Roommates with Ghosts: Oberlin College and Conservatory - Oberlin, Ohio

This cute little college town is about forty minutes from where I live. It's a nice little artsy place hidden away from big cities. It’s even a little cozier than Kent, Ohio. It also has unusual landmarks like the giant 3-way plug statue and Stratus the Deer (mentioned in the previous article). There are also ghost stories. Today, I wanted to tell you about a few dorms supposedly haunted on campus. Some of these stories are documented by students, alumni, or older articles relating to the college and I will leave links to their articles. 

The Johnson House

The story goes that the original owner, Albert H Johnson, was killed in a railroad accident. As a result, his grief-stricken wife was said to have killed several of her horses before she took her own life in the basement of the home. In 1911, Charles Hall bought the house and gave it to the college, which became a dormitory for girls. The Queen Anne-style house currently serves as a dorm for college students. Many students have reported paranormal activity in the dorm. There is even a blog story documented by a current student of Oberlin College who stayed at that dorm and I will leave a link to the article below. Students who have stayed at the house report finding dead birds in their rooms without explanation. If that’s not strange enough, when students would return to their room after stepping out upon seeing a bird, they typically would be gone. Mrs. Johnson is also said to haunt the basement still, and ghostly figures of horses can still be seen at the stables. 

While this is undoubtedly an exciting tale, there is one contradiction from a resident who wrote a letter to the Review that Mrs. Johnson would continue to live after her husband’s death and passed in 1915 from cancer, moving out of the house a few years prior. 

Harkness House

Harkness Hall probably has the most peculiar stories as it is a ghost story that does not have a confirmed death. More so, the subject of this story has mysteriously disappeared. 

Harkness House has one particular haunted room: Room 311. Years ago, a college student named Lindsey lived in the dorm room with a cat she smuggled in. One day, she and her cat mysteriously vanished. The story goes on to Lindsey's neighbor hearing a loud crash coming from Lindsey’s room. When the neighbor entered, the window was broken, and Lindsey was nowhere in sight. The cat was nowhere to be seen either. A couple of days passed, and there were no signs of Lindsey, as if she vanished off the face of the earth. Her parents were also none the wiser to where she ran off. 

Afterward, when new students moved in, they reported seeing a white apparition of a woman. Sometimes, the specter would be seen hovering outside the window.  There was also a cat calling out or purring at night. So the real question is, what happened to Lindsey and her cat? 

I’ll leave it here for you to decide. 

Tank Hall 

This house was founded in 1896 (in some sources, 1897) by the Oberlin Missionary Home Association. It was used to house the children of missionaries who were abroad. One infamous ghost story is that during one of the fires, a group of children were locked in the room and died as a result. Reports of ghostly apparitions of children are said to appear around the house. One couple that moved into the first-floor apartment claimed to see a group of children standing in the doorway of their bedroom between the ages of 4-13. The children would point and whisper, “They’re here, they’re here!” There was also a sighting of a man roaming the 3rd floor. Some believe these tales, while others are skeptical. Many residents who stayed, however, claim Tank to be a comfortable dwelling with no sense of maliciousness dwindling in the air. 

Links for sources: 

https://www.oberlin.edu/blogs/ghostberlin

https://www2.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/archives/1999.1