Haunted: Ghosts of Hanover and Norwich
Haunted Dartmouth Fraternity:
Sightings of apparitions, strange moving objects, and disappearing rooms in a fraternity house may sound like upperclassmen making an effort to scare new members, but all the paranormal activity has been linked back to a single tragedy.
On February 25, 1934, 9 members of Alpha Theta were suffocated in the night due to a leak of carbon monoxide gas from the furnace, found the next day by the janitor. In the time after, the remaining members reported many incidents of haunting, and believed that the only way to completely stop the unrested spirits from coming back would be to destroy and rebuild the house. However, when they reconstructed it, they failed to replace a section of the basement, which is said to still be visited by the ghosts.
Members and nonmembers at Dartmouth have reported seeing men in old fashioned clothing congregating in the basement, and rooms in the basement appearing and disappearing arbitrarily. The current members of Alpha Theta declined interview over email, saying it was, “out of respect for our deceased members and non-members, and for fear of upsetting and angering their ghosts.”
The Ghost of the Norwich Inn:
The Norwich Inn is widely known in the Upper Valley for its classic accommodation style and presence in Norwich, Vermont since 1797.
The hotel was started by Colonel Jasper Murdock, a Dartmouth alumni, then bought by Charles and Mary Walker in 1920. They ran the inn as it was in the time, but trouble began after Mary died. She had been running the inn for a number of years, as Charles had predeceased her, but she had recently decided to retire.
Since then, mysterious activity has occurred in a number of places around the hotel. Sinks and toilets turning on and off, chairs moving across rooms without explanation, and other paranormal sightings. A ghostly woman in a long black dress has been seen a multitude of times floating along the higher floors, and crossing over the dining room to the library. This ghost is thought to be the soul of Mary “Ma” Walker, but some of the other mysterious happenings have been attributed to early deceased guests of the inn.
