Norland Hall on the campus of Wilson College in Chambersburg, Penn.,
was built by Col. Alexander McClure after Confederate soldiers burned
his first home during the Civil War.
Distinguished guests of Wilson College once were billeted in the large
master bedroom of Norland Hall. But as Gretchen McKay notes in
Sunday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, some guests didn't have peaceful
nights.
<http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08104/872275-37.stm>
"A lot of people have been very discomforted in that bedroom," Athena
Varounis, a retired FBI agent and 1976 alumna of Wilson College, told
McKay.
Renowned pianist Lili Kraus, who had been interned by the Japanese
during World War II, refused to spend the night in the Norland Hall
guest room, Varounis said. And President Dwight D. Eisenhower was
rumored to be so unnerved by the house's paranormal vibes that he
turned down an overnight stay there as well.
McKay relates a personal account from a fellow staffer at the
Post-Gazette, Marylynn Uricchio, editor of the newspaper's SEEN
section:
.... When she was in high school, her father gave a lecture at Wilson
College, and he and his wife were put up in the bedroom. Ms.
Uricchio's cot was in a small adjacent dressing room.
Sometime during the night, she recalls, she heard a creak that snapped
her instantly awake. Looking up, she saw a distinguished older
gentleman dressed in a long robe and white ascot come out of the
closet and walk across the room. He sat down in a chair and nodded
politely at her.
"I was fine until I knew he could see me," she recalls. "But when our
eyes met, I just knew" -- that she was seeing a ghost, that is. ...
The unnerved girl, who was 18 years old at the time, spent the
remainder of the night in her parents' room, according to McKay.
The next morning, as she examined a display case in the lobby of
Norland Hall, Marylynn saw a photo of Col. McClure and, McKay writes,
"instantly recognized the kindly white-haired old man who'd given her
that ghostly nod."
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