Episode 389 - Haunted University of Georgia & Sorority Ghosts

Two Girls One Ghost

In Episode 389 of 'Two Girls One Ghost,' hosts Sabrina and Corinne explore the haunted history of the University of Georgia, one of America's

Key takeaways

• The University of Georgia's 240+ years of history contribute significantly to its reputation as one of America's most haunted campuses.

Main topics

• Haunted University of Georgia campus
• Sorority house hauntings on Milledge Avenue

Notable quotes

"I'd be pissed the heck off. The one request to be buried at the chapel and your body's literally exhumed and moved."

Conclusion

The episode concludes with an invitation for listeners to share their own ghost stories,

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:00) Evening. Buyer's remorse. Buy a new car? I'll be moving in. Let's get started. Speaker 4 (0:07) Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana. You Speaker 7 (0:11) what? Speaker 4 (0:11) Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it. So Speaker 7 (0:15) there's no... Speaker 4 (0:15) No, no buyer's remorse. More like buyer's rejoice. Speaker 7 (0:19) I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it. Buyer's rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations Speaker 6 (0:27) and exclusions may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com. Speaker 1 (0:32) Some evil thing happened here. Speaker 3 (0:36) Three people die in a quiet suburb in Mississauga, Canada. Speaker 1 (0:41) It's not a coincidence. Speaker 3 (0:43) One after the other. In the same house. Is this bad luck? Or something more sinister? Speaker 1 (0:53) The worst investigative mess I've ever encountered. Speaker 2 (0:56) A long simmering, what took you so fucking long to get here? Speaker 3 (1:02) From Sony Music Entertainment, this is What Happened to the Harrisons. I'm Amy Dempsey-Raven. What Happened to the Harrisons is available now on The Binge. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. Subscribers to The Binge can listen to all episodes all at once, ad-free. Speaker 4 (1:51) Hey. Hi. What's up? How's it going? Oh, yeah. You can't talk back. Sorry. This is Two Girls, One Ghost. Speaker 5 (1:58) Two Girls. We are your ghostesses. That is Corinne. Hi. I'm Sabrina. I'm trying a new drink today. And I kind of like Speaker 4 (2:05) it. Speaker 5 (2:05) Oh my God, I didn't Speaker 4 (2:06) even notice. I know. What'd you get? Is this like a refresher type thing? Speaker 5 (2:10) It's a Glamberry. I hate these stickers so much. I usually take them off before I come in here. Oh. It's one of Speaker 4 (2:16) my like weird, it's gonna bother me. Anyway, but yeah, it's like one of those energy drinks. Were you just inspired today or did you see it somewhere? Was it recommended? Well, I just wasn't in the mood for coffee. It's hard to stray from the path. And I mixed it up. Yeah. Speaker 5 (2:30) It's officially September, if you are listening to this when it comes out. And it's that time of year where school's back in session. And Speaker 4 (2:39) so the kids are returning to their schools with their friends. And some of the children are moving away to haunted colleges. Little do they know their dorm room is going to torment them for the whole first year. Speaker 5 (2:54) Or maybe their entire campus. Okay. So end of summer means. Literally happened to us. Yeah. Freshman year. Yeah. Both of our rooms. When ghost hunting. Speaker 4 (3:02) The Speaker 5 (3:02) end of summer means it's back to school. And if you're in college, maybe it's move-in weekend. Maybe you're a freshman. Maybe you're filled with that mix of anxiety and excitement, the fear and cheer because you're gonna have new roommates, new beginnings. Yeah. New school, new rules, or maybe no rules for the first time in your life. And perhaps you're heading to campus one week early for one of the oldest traditions in history, Greek life rush week. Or maybe you're a seasoned college student heading back to campus after a summer. So you've built your community. You can't wait to live it up again. And maybe, just maybe, you're moving back into the sorority house. Or maybe you're moving into the sorority house for the very first time. Is this a haunted Greek row? It's a whole haunted campus, but there's a lot of Greek life. Oh my gosh. Yeah, haunted Speaker 4 (3:45) sororities incoming. This is exciting. Speaker 5 (3:47) I almost pulled out my Theta sweatshirt for this episode, but it's in a bin, like in the back of a closet. And I did not do it. Speaker 4 (3:56) Yeah, I don't think I own mine anymore. Because I was like, what's the, realistically, what are the chances that I have a daughter and then that daughter joins Alpha Phi for me to give them that