Chestnut Hill College

Chestnut Hill College entrance: Image by Kiran from Wikipedia Commons

Philly's Chestnut Hill College is located on the northwestern edge of town on 75 acres overlooking the Wissahickon Creek. The College opened in 1924 as a Catholic school for women, then became Mount Saint Joseph College. The College was renamed in 1938 as Chestnut Hill College.

And that's given the school plenty of time to pick up an unexplained spirit or three to help expand the students' worldview...

Fontbonne Hall: The ghost of a girl who is thought to have died during the 1793 flu epidemic haunts the third floor, along with a male spirit. She isn't just seen in the hall, but it's claimed that she even appears in roomies' dreams simultaneously. There are also tales of poltergeist type shenanigans involving doord, windows and electronics. The hall has catacombs and tunnels underneath it that lead to the mother house and are allegedly haunted by a crying woman.

Fournier Hall: The "Red Eye Room" is located on the second floor, so named because at night, it's said that two red eyes appear floating throughout the room. One suite across the hall features paranormal phenomena like slamming doors, window shades that fly up and radios that turn on and off. The third floor is reported to be haunted by the ghost of a young boy, dressed in 1920's clothing.

Logue Library: Books move on their own, as do their carts. The library was allegedly built on top of a cemetery, which according to lore had to be relocated twice. If you're in the building after 11, it's said that you may share the stacks with some disgruntled spirits who were disturbed during the construction.

Lower Parking Lot: Located by the sports field, it's said to be haunted by the spirit of a girl that was raped and murdered at the site, near a marker erected in her memory.

St. Josephs Hall: On the fifth floor, you can sometimes spot the spook of a young sister in a long robe floating by, taking her suicide leap from the Bishop's Steps as she did many years ago when she found out she was bearing a priest's child. There are a set of locked doors with a crucifix above them that some say was where the sister put her newborn before her jump. The lore is that if you knock three times on the doors, you'll get three raps back in return. The basement is also haunted, and the fifth floor is supposed to be the realm of a departed art teacher.

And we're only tapping the surface. Other sightings have included visions of a young lady, a kindly old man in robes, little girls playing, and a boy with a hair of fire and emerald eyes. The mausoleum, the Chapel basement and the old gym in the basement of Fournier Hall are all supposed to have tales to tell, too.

And every year, CHC Student Activities hosts a lecture on ghosts and the paranormal, followed by a ghost hunt around the campus led by paranormal investigators.

The Screaming Tunnel

Screaming Tunnel image by Cathy Simpson, on file at the 

Niagara Falls Public Library

Slowly I turned...inch by inch...ooops sorry, not that Niagara Falls story. This one is much more gruesome, befitting a Halloween week. All it needs is a bit of sulphur...

The Screaming Tunnel is a small limestone channel running underneath what once was known as the Grand Trunk Railway line (now part of the Canadian National Railways), located outside of Niagara Falls, Ontario, just off Warner Road. The rough-cut tunnel, constructed in the early 1900s, is 16' high and 125' feet long.

Often thought of as a railway tunnel, in reality it serves as a culvert to divert water blocked by the raised RR tracks away from the fields. The water would follow the stone passage under the rail bed, and when dry, the channel was used by farmers to move goods and animals safely under the active railroad line.

The story goes that the tunnel is haunted by the ghost of a young girl. She escaped from her burning farm house (or barn), located at the south end of the tunnel, with her hair and dress on fire, and died within ithe tunnel walls after losing a race to douse herself in its water. (Look for a a small hill and a path that leads to where the girl’s home was; the structures are gone.)

Several offshoots of the legend exist locally. It's oral lore, and versions do mutate over the generations.

The most passed-along Plan B tale has the girl being set on fire by her unbalanced father, enraged after he lost custody of his children during a bitter divorce (a version, btw, supported by The Paranormal Seekers when they investigated). In this setting, he set the house ablaze and then ran down his fleeing daughter, catching her at the tunnel, where he splashed gas on her and incinerated the girl.

