GSA offering Haunted Seminary Hall tours at Northeastern State

Does a former principal, or maybe a former student, still walk the corridors of Northeastern State University's Seminary Hall?

To help celebrate Halloween, the Graduate Student Association offers its annual Haunted Seminary Hall tours 7:30 10:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays through Oct. 31. Cost is $5 per person and proceeds provide funding for GSA operations.

The tour includes ghost stories and legends but also tells the building's history.

Descriptions of paranormal activity at Seminary Hall abound. Ghost hunters have photographed orbs, which they consider evidence of spiritual habitation, all around the building. There are sometimes odd smells, and puzzling sounds are almost routine. There is the occasional ghost sighting, usually a woman in a black uniform or a wedding gown.

Some who have been in the building after dark say they've never experienced anything peculiar, and express skepticism.

"Before the 1992 renovation, you could sneak into Seminary Hall up the west fire escape through a second-story window with a broken lock," said one staff member and alumnus.

He said the spur for an after-hours trespass into Seminary was not to hunt ghosts, but to go out a third-story window, up a maintenance ladder and onto the roof where one could see the glow of Muskogee.

"We never heard or saw anything unusual," he said. "But as one might expect of any old building, it creaked and groaned and made other weird noises. The third floor made as much racket then as today. We could hear drafts whistling, or maybe a critter scratching around in a wall. It was all especially noticeable at night without the bustle of people."

Others say their experiences aren't so easy to explain.

One contributor to a blog writes of hearing a voice in the space between himself and the only other person in the room on an October evening.

"It was very quiet," he wrote. "Both of us looked up startled, and looked right at each other. We didn't have to tell each other what we heard. We heard a distinct 'Hello.' It was not loud enough to come from the hall. (She) thought it came from my direction, which was the opposite direction from the hallway. I was certain it came from her area. The voice was suspended between the two of us. It freaked both of us out, enough that I got up to look around the room to see if anyone was there."

Marla Jordan, secretary for the Criminal Justice program, entered Seminary on a Saturday afternoon shortly after she was hired. She wrote on the blog that she was reorganizing the contents of an old filing cabinet in a small alcove just outside her office.

"I heard the door from the center stairwell open, then the sound of footsteps coming my direction," she wrote. "I got up and looked down the hallway, but there was no one there and no other doors open. I went back to work, thinking that I must have imagined it. An hour or so later, it happened again. Same thing. Door slamming, footsteps, then nothing when I looked. This happened three more times in the three hours or so that I was here....

"From time to time, when things get really quiet up here, even in daylight, we will hear strange things that have no logical explanation."

The footsteps incident was Jordan's first brush with Seminary Hall, and more than a year later she says it is still the most extraordinary.

"Other minor things happen up here," she said. "Something in your office may move from where you remember leaving it. You hear strange things. But the footsteps that was the big one."

Whether receptive to the idea of hauntings or not, everyone will enjoy the tours. Like so many ghostly legends, the tales of spirits at Seminary Hall are windows into the history of NSU's storied campus.

The woman most suspected of extending her stay at Northeastern is Florence Wilson, former principal of the Cherokee National Female Seminary. Wilson Hall is named for her.

Her fiance, Pleasant Buchanan, supposedly left Wilson standing at the altar. Afterward, she poured her energy into the education of her students.

Some say she still does. Not only do some claim to see her in Seminary, but also in Wilson Hall and other buildings.

Seminary Hall served as a dormitory during the Female Seminary days, and the third floor housed an infirmary. During epidemics ill students were quarantined there, and in severe cases died there. The third floor is allegedly the most haunted.

There was once a kitchen in the first floor's east wing. Here, people sometimes report smelling food preparation.

For more information about the tours, contact Elana Hatley at 918-444-3686. Reservations are not required, but parties of 10 or more may call ahead to ensure a slot. T-shirts will also be available.

10/7/2009

Published: 2009-10-07 00:00:00