sweatshirt? Speaker 5 (4:06) I kept one sweatshirt from Theta and then I kept my sweetheart sweatshirt from Sigma Chi. I Speaker 4 (4:12) just kept the pin, like the tiny little pin from. Oh, yeah. See, I don't Speaker 5 (4:16) know where Speaker 4 (4:16) my pen Speaker 5 (4:17) is. Speaker 4 (4:17) I was like, that's the one trinket that if should this ever happen, that will be passed on. So Speaker 5 (4:23) if you're moving into the sorority house, hopefully they told you about the ghosts. So today we are going to talk about one of the most haunted colleges, the University of Georgia. Go Bulldogs! Speaker 5 (4:37) I also saw Go Dawgs online. Oh, Go Dawgs. Speaker 4 (4:41) So I don't Speaker 5 (4:41) know, maybe we're D-A-W-G Dawgs. I don't know. But the fact that Speaker 4 (4:45) this is like a Georgia campus and like Greek life in Georgia makes this feel even more intense. Oh. Our experience with Greek life was like not really that authentic at all. I Speaker 5 (4:55) actually really liked ours because we, so we started LMU. You have your whole first semester. You don't rush until your second semester Speaker 4 (5:02) freshman year, which Speaker 5 (5:04) is nice because like you and I became friends. Most of our Speaker 4 (5:06) friend group, it was all mixed. Right. And Speaker 5 (5:08) then Speaker 4 (5:08) we joined different sororities, but we were able to stay friends. And like, it wasn't so Speaker 5 (5:12) exclusive where you only ever socialized with your sorority. True. But we also didn't have a Greek Speaker 4 (5:17) row. So it's like, there's no Speaker 5 (5:18) house to move into. We made our own little houses. Speaker 4 (5:21) Yeah. People just like rented houses. Yeah. Speaker 5 (5:24) Six Speaker 4 (5:24) or seven people in like one house scattered all over Westchester in Los Angeles. Speaker 5 (5:30) Well, just wait until you see these houses. They're insane. I felt flabbergasted just Speaker 4 (5:35) going to like the USC, UCLA ones when we would like take little field trips. Speaker 5 (5:39) The decoration and like interior design is insane. But Speaker 4 (5:44) I just like watching the Rush videos when they're all doing their like clapping in the doorway and all their chants. It's Speaker 5 (5:49) a Speaker 4 (5:49) little scary, but it's also very like that's the cult that I would join. We did Speaker 5 (5:54) join. We did. Yeah, that's Speaker 4 (5:56) true. Speaker 5 (5:57) Okay, so the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia is one of the most quintessential. Southern college towns in America. Streets lined with old oak trees, historic buildings, football on Sundays, like everyone in town is dedicated to the Sunday football games. Although I think it's Saturdays, right? At college? I think it's, anyway, I'm a fraud. Speaker 4 (6:17) We also didn't have a football team. Speaker 5 (6:19) No. So that means we're undefeated. That's what we said in my high school too. And also in this quintessential Southern college Speaker 4 (6:27) town, Speaker 5 (6:27) there Speaker 4 (6:28) are plenty of ghosts. Not very surprised given its location. Oh, and we're going to talk about some of the history. Yeah. Speaker 5 (6:35) Although the last bit probably wasn't mentioned in orientation. As you walk through the front doors of the sorority houses, they won't tell you they're haunted. Like ghosts staring at you through the window haunted or body buried beneath the front steps haunted or maybe piano plays by itself haunted. Or also, oh yeah, someone was murdered here haunted. Oh my gosh. Speaker 4 (6:54) Piano, fine, but like you walk up the front steps, so like your body beneath your feet. Speaker 5 (7:00) Yeah, yep. So today we're going to talk about the hauntings at the University of Georgia and not just the sorority houses, but the entire campus itself. There are over 240 years of history here, and sometimes history has a way of bleeding into the present in the form of ghosts. Ghosts. And just as context, there are so many buildings on this campus. Actually, I wanted to look up how many students are here. 43,888 students. That's massive. That's like the size. That's the population Speaker 4 (7:30) of Vermont. Yeah, that's crazy. That's Speaker 5 (7:33) crazy. Speaker 4 (7:33) That's so many people. That's Speaker 5 (7:35) so Speaker 4 (7:35) many people. So Speaker 5 (7:36) this campus is massive. And obviously, we're not going to talk about all of it. But I wonder if Speaker 4 (7:40) it's always been huge. I Speaker 5 (7:42) mean, probably. Because so many of them started as like boys only Speaker 4 (7:44) or whatever. I mean, all of them, basically. Speaker 5 (7:47) Ours, too. Yeah. Except for like the women-only schools like Wellesley and whatnot. But