Bradford College, it was called. I went there my freshman year. It was a very tiny college with only about 650 students. Quite an old college - founded in 1802. In 2000 the college closed for good because it went bankrupt.
Bradford was a creepy place. I lived in the oldest dorm, Academy Hall, which was built in the 1870s. There was a general sense that something wasn't quite right, that there was something in the air lurking unseen, watching you (I'm probably starting to sound like a loon :) but it's the best way I can think of to describe the general sense of malice and gloom that pervaded the atmosphere). The rooms had extremely high ceilings and gigantic windows, which just added to the creepy atmosphere.
It was a very tiny campus. There were only two classroom buildings, both which I could see from my dorm window. There were dark, dank tunnels which connected Academy Hall to the buildings, and some students had thoughtfully taken it upon themselves to improve the aesthetics by decorating the walls with images of demons. It was no picnic walking through them by yourself at eleven o'clock at night, LOL.
Academy Hall had a main staircase and a back staircase. The back staircase was a very creepy place, and it was walled up from the third floor to the fourth floor. I later found out that a girl had committed suicide in that stairwell and in keeping with the custom of the times, the area was walled off. Bradford had many suicides, in fact, a lot for such a tiny school.
Despite the general creepiness, I only saw one ghost, thankfully, and it was before I even knew the college was haunted. A couple of weeks into the fall semester, I woke up to see someone laying right next to me, staring right at me (and yes, I went to bed alone :D). It was a man, in his late thirties-early forties, with a beard and old-fashioned "mutton chop" sideburns - he was dressed in black and looked "religious", like a minister (this is important later). Well, when I saw he was there I freaked and backed away, and he looked shocked, like he was thinking "you can see me???" and then he faded away. I just sort of shrugged it off and thought perhaps I was hallucinating or something and forgot about it.
However, two weeks later, I was in my room by myself, laying on my bed facing the wall. It was the evening, and I was listening to some music. I heard and felt a thump next to me, as though someone had pounded the mattress with their fist. Thinking it was one of my roomates trying to scare me, I looked over. No one was there. The room was completely empty. I remembered what had happened two weeks ago and fled to the common room, where my roomates were.
Even more light was shed on the situation when I learned that about 100 years ago, when Bradford was still an all-girl's school, a local priest had an affair with one of the students and got her pregnant. The priest and girl were in her dorm and they got into an argument because she wanted to keep the baby and he wanted her to get rid of it. They were standing by the window (remember the big windows I mentioned) and the story goes he either pushed her out of the window or she fell. In any case she died, and when the priest later passed away, girls started reporting that they felt someone getting into bed with them, or they woke up seeing someone next to them. And keep in mind I had no idea about any of this until after I had had my experience. Creepy, huh? :scared:
I'm sure by now you think I'm totally nuts :), but if you're interested, some ghost hunter group did an investigation on Bradford before it closed and took some very interesting pics -
http://www.hollowhill.com/ma/bradsum.htm