There is less than a week until Halloween 2024. That means there is still plenty of time to read up on all your favorite spooky stories – but more importantly – fact check them. In this article, I will look at a handful of St. Lawrence University related ghost stories and determine whether they hold water in the facts department. They will receive one of three rankings in order from true to fabricated: treat, toss-up or trick. “Treat” means it has some truth to it, “trick” means the opposite.
Elaine at Kappa Delta Sigma
One of the most popular ghost stories at SLU is the tale of Elaine, it even earned a chapter in the “The Big Book of New York Ghost Stories” by Cheri Revai. The story goes that around the turn of the 20th century a young bride named Elaine was set to marry the man of her dreams and start a family in her new Canton home, located at the current site of KDS, 53 Park St.
However, she was stood up at the altar by her husband to be, which left her devastated. Allegedly Elaine returned to her Park St. home and hung herself in the closet of a second-floor bedroom. Her spirit reportedly still occupies the premise and exhibits poltergeist-like traits.
A Hill News article from the early 2000s alleged that Elaine could tell when KDS sisters were on the phone with men. If she liked the boy, nothing would happen, but if she didn’t she was known to have ripped out landline cords and thrown cell phones across the room. She also supposedly pushed paranormal investigator John Zaffis during his 2005 visit to campus after he asked “you don’t like guys, do you?”
I looked into police records and local obituaries using the New York Historic Newspapers database and was unable to find any evidence that a women named Elaine killed herself in Canton between 1900 and 1950 – let alone lived in the KDS house. However, if you believe the firsthand accounts, KDS sisters and the testimony of Zaffis, then this story could have some truth to it. I however, have to remain centered and thus skeptical.
Verdict: trick
Herring Cole “Catacombs”
Herring Cole is the second oldest building on campus, behind only its neighbor Richardson Hall. It’s a small, T-shaped reading hall built from burnt-red Potsdam sandstone and notably served as SLU’s first library.
Most students heard the tall tale as first-years that there was once a fire that destroyed the building and supposedly killed those inside. But, there is little evidence that anyone has died there, let alone in a fire.
Yet, there is another tale of Herring Cole that does have truth to it – that its basement houses catacombs. Catacombs were ancient underground burial sites likely first used by the Romans in the fourth century. At SLU, it has been confirmed countless times that there are no corpses actively at rest in the reading room’s basement – it’s currently used as storage for facilities.
However, it is very likely that at one point it did. Herring Cole was erected in 1870 and at the time it was likely one of the only structures in Canton with a basement. Recent years haven’t shown it but North Country winters have historically been frigid, meaning that if a Cantonite died between the months of November and May it was very likely that the ground was frozen, which meant that burying them would have been nearly impossible.
Naturally bodies were put in the next best thing, a basement. It would have been cold and dry and thus the perfect place for the deceased to ride out the winter months. This was actually a very common practice in many small towns across the country in the 1800s, meaning that it’s plausible it was happening here as well.
Verdict: treat
Lee North
This is a story that not many people know as it’s only been given single-sentence mentions in previous Hill News Halloween compilations. Allegedly in the 1970s or 1980s a first-year girl fell out of her lofted bed, cracked her neck and died in her second story Lee North single. In the 1970s and 1980s it wasn’t uncommon for students to just up and leave campus without telling anyone.
When she didn’t show up to class, people assumed that she did just that. However, after a few weeks other Lee North residents noticed a strong odor – the smell of rotting flesh. Community assistants reportedly keyed into her room and found her body in the late stages of decomposition. Her spirit allegedly still lingers the halls, pleading with students to remove her body and lay it to rest.
As previously mentioned, there is very little documentation of this story. There are no on-campus records in The Hill News archives, no local newspaper records and no police reports about an accidental death in Lee Hall from the 70s and 80s. However, I can report that having been a community assistant there that I often felt extremely unsettled when opening my door to the empty hallway in the wee hours of the morning.
Verdict: trick
1 Lincoln / The International House
The current site of the I-House at 1 Lincoln St. has seen many different uses throughout its lifespan. It has been a fraternity house, a dorm and even the personal home of SLU’s first president of its college of letters and sciences, John Lee.
A Hill News article from 1985 reported that two girls moved out of their rooms in 1 Lincoln after objects in their rooms unexplainably moved multiple times. The movements allegedly coincided with a physical apparition of a middle-aged women clad in a flowing white garment and a red petticoat.
The ghost is believed to be the spirit of Florence Lee, and local legend said that she tragically died in her youth. However, that story is false. Florence Lee lived a long life, served on the board of trustees and died of old age in the home as Florence Whitman. Whitman Hall was even posthumously named in her honor.
However, the alleged haunting still attracted big names in the paranormal community. Ed and Lorraine Warren, the ghost-hunting couple that “The Conjuring” and “Annabelle” movies were based on paid the dorm a visit in 1979. Students present for their visit reported that Lorraine said she saw Florence’s apparition sitting on the first-floor radiator. Lorraine told a Watertown Daily Times reporter to photograph the ghoul, but nothing showed up once the film was developed.
Lorraine claimed to have talked to the spirit. “There’s nothing to be frightened about in this house,” she said. “There’s no tragedy at all in this building. It’s a peaceful feeling here.”
All the characters in this story are real and Canton records do confirm that Florence Lee-Whitman did live at 1 Lincoln St. and there are also newspaper records confirming that the Warrens investigated the house. Of all the stories, this one makes the most sense from a historical perspective, considering there are actual records proving the supposed apparition was a real person.
Verdict: treat
Unfortunately, I did not have time to investigate every SLU ghost story. However, if you have one you really wish I wrote about, please email my assistant mcserr@stlawu.edu