Wellesley Urban Legends

Almost every dorm at Wellesley has its own ghost story, and every story is told several different ways. There are lots of suicides and boarded-up rooms, roommate murders, and mysterious footsteps.

In Tower Court, students reportedly hear the elevator go up and down the shaft all night; that's the maid who fell down the shaft early in the 20th century.

Claflin Hall's living room is supposedly decorated with an “Alice in Wonderland” theme in honor of a founder's daughter, Alice, who was crushed by a beam during construction; it's said she plays there still.

The Beebe ghost, whom many students claim to have sensed, is a former house president who either killed herself or was taken by a mysterious woman in black.

The academic building Founders Hall is purportedly haunted by a Revolutionary War messenger boy who was killed in the woods that the campus now covers; he is said to wander the halls, an undelivered note in his hand.

Every theater has its ghost, and Wellesley is no exception. The Ruth Nagel Jones Theater has Rob, either a young boy or a shadowy man in a top hat, who is apparently not a dead person at all, but a character cut from a play. The ghost plays with the lights and sound system. The Barstow Theater has a ghost with a more sinister aspect, whom some believe to be Rob in a bad mood.