There are many rumors about Brodbeck Music Hall’s past, and with Halloween approaching, we have sanctioned an expedition into the unknown. A few staff reporters from your humble paper have volunteered to put their night’s sleep on the line to find out if Brodbeck is truly haunted. They will spend the night in Brodbeck – with the blessing of our administration of course.
This is not for the faint of heart.
Below, you will find an article from 2005 on Brodbeck’s legend. In our next issue, there will be an account of our very own quest.
Hood hosts a haunting of its very own
Jennifer Hill
Issue date: 10/31/05 Section: Features
By Jennifer Hill
Oct. 31, 2005
Imagine practicing the piano, the clarinet, or the violin in Brodbeck Music Hall on a cold, dark autumn evening. You’re a music major who has stayed late into the night, practicing for your lesson tomorrow morning, and you’re the only soul left in the building – the only one still living, that is.
Brodbeck Hall has become a Hood College legend.
“There’s more lore and ghost stories about Brodbeck than any other building on campus,” says Dr. Leonard Latkovski, chair of the department of history and political science. “It has this distinctive aura, this atmosphere to it.”
The legend has certainly found subscribers among the students, some of whom have tried to capture ghost orbs on camera and record sounds of spirits (known as Electronic Voice Phenomena, or EVP, using tape recorders.
“We found really huge orbs on the stage,” said sophomore Taylor DiClemente. “One kind is blurry and the other is detailed. The detailed ones are dust particles, but we found the blurry kind, and that’s supposed to be some kind of energy.”
As for EVP, DiClemente says he never found any conclusive results, and hesitates to confirm or deny the presence of paranormal activity in Brodbeck, but he remains open-minded.
“Certain places in the building do have a strong presence,” he said. “Your chest feels heavy. You start to get dizzy and really hot.”
He’s not the only one who has perceived an unknown “presence” in Brodbeck. Amanda Salisbury, a junior, recalls actually seeing a “blue silhouette” at the piano.
“My friend and I were getting ready to leave when she heard piano music coming from the stage,” she said. “So I followed her up there, and I felt this presence behind the piano. When I looked I saw a blue silhouette. I felt threatened, so we left.”
Several students and faculty members report hearing phantom footsteps on the stairs and distant, ghostly music at night.
In the words of a faculty member, “There have been times when I’m the last person there at night – when I know there are no students in the building – that I’ve heard faint music coming from upstairs.”
Junior student Brian Auer has also heard footsteps and witnessed other unexplained events.
“It’s weird,” he says with a shudder. “I was up there one time with my friends, and we found a door that had police tape on it. We tried to open it but it was latched, so only the top would give, and it stuck there. So we started going downstairs when we heard wailing, and suddenly the door slammed back into place. It’s really creepy. I don’t like going there alone at night.”
Just take one look around Brodbeck’s third floor and it’s easy to see why many people would think twice about going alone to the almost 140-year-old building after dark. Built in 1868, just a few years after the Civil War ended, Brodbeck Hall is the oldest building on campus.
In the years before the Woman’s College of Frederick purchased the building, it served in various capacities – as a social hall, a florist’s shop, a farmer’s home, and a warehouse.
But a German brothel? Not likely, says Latkovski, although he admits that it may have been a place where a couple could “come out and take a roll in the hay” when Brodbeck was under the ownership of a German marksmen society.
After all, when the Woman’s College of Frederick purchased Brodbeck in 1897, it was still surrounded by farmland, and it was first used by the college as a residence for faculty and students. Brodbeck is aptly named for one of the college’s earliest and strongest supporters, Andrew Brodbeck, who served two terms in the House of Representatives and donated funds for the remodeling and augmentation of Brodbeck Hall in 1915 and 1922.
The debated presence of ghosts only adds to the rich and intriguing history of Brodbeck. Most Hood students agree that if the stories are true, the ghosts of Brodbeck are just friendly spirits who don’t mean any harm by scaring us a little.
Brian Auer doesn’t let the stories (or the ghosts) keep him from using the practice rooms in Brodbeck-at least during the daytime. As he puts it, “I think they’re just mischievous spirits. They’re just having a little fun with us.”
Be the first to comment