Another version claims that a young girl was raped inside the tunnel and her body burnt to destroy any evidence of the despicable deed. The most outre is a story of a girl who was kidnapped by a butcher and was held captive in his house near the tunnel. She escaped into the tunnel, where the butcher chased her down (wearing a pig's mask!) At any rate, he caught up to the girl and set her on fire.

But it always ends the same way, with a haunted tunnel. If you go into the middle of the passage and light a wooden match, it will be extinguished immediately by a puff of wind and then followed by the haunting screams of the victim. It is a good, spooky site. It's always cold (a condition shared by both spooked-out and normal tunnels), too desolate to see either end from the middle at night, and reportedly the site of give-away orbs flitting to and fro.

The tunnel was eerie enough to be used during the filming of David Cronenberg's 1983 film adaptation of Stephen King's The Dead Zone, a high compliment indeed.

As with most local legends, there isn't anything to collaborate the tale, like a juicy newspaper article. It has been said that the girl and her family are buried in the nearby Warner Cemetery, but without a name, it's hard to hang a hat on that tidbit. And we do have our mandatory nay-sayer.

Spoilsport Stephanie Lechniak of Haunted Hamilton has an alternate tale. At one time, there was a small cluster of homes on the other side of the tunnel, off the main road. One was occupied by a woman who was said to be a bit off mentally.

Whenever she would argue with her husband, she would walk to the middle of the tunnel and scream at the top of her lungs to vent (and maybe to get the last word in). Her cleansing act was what Stephanie believes to be the true origins of "The Screaming Tunnel."

Rolling Hills Asylum

Image by Sharon Coyle for Roadside America

Located between Buffalo and Rochester in East Bethany, Rolling Hills Asylum dates back to 1827 when it opened as the Genesee County Poor Farm, aka "The Old County Home." Its original building was a carriage house and stagecoach stop, operating since 1790, but the land was chosen because it was mid-county and accessible to all.

Its 200 acres (most are now a park) weren't exactly a nineteenth century government housing community. Rolling Hills' population was made up of paupers, debtors, the physically handicapped, unwed mothers, the aged, orphans, the chronically ill and the insane.

At any rate, the times weren't all that kind to folk on the dole for one reason or another. They worked the farm and did other chores, while the mentally ill were no doubt treated with the cures of that century, ice baths and electric shocks. It's thought that hundreds, if not thousands, may have died on the property, and many were buried in now unmarked graves (a memorial was later erected on the grounds)

In 1938, it became a sanitarium, and by the early 1950s, the facility was a nursing home that closed in 1972. After sitting empty for a couple of decades, the building was transformed into the Carriage Village mall. In 2003, it became the Rolling Hills Country Mall, a set of shops that dealt mainly in antiques that are now closed.

During its marketplace era, the shopkeepers and their visitors were spooked by some unexplained going-ons. The reports sure indicated that more than a pack of mall rats were haunting the place.

Doors and windows shut and opened by themselves. Many heard disembodied voices speaking (especially by the kitchen area). People have passed through cold spots, or worse, felt cold hands touching their necks. Hair and clothes are tugged at by unseen hands. Toys in the "Christmas Room" were moved and rearranged by themselves.

Knocks from the walls and footsteps were reported. The sounds of screams and sobs were heard coming from the building and fields, especially at night. It's said that a black mist can be found in the boiler room. Some claim to have seen people inside, staring out the windows when the building is empty. There are stories of shadows and a full-bodied male apparition who roams the hallways at night.

There are also outre tales of boys sold into apprenticeships or worse, Satanic cults, baby sacrifice and that sort of thing floating around that are associated with Rolling Hills. We kinda discount them. Heck, its band of bedraggled souls roaming the halls is plenty enough excuse for some psychic mayhem. And spooky lore suggests that those early psychiatric "cures" and unmarked graves usually result in ghostly blowback, too. It's just what you'd expect from orphaned, destitute and/or insane collection of spirits.

