man once saw a ghostly figure on the basement stairs. The ghosts are believed to be those of Orlando Wilcox and his daughter Rebecca (1837–1869), who lived in a cabin on the site before the house was built. In 2003, the weight of the books and mold inside the walls forced the library to move to new quarters. A good summary of the haunt is Michelle Belanger’s “The Haunting of Hinckley Library,” Fate 56 (November 2003): 35–41.
• Ironton, Briggs Lawrence County Public Library. The library staff has reported odd computer behavior and the sound of keys rattling, and Genealogy Librarian Marta Ramey said the hydraulic door to her office once closed abruptly three times in a row. The phenomena are blamed on Dr. Joseph W. Lowry, who was murdered in 1933 in a house on the current library site.
• Kent Free Library, Carnegie building. The first librarian to work in this 1903 Carnegie was Nellie Dingley, who died of pneumonia in France in 1918 while volunteering as a Red Cross nurse. She is said to haunt the place. The library moved to new quarters in 2005.
• Paulding County Carnegie Library. One night in the 1980s, cleaners were in the building late at night when they looked up and saw a figure hovering in the north wing. The frightened workers refused to return to the library. In 2003, the director and board president were walking near the elevator when a large plant suddenly fell to the ground next to them.
• Steubenville Public Library. This Carnegie library opened in 1902 with Ellen Summers Wilson as the first librarian. Her office was located in the central tower, and after she died in 1904 stories began to circulate about creaking sounds and footsteps in the unoccupied attic. Today the attic houses air conditioning equipment that mysteriously turned itself off—until the controls were moved downstairs.
• Toledo–Lucas County Public Library, West Toledo Branch. Odd noises and bumps can be heard in the area near a fireplace on the west wall. The ghost of a man wearing clothing from the 1930s has also been seen there.
Oklahoma
• Broken Bow Library. This 1998 building stands on the site of a former high school. Sometimes at closing, staff report a cold spot and argumentative voices in the southeastern corner of the library.
• Inola Public Library. Books often move themselves forward and fall off the shelves in this small facility built in 1969.
Oregon
• Pendleton Center for the Arts. Originally a 1916 Carnegie library, this building was the Umatilla County Public Library in 1947 when Assistant Librarian Ruth Cochran suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while she was closing the building October 11. She went to the basement to rest, but was found the next day and taken to the hospital, where she died. Spooky events in the library were blamed on Ruth until it moved to a new location in 1996. Once a custodian was alone in the building painting the children’s room when the intercom system buzzed repeatedly.
• Portland, Multnomah County Library, North Portland Branch. In the early 1990s, a man was seen several times on a security camera sitting in the second-floor meeting room when the room was closed and empty. On one occasion, a library assistant actually watched the figure vanish from the screen as a supervisor walked upstairs to investigate.
• Union Carnegie Public Library. Strange noises emanate from a storage room in the basement.
Pennsylvania
• Bethlehem, Lehigh University, Linderman Library. A cantankerous ghost allegedly pesters students and staff. He is thought to be an elderly gentleman who frequented the library and was a general nuisance. Whether the phenomena will survive the library’s current (2005–2007) restoration remains to be seen.
• Cheltenham, former East Cheltenham Free Library, James Houldin house. When the library occupied a 200-year-old house on Central Avenue from 1957 to 1978, it shared quarters with a ghost. Head librarian Mrs. John Brockman said in the January 29, 1970, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin that she could smell coffee brewing in her office some afternoons around 4:30, and before closing time there was a “whole combination of cooking odors.” Library Assistant Betty Stratton heard a “sniff or snort” on the second floor that she had a snorting dialogue with.
• Dormont Public Library. Allegedly haunted by a former librarian named Alice, this 1962 library’s books have a tendency to disappear and reappear. A man and woman laughing can sometimes be heard.
• Easton Public Library. Spooky sounds and sensations are blamed on Elizabeth Bell “Mammy” Morgan (d. 1839, an innkeeper, amateur lawyer, and the widow of a doctor who perished in the Philadelphia yellow-fever epidemic of 1793) and 513 others who were buried in a cemetery uncovered at this site when the library was built in 1903.
• Gettysburg Borough Office Building. Home to the Adams County Public Library in the 1940s and 1950s, this Civil War–era building had a ghost named Gus who would move objects, turn on the water fountain, ride the elevator, and cook food in the building.
• Hazleton, Bishop Hafey High School. Screams and loud noises are heard from the library at night, attributed to a student who committed suicide in the 1970s.
• Immaculata College Library. KYW radio reported March 23, 2005, that library staff heard odd knocking noises after utensils and other artifacts from a nearby archaeological dig were put on display. The artifacts came from Duffy’s Cut, a burial site of 57 Irish immigrants who died of cholera (perhaps aided by foul play) while working on the railroad in 1832.
• Milton Public Library. Cold spots in the older section of this library built in 1974, computer high jinks, and phantom footsteps are blamed on the presence of a former librarian.
• Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, Library Hall. A cleaning lady claimed to have bumped into Ben Franklin’s ghost, his arms full of books, in the 1870s or 1880s. The original structure was built in 1789 and demolished in 1888; the current building is a replica built in 1954.
• Philadelphia, Civil War Library and Museum. Footsteps, an eerie presence, and phantom cigar smoke have been experienced here. In the Lincoln Room, the ghosts of soldiers playing cards have allegedly been seen.
• Philadelphia, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. A spectral typist frequently heard in a room on the third floor is said to be the ghost of cataloger Albert J. Edmunds. Voices, footsteps, shadowy forms, and an address-label machine that operated without being plugged in have been well-witnessed.
• Phoenixville Public Library. Three different ghosts are said to inhabit this recently renovated 1902 building. “One of them is a lady who is in the attic,” said the library’s Executive Director John Kelley. “She’s wearing a bustle dress, a high hat, and having a grand old time.” The Chester County Paranormal Research Society conducted an investigation there in 2006 and took photos of orbs and discolorations.
• Selinsgrove, Susquehanna University, Blough-Weis Library. Student workers have felt a presence and seen an apparition while working late at night in the basement.
• University Park, Pennsylvania State University, Pattee Library. According to the Shadowlands website, “Workers and students report that there have been strange screams echoing up from the basement levels, transparent girls thumbing through books, disembodied glowing red eyes, book carts being moved without anyone present, and all sorts of other phenomena.”
• University Park, Pennsylvania State University, Pollock Laptop Library. A grumbling voice has been heard in this facility that was dedicated in 1999.