Ghost Sightings and Ghost Stories

Kenyon Haunting

I go to a college (kenyon)that has tons of ghost stories, a good many of them related tospecific verifiable events in our campus history. one wouldn'tthink that a place so small as this one (we only have 1500students, and in the past, it was a lot smaller) should have somany ghost stories, but one way or another, the place is sospooky (or the students so imaginitive) that one of ourprofessors, Dr. Tim Shutt, is going to be to be featured on NPR("Fresh Air, if i'm not mistaken) for their halloweenspecial on monday night. anyway, on oct. 28, 1905 (89 years agoyesterday), Stuart Pierson, a pledge for the DKE fraternity wasled down to a nearby railroad trestle and left alone as part ofthe initiation ceremony. now it is unclear (and it subsequentlybecame the object of a nationwide debate), whether he fell tosleep or was tied to the tracks, but either way, it shouldn'thave mattered: no night trains were scheduled to come along thatparticular line at that time of year. of course, you've probablycaught on by this point that one, in fact, *did* come along, at 9:41pm(or thereabouts--the watch he was wearing had stopped at thatexact time), a random, but grisley coincidence. when hispledgemaster came along to retrieve him, the sign that had beenleft pinned to the unfortunate pledge's shirt took on hideousirony: it said, "when next we pass, it will be worse."

Now as it turns out, the young man's father, a former kenyon DKEhimself, had come in from cincinnati for the initiation ceremony.he immediately left campus with the body of his son and took itto cincinnati to be buried without any autopsy and only minimalinvestigation into the circumstances of his son's death. later,when asked for comment, the father said "boys will be boys"or something to that effect and declared the case closed. asamerica's first fraternity hazing-related death, the eventshocked the entire country and nearly ruined the school. chancesare, if you check the big city newspapers from around that time,you'll find stories and editorials, even some artists' depictionsof the event. but all that's just the story of an unfortunatedeath. here's the ghostly part. some have claimed that StuartPierson's face can be seen looking out the window of his formerroom toward the trestle where he died, while others who live inthat dorm (which has its share of hauntings) claim that he knocksor opens the doors of DKE fraternity members, or can be heardwandering about the halls near where he lived. others have saidthat they saw his ghost on the old railroad trestle at night (nowa bridge for a bike path), and one story goes that the DKE's havehis body in their posession and now use it to frighten pledges intheir current initiation ceremonies.

Since i've been here, there hasn't been that much specific stuartpierson haunting reported, but two years ago, our securityofficers responded to a frantic medical call in the DKE housingwing (we have no fraternity houses, so parts of dorms arereserved for greeks). a guy who lived in the room previouslyoccupied by peirson woke up to go to the bathroom, and on his wayout his door was pushed back and "branded" (with asmall triangle, or "delta") by what he described as anunseen force. now it could have been a hoax perpetrated to keepthe legend alive, but if so, it was awfully convincing, since thecollege doctor was of the opinion that whatever happened, the guywasn't making up a story, and the office of security and safetyactually looked into the possibility of getting an exorcist.anyway, i found the story to be interesting enough that i wentdown to the railroad trestle last night to commemmorate the event.now nothing particularly supernatural happened while i was there,but it was entertaining to watch members of the DKE's chantingand waving torches around in an unsuccessful attempt to conjureup old stuart pierson's spirit. they were even dressed in faux-druidicgarb and more than likely doing all this to entertain the curious--likeme.

I'm not sure if there's a more detailed account in a book called"Haunted Ohio," but there's a decent (thought hardlyexhaustive) section on kenyon's ghosts that you might findentertaining if your interest has been piqued. i haven't run intoany ghosts here myself, but i do know a disproportionate (comparedto my past experience) number of people who claim to have hadcontact with ghosts here. after three and a half years here, itdoesn't surprise me that there are actually satanists who believeour campus has a gate to hell...