As cold weather finally settles over Winthrop, Halloween approaches, bringing with it jokes and jives about the school being haunted. This fact of the beloved school being spooked by spirits of faculty and students past isn’t simply an urban legend but cold hard fact.
Winthrop plays host to many different legends of spirits and ghouls. The debate of these stories being true needs to come to a conclusion. The evidence that the university is haunted piles up as soon as you begin to look into it. The university itself alludes to a belief in these stories, playing them up every year around Halloween with different spooky events, including haunted tours of Tillman.
Overwhelmingly, students believe that Tillman, Margaret Nance and The Little Chapel are the eternal home to several restless spirits. Margaret Nance has been the home to thousands of young women over the past 123 years. Many students have had interactions with past students who have died, leaving their energy in their old home.
“I’ve felt the energy of a ghost that is in Margaret Nance quite a few times, she likes to hide in a specific area of the building, one of the stairwells to be exact. I’ve heard people talk about possession, but she isn’t a demon so she can’t possess anybody,” Yogi Patel, a sophomore business major said.
The Little Chapel is said to be haunted by the first president of the university, David Bancroft Johnson and his wife Mai, who are buried there. Their spirits roam the campus, but they are both incredibly friendly to the students whose university they helped establish. Education major Autumn Hawkins is a medium and has had experienced interactions with spirits since she was very young.
“At first it was just Mai, the president’s wife, the one buried in the Little Chapel. I sense her presence every day, but she’s strongest at sunset. Her husband is always near the chapel as well, but he’s more restful than active. Mai is more interactive, she loves it when people come to sit on the rocks near the chapel. She loves hearing the students talk about the school. I’ve seen her in the window at the top of the chapel, the one nearest Dalton.” Hawkins said about her experiences on campus.
The other haunted buildings on campus receive many reports of experiences. The most famous is Tillman Hall. When the building was first erected the crew began bringing in labor from men who were in prison due to budget cuts. The stocks that these prisoners were held in are still in place in the basement of Tillman and many faculty members who work in the building have reported hearing their cries for help. The fact that this is such a well-known haunting is used by the university in the yearly ghost tours of Tillman.
Winthrop is surely haunted by the spirits of students and faculty. Most of these spirits do not seem to be angry in any way and in many cases enjoy hearing about student life and play pranks on the students around them. It is time that students accept the other members of the community and are no longer scared by them but see them as the friendly spirits they are.
