With Halloween just around the corner, scary stories are on the rise, ghost stories being especially popular. All of these stories seem to have a building with an eerie legend around it, some sort of ghost left behind by a tragedy of years before.
Some of these scary stories are found right on campus, such as the ghost of Leonie Guggenheim, who supposedly haunts the library, while others are just a bit further out of reach, like the abandoned Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, found in Parsippany, NJ, just an hour away from campus. Both of these ghost stories have also been reported on in popular tourist magazine Weird N.J., which specializes in finding the strangest and most bizarre things about the state and showcasing them.
Monmouth’s on-campus library, once known as the summer home of Murry and Leonie Guggenheim, is rumored to be haunted by the ghost of Leonie, who died twenty years after her husband. His death occurred in 1939, yet, Leonie continued to spend her summers at the house, according to the information provided by Monmouth Library. In 1959, after her death, the estate became the property of the Murry and Leonie Guggenheim Foundation, and it was later donated to Monmouth University.
According to ghost stories, the spirit of Leonie Guggenheim still haunts the library even now. Supposedly, every night at midnight, a figure in white appears on the stairs of the library, making her way up the stairs before vanishing.
George Germek, the associate librarian at the Guggenheim Library said, “I’ve never seen anything here, though supposedly things happen by the staircase. I’ve been here nine years and have seen nothing, however, I’ve heard some noises in the basement hallways when it’s empty, like dropping books.”
Erica Walsh, a freshman social work major, has never seen the rumored ghost, but she claims that she does believe in the story. “It’s an old mansion,” she said, describing the library as it once was. “It’s been around for decades. There’s no reason to believe that it wouldn’t be haunted.”
Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, commonly referred to as Greystone, is the second-oldest mental hospital in NJ. It’s rumored to be haunted, especially in the winding tunnels under the facility itself. Freshman history major, Rachel Black, has never been inside the asylum herself. She says that her friends have gone in and returned with stories of “having had weird things happen, like cold chills and scratches.”
However, most trespassers find themselves chased out by security guards, due to the age of the asylum and the fact that it will soon be torn down, police are stationed nearby.
Though the asylum has no ‘real’ ghosts and there are no named legends, there are always strange stories. Author Denise K. Rago, from the nearby Morris Plains, gave an interview where she explained that most of the hauntings in the building seemed to occur in the tunnels or the dormitories.
“I knew of people who worked on the grounds,” she said in the interview given for the horror blog ‘Dark Lucidity.’ “They shared tales of feeling watched while there, or not being able to get away fast enough.”
There is also a rumor that Jack the Ripper, a notorious serial killer who prowled through London in 1888, died inside the walls of Greystone. An article written in Empire News, published in 1923, wrote of a Norwegian sailor named Fogelma, who was committed to Greystone.
Subjected to fits of rage and insanity, he matched many of the characteristics of Jack, who was never caught by British police. He was also said to have clearly described scenes and incidents that connected him to the murders, and his sister claimed to have found clippings about the murders with his belongings.
Although Scotland Yard was notified, there was no follow-up completed. Again, nobody was ever held responsible for the Jack the Ripper murders, and there were other suspects, meaning that it’s possible that Fogelma was innocent. However, with no proof in either direction, the story adds to the terrifying reputation of Greystone, adding another violent spirit to its walls.
Though stories and rumors like this may not be true, they’re always fun to discuss around Halloween, especially with events like the haunted Wilson tours popping up around campus. And as the season goes on, the scarier stories become, the better they are.
IMAGE TAKEN from pinterest.com
