UMD Ghost Tour

Marie Mount Hall

Marie Mount Hall was constructed in 1940 and was originally named Margaret Brent Hall after the colonial Marylander who was the first American woman to request the right to vote. In 1967, the Board of Regents voted to change the name to Marie Mount Hall to honor the former head of the Department of Home and Institution Management and dean of the College of Home Economics. Marie Mount came to campus in 1919 and remained until her death in 1957. At one time, Miss Mount supposedly lived in the building in a special dean’s apartment. She was much loved by her students, and University President Wilson Elkins declared in a 1957 memorial to the dean that “The character of Marie Mount will live forever.”

Dean Marie Mount does just that. Night watchmen and building inhabitants in the late 1970s reported sensing other-worldly presences, doors opening and shutting on their own, toilets flushing when no one was there, and matches blowing out when all the doors and windows were closed. Perhaps these occurrences can be tied to Dean Marie Mount’s ghost, who, on dark and stormy nights can allegedly be heard vigorously playing a piano.

Besides the musical presence of Dean Mount, members of the Maryland Ghosts and Spirits Association also detected the presence of several other spirits in Marie Mount Hall during an investigation in October 2002. Marie Mount Hall, now home to a variety of academic and administrative units, is one of our most notorious haunted buildings.

Washington Hall

One of these student deaths occurred in the mid-1980s, when the university’s most promising basketball star, Len Bias, once graced the court. While celebrating his success as the Boston Celtics’ pick in the 1986 NBA draft, Bias died on June 19, 1986, of a cocaine overdose at a small dorm room party with his teammates. The campus community still mourns the loss of this great athlete, and some think his ghostly presence lingers on campus. Occupants of the dorm room in Washington Hall where Bias died have reported hearing sounds of a bouncing basketball in the middle of the night.

South Campus Dining Hall

The South Campus Dining Hall was built in 1974, and it remains the largest dining hall on campus. It also houses the offices for the Department of Dining Services and various student publications, as well as the campus radio station, WMUC. Editors in the Diamondback office have reported a ghost hard at work when they are not here. Books in their bookcases have been re-arranged, even though the books are very hard to pry off the shelves. Papers and clutter in the managing editor's office were cleaned up, something that had not occurred in many, many years, although no one who had keys to the office was present at the time this happened.

Morrill Hall

Morrill Hall is the scene for several ghostly legends. Over the years, members of the campus community have reported hearing the sound of marching feet outside the building, the location of a portion of the drill ground utilized by the Maryland Agricultural College cadets in the school’s early years. Beginning in the 1860s, the college was run as a military school, following its designation in 1865 as Maryland’s land grant institution by the state legislature. Part of the Morrill Land Grant Act’s requirements was mandatory military training, so the students were organized into a corps of cadets and divided into several companies, each with its own commander. When you look at 19th- and early 20th-century photographs of the campus in the University Archives, you can see quite clearly that the parade ground utilized by the cadets was not far away from Morrill Hall. This drill field was also the scene of many a punishment when individual cadets had misbehaved and were required to shoulder their rifles and march back and forth for hours to work off the demerits they received.

The two largest buildings on campus in the early days of the Maryland Agricultural College, the Barracks and the Administration Building, once stood near Morrill Hall. They were located where LeFrak Hall and the South Campus Dining Hall stand now. On the night of November 29, 1912, cadets were holding a Thanksgiving dance when a fire broke out. The cadets escorted their dates out of the building and went back inside to fight the flames. Some retrieved documents and furniture while others began flinging their personal possessions out of the windows. By the time the Hyattsville fire brigade arrived, both buildings were a total loss. The firemen, students, and residents from the surrounding community worked through the night to save the other campus structures nearby, including Morrill Hall. Although no one was hurt, and no lives were lost, the memory of that night burned brightly in the minds of those who survived. Perhaps Morrill Hall has its own memory of that night. Inhabitants of the building have reported smelling smoke at odd times when no fire is present and encountering other strange odors, particularly in the basement of the building. Many believe that these smoky odors harken back to the Great Fire of 1912.

The Maryland Ghosts and Spirits Association also detected the presence of numerous spirits in this building during their 2002 visit to campus.

Tawes Hall

Tawes Hall served as the home for all the performing arts on campus before the 2001 opening of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, and it contains a number of specialized facilities, including a large theater. This structure was completed in 1965, and shortly thereafter a ghostly presence took up residence within the building. More than one person has heard persistent footsteps echoing throughout the theater, when no one else is there. These footsteps, as well as practical jokes and other unexplained occurrences, are all attributed to a mischievous ghost named Mortimer. While some speculate that Mortimer was once a student who died in the Vietnam War, we have no proof of who Mortimer could have been while he was alive.

Easton Hall

 Another student death occurred in Easton Hall. Located across from the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Easton Hall is named for the county seat of Talbot County, Maryland, and was constructed in 1965. A student supposedly committed suicide in that dorm during the early 1990s, and it is rumored that the student’s ghost still remains to haunt the premises.

McNamee Cemetery

There is also a small cemetery behind the Stadium Drive Garage. The cemetery contains the remains of several members of the McNamee family, who sold part land to the university in 1938. The university had the cemetery bricked over, supposedly to prevent anyone from disturbing the graves, although some speculate that it may have been to keep whoever is buried in the graves from disturbing the campus.

Stamp Student Union

Named for the university’s first Dean of Women, Adele Stamp, the Stamp Student Union originally opened in 1955. It has undergone numerous expansions and renovations over the last 60 years. Because of these renovations, the building has turned into a vast maze of confusing floor plans, oddly connected hallways, and strange stairways leading visitors to unexpected destinations. While trying to navigate the building, some visitors have encountered elevators that move suddenly on their own and abrupt, unexplained cold spots that can chill you to the bone. Many attribute these odd occurrences to spirits that haunt the building.

H.J. Patterson Hall

H. J. Patterson Hall is one of the less well-known haunted buildings on campus. Constructed in 1931 and named for Harry Jacob Patterson, who served alternately as director of the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station and president of the university. One evening, a campus employee entered Patterson Hall to complete some routine maintenance work in the attic. As he was working, he felt an eerie presence enter the room. When he looked around, he saw a strange, misshapen shadow dart across the wall. The worker insists that he was alone and that the shadow could not have been another maintenance worker. There are currently no theories as to who, or what, the spirit could be.

Hornbake Library

We don’t actually know too much about her yet, but the staff here has been seeing and hearing her sporadically over the last few years. It’s usually only at night or in the evenings, when most people have gone home and the library is quiet. It starts with the click clack of heels walking through the stacks, and then sounds of books and papers rustling about. Some lucky (or unlucky) staffers have been able to see her as well; dressed completely in black, she appears rather suddenly, standing at the end of an aisle or peeking her head around the corner. She doesn’t cause much trouble or terror; a staffer that ran into her recently says she looked at her with “child-like curiosity, nothing sinister”. But, only a few have seen or heard her, so consensus over a “haunted Hornbake” is split 50-50 among all our staff.

Delta Tau Delta Fraternity House

The brothers living in Delta Tau Delta believe that the ghost of a dead fraternity brother, killed in an car accident in 1955, haunts the house. Shortly after the accident, the brothers began to witness furniture moving around the house, and some have even reported seeing faint reflections of a person’s face in the television screen when no one else is in the room!

Alpha Omicron Pi Sorority House

The sisters of Alpha Omicron Pi tell us about music that mysteriously plays on its own and racks that constantly fall over– or should we say get pushed over? Computers sporadically shut down unprompted, and one sister has even seen someone with red eyes staring at her one night.