Dr. Jordan puts on Annual Ghost Story Telling Event
Issue date: 10/28/09 Section: Features
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Rotunda Reporter
On the night of Oct. 25, a body of near five hundred students collected in Blackwell to listen to the annual Ghost Stories as told by Dr. Jim Jordan. For many years, it has been a Longwood tradition for Dr. Jordan to usher in the Halloween season with a history of Longwood and the series of unfortunate and peculiar events which happened about the campus. One of these events coincides with the professor's 36 year tenure.
The fire of 2001 which engulfed the Rotunda and destroyed the old Ruffner building was a tragedy no one could avert, not even a particularly faithful and inhuman guardian. According to local folklore, the Confederate Hero on High Street walks about, to monitor the town, on nights when its shadow falls on Ruffner. The night of the fire, the wall on which it was cast was being destroyed. A photograph in Dr. Jordan's presentation showed the unmistakable silhouette of a man with a brimmed hat and rifle seemingly molded out of the flames.
Most of the night's stories, however, took place long before 1973 and even farther from the present day. Many stories including those of Aunt Lou, Eda Stevens and the elevator shaft fatality of a young boy occurred in the middle of the century. The grotesque death by mouse on Rat Day and a beautifully shimmering yet murderous quilt are assumed to be their contemporaries.
The tale of our University's thousand pound brass bell crushing a student on its entry dates from the turn of the century. The stolen 'play-pretty' mirror from an impoverished girl's burial may share a slightly later period.
A great deal of Longwood history reaches even into the nineteenth century. The school bore witness, with a great number of its students, to the Confederate retreat from Sayler's Creek. With the assurance of a union soldier, the natal Longwood was feared to never open its doors again. This further led to the story of Stanley Park school and the reverend founder's lecherous drugging of his young female wards. His blight of leprosy and death caused the demise of an effected mother so enraged she attacked his corpse and contracted the deadly ailment.
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