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Campus Building at Vanderbilt University Has History of Hauntings

Campus Building at Vanderbilt University Has History of Hauntings

“The home was built in 1875, two years after Vanderbilt was founded.”

You can tell it’s Halloween season when stories like this start popping up. It’s an interesting claim, too.

WKRN News reports:

The hauntings of the Vaughn Home at Vanderbilt University

At the heart of Vanderbilt University’s campus, you’ll find the Vaughn Home.

The home was built in 1875, two years after Vanderbilt was founded. It was one of the seven original faculty houses on campus. It was also the home of William J. Vaughn who was the first university math teacher and librarian. Vaughn was a professor of mathematics for 30 years and a professor of mathematics and astronomy for 16. He was University librarian for 26 years.

He and his family lived in the home until 1912. The home has served as a residence for faculty, dorms for men and women, offices for the department of romance languages and teaching assistants, and now it serves as the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities.

News 2 spoke with Holly Tucker, Director of the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, about the history of the home. She said it’s now the heartbeat of for the humanities on campus, and like many older homes, it has a few ghost stories.

“When I started as director last year, I was starting to hear various little stories about people who were in the house late at night. Dewayne Arbogast, Vanderbilt Custodian, told me a story. He was in there one day, in the janitors room and he was sitting there falling asleep, cleaning the house with his wife Kathy. He was sure that Kathy had touched him on the shoulder, then he heard a knocking at the door, saying come on Dwayne. It was Kathy telling him she was heading to the next room, and he is absolutely certain that he was touched on the shoulder by a member of the Vaughn family.”

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and he is absolutely certain that he was touched on the shoulder by a member of the Vaughn family.”

Did said member try to sniff his hair while he was at it? Now that’d be spooky stuff.

Morning Sunshine | October 26, 2020 at 5:41 pm

my campus had ghost stories aplenty. I always laughed at them (believing that the departed are around, but harmless); and actually had people wanting to be my roommate since they will not manifest to unbelievers.
I went back for my 20 year, and the subject came up. I again laughed it off, and I expected these more mature, experienced, SOBER women to also laugh it off, and I was surprised when they did not. In fact, some seemed more afraid than they had as drunk college students.

Ghosts are racist.

They look kinda like Klan members sometimes and the celebrity ghosts on tv always kill the black girls or guys first.