HAUNTED LAWRENCE

BAKER UNIVERSITY
Baker University is a small liberal arts college located in Baldwin City,
roughly ten miles south of Lawrence. Founded in 1858, the university is
the oldest continually operating institution of higher learning in the entire
state, and as a result, its history is in many ways intimately intertwined with
the story of early Douglas County.
The origins of the university date back to February 1858, when the
Kansas Educational Association of the Methodist Episcopal Church sought
to found a college to the south of the Lawrence area. The church chose
to establish the institute near the small town of Palmyra (a settlement that
eventually evolved into present-day Baldwin City), and on February 12 of
the same year, a charter was officially granted by territorial governor James
Denver to the newly christened Baker University. The institute was named
after Osmon Cleander Baker, a famed Methodist religious leader who also
served as the presiding bishop of the first meeting of the Kansas-Nebraska
Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
H AUNTED LAWRENCE
108
The school officially opened on November 22, 1858; twenty students
attended class on the first day, but by the end of the term, that number
had more than doubled to fifty. For over ten years, faculty and students
alike met for class in the two-and-a-half-story building referred to as the
“Old Castle.” Constructed in 1858, the building—which has a rustic and
somewhat unfinished exterior—was known for many years simply as the
College Building because for a time it was Baker’s only official collegiate
edifice. Today, the structure, which is located just across the eastern side of
the modern-day campus, serves as a museum that, according to the school,
“houses artifacts from early Kansas [and] Baker history.”
The 1860s and ’70s were hard for the college, due to war and famine, but
the institute managed to survive. By the 1880s, things had begun to turn
around, and the number of students attending classes eventually ballooned
to around 350. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the
university was prospering, and in 1912, it was ranked as the seventh-best
Methodist college in the United States. In the intervening years, Baker has
continued to thrive, and today, it is the highest-ranked Kansas university
among Midwest Regional Universities, according to U.S. News & World
Report. It also currently offers dozens of undergraduate degrees, as well as
online and traditional graduate programs.
And while today the university mostly houses students, it is claimed that
the Baker campus is also home to several phantoms.
A popular story that has been spread among students and staff alike
is that Parmenter Hall (one of the school’s most iconic buildings) is
haunted by the ghost of a Union soldier who was murdered on August
21, 1863—the date of Quantrill’s Raid. According to the story, this soldier
was out for a ride when he spotted the bushwhacker posse. Quantrill and
his men had just finished burning Lawrence to the ground and were intent
on destroying Baldwin City, too. Realizing the danger at hand, the soldier
turned his horse around and, at breakneck speed, rushed to warn the
people of the city. One of Quantrill’s men, however, saw the soldier and
gave chase. The soldier made it to the steps of Parmenter Hall before the
rogue murdered him. Thankfully, the alarm was nonetheless raised, and a
militia of townsfolk and farmers assembled and chased Quantrill and his
men away from their city.
While elements of the story are true (for instance, Quantrill and his men
were chased off by a ragtag militia composed of Baldwin City farmers), the
tale has a few issues, with the biggest being that in 1863, only the foundations
for Parmenter Hall had been laid. What is more, these foundations were later
H AUNTED L AWRENCE
109
scrapped, and construction on what is now the hall began anew in 1865, in
a location slightly to the southwest of the original foundations. Nevertheless,
to this day, a popular story says that this soldier’s spirit still walks Parmenter’s
tower, standing guard and watching for enemies that might threaten the city.
Just a stone’s throw north of Parmenter Hall stands Rice Auditorium,
out of which the university’s theater and music programs are based.
Auditoriums and theaters often have a reputation for housing spirits, and
Rice is no exception, as many students have experienced bizarre happenings
Parmenter Hall. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).
H AUNTED LAWRENCE
110
in the building. In 2006, senior Brian Berrens told the campus newspaper,
the Baker Orange, that he always felt a presence in the theater, especially when
he was all alone. Berrens also contended that this spirit was fond of moving
objects, saying, “There’ll be a wrench that you know you sat down right next
to you, but when you go to get it, it’s 15 feet away.” Many believe that the
spirit responsible is that of a former Baker University theater major named
Stuart McCoy, who died on August 29, 1976, in a horrible fire that ravaged
the Kappa Sigma fraternity house. Most agree that if McCoy is the one
lingering in the building, he is not malicious and is simply there because of
his love for the performing arts.
But arguably the most haunted building at Baker is the Old Castle
Museum, which is said to be the home of two ghosts. The first of these
is referred to by those in the know as “Thomas.” According to the former
curator of the museum, Brenda Day, on one of her first days at the Old
Castle, she found a note left by the previous curator that read, “Look out for
Thomas.” After doing some research, Day learned that in 1863, Reverend
Thomas H. Mudge, the college’s pastor, died in the building late one night.
By all accounts, Thomas (whom Day took to calling “The Professor”) is
somewhat of a mischievous spirit and is fond of unplugging cords.
The second spirit is a bit friendlier. Day claimed that while carrying
several artifacts down the building’s stairwell, she tripped and nearly fell.
However, something—or someone—stopped her from plummeting to the
ground and injuring herself. In 2006, she told the Baker Orange, “You can still
see the chunks my boots took out of the stairs when something stopped me
from falling.” The identity of this second spirit is still unknown, although
Day took to calling it “The Laborer” and hypothesized that it was the soul
of a man who was crushed by a gristmill grindstone in the building near the
turn of the twentieth century. This suspicion is bolstered by the fact that the
horrid incident occurred on the second floor of the Old Castle, and it is on
this level that visitors often report a sense of unease.
In 2008, Dr. Thomas Peard, a former professor of philosophy at the
university, told KNBU-TV reporter Jessica Mulvaney that at some point
in the past, he and the students from one of his contemporary philosophy
courses took a night trip to the Old Castle Museum to paranormally
investigate the location. He explained:
As we were walking along the side of Old Castle—we had turned off
all the lights [in the building] and we had confirmed that [this was
the case]...my son, who was, I think ten years old at the time, took my
H AUNTED L AWRENCE
111
cell phone and just took a picture of one of the windows up on the second
floor.…We didn’t think a whole lot about it, but after he had taken it, we
looked and there was a light emanating from a completely dark window on
the second floor. It was a very bright light. We didn’t use a flash to take the
picture, but nevertheless we could see this light.
Dr. Peard also noted that a colleague of his had once seen a face in one of
the building’s windows late at night when the building was unoccupied and
firmly locked up.
Baker University is situated in the middle of Baldwin City, a few blocks
off North 300 Road. The main campus is bounded on the north and south
by Chapel and Grove Streets and on the east and west by Sixth and Ninth
Streets. Many of the buildings can be entered by the curious, although
visiting hours are often in effect and should be noted.