IU professor and editor of the Journal of Folklore Research John McDowell stood in front of 150 people that came to partake in the 2018 Ghost Walk.
McDowell started by telling everyone to look around as they were huddled around him behind the folklore and ethnomusicology building.
“Everything looks pretty normal around here,” McDowell said. “But, underneath the surface of what is visible, there is something else going on. Hopefully we can bring you all a little closer to that.”
McDowell began to tell a story about a man named Richard M. Dorson. Dorson helped create the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at IU. He had a heart attack on the tennis court one day, and following his death, weird things started to happen, such as light bulbs flickering after not being wired for 20 years, and someone saying they certainly saw Dorson walking the hallways.
After his story concluded, a 7-year-old boy named Bryce raised his hand and told McDowell, “Um, only ghosts come out if they haven’t finished business yet.”
“Those are very wise words, my friend,” McDowell responded.
It reminded him of an important part of the story – Dorson had many projects in the works that went unfinished because of his death.
As McDowell spoke these words, his voice echoed through a portable speaker. He continued his opening sentiments of getting everyone closer to the ghostly activity.
“Now, we don’t want to get you too close, so just stay together and everybody will be fine," McDowell said.
The mood was set.
Owen Hall
This was the first medical hall on campus. There was a dumbwaiter inside the building that would go from the first to the third floor, carrying cadavers. Sometimes, as the dumbwaiter ascended to the third floor, arms and legs would drop to the side and be accidentally hacked off. Medical students would have to go to the bottom of the dumbwaiter and retrieve the unattached body parts.
As Jessie Riddle, a Ph.D. student in Folklore, told the story by the Herman B Wells statue, she was cut off by the 8:15 p.m. bells of the IU clock towers. A collective “oooooh” resounded from the audience.
Riddle continued her story of the cadavers. Legend has it, there was a nursing student who was disliked by many of her peers. Her friends decided that it would be funny to take an arm that was chopped off the cadaver and put it in the nursing student’s room, on her lamp, as a joke to freak her out.
The students waited for the girl to return to the room, and when she finally did and entered the room, nothing happened. The students waited for a while more until finally deciding to enter the room, where they found the girl sitting in the middle of the room, gnawing on the arm.
Sample Gates
“How many of you have ever been to the Sample Gates?” asked Gloria Colom, Ph.D. candidate for Folklore.
Colom said many Halloween’s ago, people who walked past Sample Gates were being met by a strange dark figure of a woman in black.
The first story was of boy who saw her at the Sample Gates at night. He ran to his fraternity house, a house that isn't far from Indiana Avenue, and as he got to the door, the woman in black was in front of him. He ran inside and grabbed his friend, who had a revolver, and when the two went back outside, no one was in sight.
Other accounts of these stories were all similar. Students would see her, walk toward her and she would disappear. When the students turned around, she would be in the spot that they were just standing in.
Herman B Wells statue
Very early in the morning, the iconic Herman B Wells statue seated on the bench will get up and walk around.
Colom also heard that some students swear they’ve seen the former IU president wave at them out of the corner of their eyes.
Tudor Room in the Indiana Memorial Union
IU lecturer Robert Dobler said the Tudor room has had some poltergeist activity, mainly due to a specific portrait in the room, painted by O.O. Haig.
The painting is titled, “Halloween” and it’s of a boy with a pumpkin. No one knew much about the boy, except that his name was Jacob, who died from a fire shortly after the painting was completed.
Staff would come in and prepare for the next day – setting the forks and knives, turning the glasses over and smoothing the table cloths. At one point, the old tapestries hanging above the Tudor Room needed to be taken down and cleaned. In the tapestries two-week absence, strange things happened.
On the first night, all the glasses were turned back over. The next night, the silverware was all unwrapped on the floor, and the glasses were again turned. The third night, the staff made sure everything was exactly how it should be because the first two nights could have been coincidences or laziness. But, when they came in the next day, the room was in disarray. Everything was on the floor and a huge mess, which took them hours to fix.
The staff decided it was Jacob.
To this day, Jacob pulls minor pranks. Dobler warned everyone to check their shoelaces as they left the room.
Dunn Cemetery
Shannon Larson, Ph.D. candidate for Folklore, said people say late at night, especially if there’s a full moon, there might be glowing coming from the tombstones.
Larson said a few years ago, a ghost hunter attended this Ghost Walk and snapped photographs of the cemetery, and when looking back on it, noticed what looked like an apparition – like a bunch of mist coming from one area of the graveyard.
McNutt Quad
One Thanksgiving break, two girls heard a report of murders happening around IU and students were advised to stay indoors. The murderer today is known as the McNutt hatchet man. One of the students chose to stay inside the dorm all night, while her roommate wanted to go out. After her roommate left, the girl who stayed behind in the room began to hear scratches at her door. Thinking it was the hatchet man, she blocked the door and stayed in the corner of her room. The scraping got slower and slower, and eventually went away.
The next morning, the police knocked on her door and when she opened it, the hallway was lined with blood and there was a body bag, which contained her roommate.
Arboretum
Every Halloween, a group of friends thought it would be cool to have a séance. The first three years, nothing extreme happened, but in their senior year, something did.
As they attempted to summon the dead, the candles blew out and an outline of a man appeared in the distance. He said, “Get off my home.” The students questioned him and he screamed, "Get off my home!"
The students took off and returned to the scene the next day. They found where the man was standing, a circle was burned into the grass.
In the 1980s, a student drowned in the pond in the Arboretum. Often times throughout October, a shadowy figure has been spotted in the Arboretum, and when he’s not shouting, he’s seen crying by the pond.
