Emory & Henry College

Credits, Links, Resources and Suggested Reading:

1. This story also appears on the Shadowlands: Ghosts & Hauntings page.

2. To read a full account of this story, please pick up a copy of The Ghosts of Virginia Volume VIII by: L.B. Taylor, Jr.

3. To read a full account of this story, please pick up a copy of The Ghosts of Virginia Volume III by: L.B. Taylor, Jr.

4. To read a full account of this story, please pick up a copy of Legends, Stories and Ghostly Tales of Abingdon and Washington County, Virginia by: Donna Akers Warmuth

he college was founded in 1886 and is still affiliated with the United Methodist Church:

The Administration Building was constructed in 1912 over the dilapidated Wiley Hall. During a Civil War battle in 1864, many injured Union troops were taken to Wiley Hall to be housed with the wounded Confederate soldiers. Five days after the battle, three unknown men entered the temporary hospital and killed some of the African American soldiers from the Fifth Union States Colored Calvary; the next day, Captain Champ Ferguson took over the hospital. He was looking for Lieutenant E.C. Smith of the Thirteenth Kentucky Calvary because the man had mistreated his family. Legend says that Ferguson shot Smith dead in his hospital bed. He was later arrested and brought to Nashville, Tennessee to stand trial for war crimes, and was found guilt; he was hanged on October 20, 1865. The bloodstains remained in the building, and students would report discarnate moaning and shadows of soldiers long dead. But after it was tore down, the ghostly happenings didn’t stop. In the new Administration Building, countless people have seen the apparition of a solider in the basement, and a ghostly woman nicknamed “Freda” carries a lantern down the halls.

Emory Cemetery stands as a grim reminder of the battle at nearby Saltville during the Civil War. A ghost light is said to come down the train tracks, go over the hill and continue through the cemetery at night, and apparitions of Civil War soldiers have been reported.

What is now the Music Hall, formerly the debate room, two students were having a heated argument. When one leaned towards the window, his opponent pushed him out. Even though the victim was able to reach out and grab a hanging lamp, he still fell to his death. Today, believe say the lamp in question swings without the assistance of wind. Some report they heard footsteps late at night in the room, and that the piano will play itself. 1, 2

The Tobias Smyth Cabin was built in 1789 by one of the founders of the college and was moved to the campus to preserve it. Legend says that Melissa, a niece of the Smyth Family, was staying in the cabin and got sick. The family decided to leave her and go to chapel, and upon returning all they could find of her was one satin, green slipper. They believed Yankees had taken the girl, but she was never found. It is said that if you sit in the cabin at night, you will see the apparition of Melissa clad in white and holding a candle, returning for her lost shoe.

The residents in The Wiley Jackson Women’s Dormitory, or "MaWa" Hall, believe that long ago, a girl was stood up for a formal dance and hanged herself in the middle shower stall in the community bathroom. Some say they still hear high-heel shoes pacing up and down the hall late at night. Perhaps the girl is still waiting for her date? 1, 3

Waterhouse Hall houses a spirit known as Nora, who was an African American lady who got pregnant by either the president of the school or the bishop of the church. Either way, the legend says the man killed her by pushing her down a flight of stairs (some stories say she died in childbirth). She is blamed for odd noises and windows and doors closing, opening, locking and unlocking, especially on the second floor. 4

In The Marble and Other Ghost Tales of Tennessee and Virginia, Joe Tennis retells the legend of the J. Stewart French House at Emory and Henry College. It was built in 1852 and served as the school’s president’s house from the 1890s until 1964, when it was turned into a guesthouse. Visitors at the hose recall hearing a piano playing when no one was near it, bed levitating in the night, the apparition of a small boy and most frequently, being woken up by a top on the shoulder when no one else is in the room.