anyway. There are a lot of hauntings to cover in this episode. We're talking urban legends, mysterious bricked up buildings and pathways, murders, revenge, a haunted Greek row, and so much more. But before we get to all of those hauntings, we're going to talk about the history of the University of Georgia and why it's so haunted as context. This history certainly predates what I'm going to start it in this episode, but we're not going to go into the beginning of time. We're going to start with January 27th, 1785. The American Revolution has just ended. The United States of America was more of like a percolating thought. It was cooking. Aaron Burr was having duels in the street. Heading to New Speaker 4 (8:30) Jersey. Not for Speaker 5 (8:31) the Speaker 4 (8:31) bagels. Oh, I want a bagel now. You make me hungry. They're so fluffy. I've never tasted one. Just get to look at them. Speaker 5 (8:39) That's so sad for you. Speaker 4 (8:40) Yeah, I know. The New Jersey bagels look so much better than the New York or anything else. Speaker 5 (8:44) They're similar to New York. Speaker 4 (8:45) Wow. Hot take from you. I feel like everyone. Speaker 5 (8:48) No, New York pizza, New York and New Jersey pizza and food, I feel like they're the same. But they look Speaker 4 (8:52) so different. Bagels? Where are you getting bagels in New York? Where are you seeing bagels in New York? You're seeing the wrong ones. Brian, we go to bagel shops. Speaker 5 (8:59) I don't get Speaker 4 (9:00) to eat anything, but I Speaker 5 (9:02) personally believe they're very similar. Okay, but it's here in this uncertain time, post-American Revolution, where a man named Abraham Baldwin, who was a Connecticut-born Yale graduate and Georgia State legislator, Speaker 4 (9:14) decided... I'm going to make some moves. Speaker 5 (9:17) He believed a true democracy could not function without an educated citizenry, which I agree. I think that's a very smart take. And the people of his state and his country, he believed, should be educated. So with that, he drafted a charter and presented it to the Georgia Assembly. And on January 27th, 1785, the University of Georgia became the first state-chartered public university in all of America. Speaker 4 (9:40) Wow. And Speaker 5 (9:41) fun fact, Abraham Baldwin later signed the U.S. Constitution. Good for him. He followed John Hancock. Jan. Jan Holmcock. But no one can really follow John Hancock. That's, you know. Speaker 4 (9:53) Well, I do feel bad that like no one, like if you told me his name, I would never know that he was one of the signatures. I Speaker 5 (9:58) know. Speaker 4 (9:58) He Speaker 5 (9:58) was Speaker 4 (9:58) in the room where it happened though. Speaker 5 (9:59) He was. Okay. So 1785, UGA exists. Although at the time it was called Franklin College after Benjamin Franklin. And despite being chartered in 1785, there was no physical campus until 1801. In 1801. 633 acres of land were purchased along the Oconee River. I probably said that wrong and was donated to the university as a campus. So the very first on-campus classes began in September of 1801. Speaker 4 (10:27) I like that is a period of time that if time travel was a thing, I would want to go back like the first week that that opened. Right. Just like what is the excitement? See what it's like. Yeah. Are people like buzzing with excitement and it's like awkward and cool? Right. Or is it just, do they understand how awesome it is? Speaker 5 (10:46) That's a good question. We'll have to get a time machine and find out. Speaker 4 (10:49) Yeah. And this is also still such a long time ago, like 1801. That's a long time ago. Super long. And America's barely been. Speaker 5 (10:56) Yeah. Speaker 4 (10:57) I Speaker 5 (10:57) think we're still babies. 250 years. Yeah. But 400 years this Speaker 4 (11:01) year for Salem. Speaker 5 (11:04) So that means some of the buildings on campus have been standing for some 200 plus years. They've stood witness to the Civil War, generations of students coming and going. And also, it's very important to note that these buildings were in large part built on the labor of enslaved people. Speaker 4 (11:21) And Speaker 5 (11:21) actually, this is a wild story. And I feel like it's not talked about very often when you look up what's going on. And then also some sources say the wrong date. So that kind of pisses me off. In November of 2015, during a campus construction project to expand Baldwin Hall, the remains of 105 people were discovered beneath the campus grounds. Speaker 4 (11:42) Wow. They Speaker 5 (11:42) did DNA analysis and confirmed that the vast majority of remains were of African descent and had most likely been enslaved and then just buried beneath the campus. Speaker 