Winthrop’s campus is no stranger to the paranormal, and nowhere is that clearer than within the eerie walls of Tillman Hall. Since 2005, the Romanesque-style building has served as the main hub for the Winthrop Alumni Association’s organized ghost tours, a sort of mecca for the hoard of forlorn spirits that dwell upon university grounds. Generations of Winthrop faculty and students can attest to the bizarre world of unexplained and paranormal events that one enters when crossing through Tillman’s grandiose doors.
Formerly known as the Main Building, Tillman was the first building constructed on the university’s Rock Hill campus in 1894, with each red-brick of the three story building and basement painstakingly placed using convict labor, according to information listed on the Winthrop website’s virtual tour of the building. Prisoner stocks previously used to punish disobedient workers still remain within the building’s basement; a testament to the structure’s sinister past.
“The first time I met Officer Reed, he offered to take me and some of my friends on a ghost tour of Tillman, since he was about to lock the place up,” said Brianna Carlton, a senior psychology major and Resident Assistant for Richardson. “We entered through the main door and he locked that at the start of the tour, so everyone who would have been in the building other than us would have already left. He wanted to show us the stockades in the basement, so we went down there and he began to tell us the story of why they are there. While we were downstairs, we started hearing loud footsteps running around upstairs going thump thump thump thump, even though no one was there. It was the weirdest thing.”
One common tale spread amongst Winthrop community members warns that the portraits placed on the walls of Tillman have watchful eyes that follow students and faculty as they pass through the halls.
“When Officer Reed told us that the portrait eyes follow you, I didn’t believe him at all. But when he told me to walk down the hall and I did, I couldn’t unsee it. To this day, the eyes still seem to follow me. I don’t know if it’s just in my head or I never noticed it, but it’s definitely very eerie,” Carlton said.
Another Tillman ghost story features the appearance of a one-armed specter sometimes spotted by rare visitors to the Little Chapel.
These students report seeing flickering candles and lamps through the window of the abandoned fourth story classroom that faces Margaret Nance from the sidewalk.
“One account notes that a student walking toward Roddey Hall apartments about midnight after a late night of studying for an exam with classmates, noticed a light moving from window to window,” began an eclectic tale collected by Gina Jones, the Director of Winthrop’s Louise Pettus Archives and Special Collections. “The student stopped and looked up intently toward the top windows. In one of the windows was the face of a gentleman dimly lighted by the flame from a candle in his right hand. The figure’s left arm appeared to be missing, as was D. B. Johnson’s. He looked at her, seemed to nod, and disappeared.”
Paranormal encounters stemming from Tillman’s mysterious top floor are not uncommon at all and what lies behind the locked doors of the fourth floor serves as the highlight of the yearly ghost tours. Though officially closed due to lack of air conditioning and handicap accessibility, the fourth floor’s heavily graffitied walls bearing the signatures of hundreds of Winthrop students and faculty testify to the floor’s deep connection with university attendees of the past and present. Horror films such as Carrie 2 (1999) and Asylum (2008) have utilized the ghostly atmosphere of Tillman’s uppermost floor as the backdrop for their own frightening stories.
Despite the Tillman building’s plethora of spooky tales, Student and Young Alumni Program Coordinator Shayna Foxworth firmly believes that many of the ghosts that haunt the building are benign in nature.
“Contextually, Tillman is the first and one of the most historical buildings on campus. I think a lot of the girls who used to go to school and class there come back to the building when they pass on because it was where they’ve had some of their best memories. I think the sense of affinity for Winthrop is what keeps so many spirits here. People like D. B. Johnson worked so hard to make sure Winthrop was successful, and in the process they made so many loving memories here. I think a lot of these spirits just want to be able to see the new students and faculty we have joining the campus as Winthrop family members,” Foxworth said.
Though the traditional Ghost Tours will not be held this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students will still get the opportunity to experience some of Winthrop’s spookiest scares through the Alumni Associations Halloween Hauntings Week, hosted virtually on Oct. 26-31. Students who are interested can contact the Alumni Association through their Instagram @winthropalumni or through their email alumni@winthrop.edu.
Photo by Gwen Manten