The building has been featured on shows such as the Sy-Fy Channel's "Ghost Hunters" and Travel Channel's "Ghost Adventures" while being probed by many paranormal groups.

Rolling Hills is now private property, owned by preservationist Sharon Coyle, but is open to the public on select dates and hosts some highly regarded evening and Halloween tours, so you have ample opportunity to check out one of New York's main spook centrals, if you care to dare (and call in advance).

Old Overholt Spirits

Image from Karens Barnches

 
"West Overton is the only pre-Civil War village still intact in the state. The exhibits explain the history of the family who first settled here and the thriving industrial complex it grew to be. Tours include the largest brick barn in Pennsylvania and the birthplace of Henry Clay Frick," per the state historic plaque that honors the distillery grounds, now home to a museum and some buildings amidst the historic district.

Around 1810, Abraham Overholt and his brother Christian began to distill whiskey at their family's farm in Westmoreland county. It started from a few barrels of hootch to a big business; the West Newton plant was expanded a couple of times to increase production, and was one of the first to go vertical, with its own supply of grain and lumber with grist and saw mills to make everything on site.

Abraham bought his brother out and went into business with two of his sons, Jacob and Henry.

In 1846, Abraham Overholt hired John W. Frick, a Swiss immigrant, to work in the grist mill located in the village. While working, he met Abraham’s daughter, Elizabeth, and they were married in 1847. On December 19th, 1849, their son, Henry Clay Frick, was born in the springhouse; maybe he picked up the his future business model from his thrifty and hard-driving grandpap. Frick eventually ended up owning the area coal fields, coke ovens, and the distillery, while his family set up the museum...but we digress.

In 1854, Jacob teamed up with his cousin Henry O. Overholt to open a new distillery in Broad Ford, near Connellsville. This, by the way, is where the famed rye whiskey known as Old Overholt was made (West Newton distilled "Old Farm"). It was said to be Abraham Lincoln's favorite whiskey, only taken, of course, in medicinal doses by Abe. (The Broad Ford distillery, abandoned for years, burned down in 2004.)

OK, if you all haven't headed to the nearest tavern for a quick snort, here come the ghost stories.

According to local lore, Jacob and his dad had an altercation over business and money while at West Newton; Abraham was said to be famously tight-fisted. During the fight, the father allegedly killed the son in the heat of the moment. Now we can't verify the legend; the best cause of death we've found in researching Jacob is that he succumbed to his "last illness." Don't we all? But the legend is a better tale, and we'll stick to that.

Anyway, following Jacob's 1859 death, Abraham inherited Jacob's 2/3 share of the Broad Ford distillery and added it to his operation. Soon afterward, workers reported seeing a figure who resembled Jacob watching over them, along with other unexplained phenomena. Two fires at the distillery, in 1884 and another in 1905, were claimed by some to be Jacob's revenge. Jacob Overholt is still said to been seen haunting the distillery.

But the star spook here is Clyde, the last Overholt to live in the ancestral house. He committed suicide by shotgun in his bedroom in 1919 after his older brother ended up with the Overholt estate following the death of their father. People have said over the years that they've heard noises in the attic and people running up and down the steps when they're the only ones in the house, along with other otherworldy mischief blamed on Clyde.

He's not entirely at fault for the spookiness, though. Tales claim that one Overholt hung himself on the property, and another died in a room now used as a storage area, with reports of his face peeking out of the room's window. There are also tales of a rude ghost that's found by the springhouse who reportedly asked an investigator "Why are you in my house?" There are also stories of floating objects and things disappearing from one place only to be found in another.

The ghosts and the legends are chronicled in the book "Weird West Overton" by Mary Ann Mogus and Ed & Brendan Keleman.

Looking for a day trip with a little history? Not only are their ghostly remnants of the old Overholt days, but the museum also features the rough-and-tumble steel making age of Henry Clay Frick. Frick? Hmmm, about that rude ghost by the springhouse...?