University Of Charleston – Dickinson Hall

After attending UC for 3 years now, I can tell you a LOT about this place, but Dickinson is a whole story in itself. I lived there for only a little over a month before all the students there were moved to the new dorm and Dickinson’s third and half of the second floor were condemned.

The very first thing I encountered was uneasiness and the feeling I was being watched at night. My roommate’s and my beds were parallel on opposite sides of the room, only about 4 feet apart. Every night before I went to sleep I felt a male presence between the foot of our beds.

Walking around the dorm alone at night was a big no-no for everyone. The building was way too spooky. The floors are separated into four sections. Mine was the third section. I didn’t like being the feeling of it or the room diagonally right of mine. They just felt wrong.

No one liked the basement either. Even three years later I have a hard time talking about what happened to me down there. My first time down there was part of a hall meeting in the big lounge.

First I should explain the building a bit. It was an “L” shape and the lounge was in the middle of the two hallways. One hall was short, only about 15 feet and there was a stairwell at the end that led back up to my section of the “L”. The other hallway had a stairwell that led up to the other section and the main entry. Further down that hall was the laundry room and an attached waiting/folding room. At the end was another lounge/game room. There was also a door directly across the room from where the hallway ended. I don’t know what was behind it, but I think it was another stairwell to go to the end of that section. The door was locked though and through the small window I could tell there was no light. Also between the halls where the main lounge was a small kitchen that had been locked up and hadn’t been used for years. I actually didn’t find out it was even a kitchen until after I had moved.

Ok, back to the main lounge. It wasn’t used as a lounge anymore, just for storage. Truth be told the laundry room was the only room used by residents. The main lounge was only used for hall meetings because it was the only room large enough to hold all the hall residents. As I stood with my back to the long hallway I felt like someone was behind me. But there never was anyone every time I looked.

I tried not to think much of it and went to the basement weekly to do my laundry. Though I continuously had creepy feelings, nothing really happened… Until the night I decided to use the stairwell on the short hall. Before, I would go over to the other section and use the stairwell over there. I should mention that once out of the stairwell (in the basement) there’s a door on the right and a few steps to get down to the floor. As I walked by I got the uncontrollable urge to open the partially closed solid wooden door. I wish I hadn’t, but I opened it. Inside was long pieces of wood perfectly cut on shelves, but they were all covered in dust. I got terrified and quickly shut the door and went to do my laundry. I used the normal stairwell to get back up. I tried to forget the incident but days later I felt that there was a little blond-haired girl down there. I could see her perfectly. I’ve always been spiritually sensitive and felt that my opening that door let her out of the room, but that she wasn’t able to get out of the basement. That was just my feeling about it. Now that can be called a vivid imagination or delusions if you want. I know what I felt. And what happened next was the most terrifying thing that’s ever happened to me in my life.

As usual I was doing my weekly laundry. I had just finished up and was bringing up the last load. It was sometime between 7 and 9 o’clock at night. I was walking up the hallway to the stairwell when I got the worst sense of dread like something so very angry was right behind me, chasing me out of the basement. I walked faster but felt it speed up too. Then I started to run. I ran to the stairwell and up the first flight of steps and out into the entrance area. I lived in Dickinson two more weeks and never went back into that basement. I wouldn’t even walk by the building anymore after I moved out.

Dickinson remained empty until the next summer when the un-condemned part of the second floor and the first floor were used to house camps. I have no idea how they fared. I lived in the dorm directly across the parking lot from Dickinson and whenever I looked out the kitchen window I felt like the little blond-haired girl was calling for me. Not too long afterward, the building was torn down.

Also, after moving out I heard stories from other students. Most are reluctant to talk about it and some refuse. I’ve asked lots of people on campus including faculty, staff, administration, other students, and security. All except students pass it off as a joke or deny it totally. It’s also interesting to note that when I went to the library to look at the Dickinson history books, lots of pages were blank throughout the books. This is mainly interesting because there are no blank pages in the other dorm books, one of which is only two years younger than Dickinson.