4 (11:50) Unmarked. Speaker 5 (11:51) Buried with little care and little compassion. Speaker 4 (11:53) It's so upsetting, but at the same time, like given the amount of land that was given. Yeah. And what was going on and how horrific everything was. Like, I'm not surprised. No, it's not surprising. It's just upsetting. It's just upsetting. And Speaker 5 (12:07) the first instinct of the school itself was not to like, oh, let's commemorate the people here. They were basically like, let's just ignore it and move on. It took years of student activism and public pressure to actually acknowledge and memorialize the souls that had been buried there. That's crazy. Years. Yeah. So already we Speaker 4 (12:25) can see heavy, dark Speaker 5 (12:26) history. Speaker 4 (12:27) Yeah. Speaker 5 (12:28) And then there was a civil war. In 1861, Athens was a Confederate stronghold, the South, and the city supplied men, uniforms, and weapons. And then that year, so the university fall semester started with 113 students enrolled, so not always that big. But by 1863, so many of the students and faculty members had been called to the front lines that the school closed entirely and then was handed over to the Confederate soldiers as like a base camp. Speaker 4 (12:54) That's kind of a wild, like, I understand anyone can be called, but like, for some reason, I just thought of academic campuses as kind of being safe. Speaker 5 (13:02) Well, I always think of Across the Universe. Did you ever watch that movie with all the Beatles Speaker 4 (13:06) music? Yes. And how, I mean, I was Speaker 5 (13:09) during World War II, I Speaker 4 (13:11) think. Speaker 5 (13:12) Probably. I don't really remember. And the like ways that these like men and boys are trying to like. get out of being called to the front lines. But even if they're in college, they still get called. They're like handmaids too. Same, same. It's also Speaker 4 (13:25) like based right Speaker 5 (13:27) here too. Yeah. Okay. So the campus shuts down. It's handed over to the Confederate soldiers. Soldiers and refugees move into the campus. They actually turn the chapel that still stands today into an army hospital where wounded and dying Confederate soldiers were taken and treated. And I couldn't find an exact number of documented deaths. I guess there weren't a ton here. And then in 1864, the chapel was converted into a prison where 431 Union soldiers were captured and held. Then Union forces swept through the campus towards the end of the war, camped on the college grounds. And apparently some of them used the chapel's front columns for target practice. I tried to look up photos to see if there's any like bullet marks and whatnot that they've... documented, but I couldn't find any. Speaker 4 (14:13) But Speaker 5 (14:13) yeah, this building still stands. Post-Civil War, the campus reopened in 1866, but over 100 Speaker 4 (14:19) students, remember it was 113 students enrolled. Speaker 5 (14:23) Yeah. Over 100 students and alumni had died. So it was very, very different when the university reopened. Oh Speaker 4 (14:29) my gosh. Speaker 5 (14:29) Yeah. Speaker 4 (14:30) Oh, that's so terrible. So not like 100 of the 113, but still a significant number. Then Speaker 5 (14:36) there were students who left to go fight in world wars and never returned. All to say there's been a lot of murders, suicides, tragedies, and quite a lot of injustice that took place on the land. Speaker 4 (14:45) I wonder if like dorm rooms were, like did people board there or? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 5 (14:50) So all of this history and the hauntings attributed to this history has classified the University of Georgia as one of the most haunted campuses in America. So let's talk about some specific hauntings. The first and arguably most haunted or most well-known haunted building on campus is called Joe Brown Hall. Almost everyone agrees that this building gives them the creeps. And there's a reason. Speaker 4 (15:12) Joe Brown is haunting it. Speaker 5 (15:13) No. Joe Brown, I don't think was a great guy. I would make the assumption that almost every person that they're named after is Speaker 4 (15:22) not. Speaker 5 (15:22) Yeah. When they're that old. And in the Confederate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to assume that. Speaker 4 (15:29) Okay. Speaker 5 (15:29) So Joe Brown Hall was built in 1932. named after the 42nd governor of Georgia, who I wrote his political stance, no bueno, Speaker 4 (15:37) me Speaker 5 (15:38) no likey. I did write that too. He was around during the Civil War. This building was constructed and named after him in 1932, many years after they lost the Civil War. So interesting choice. But anyway, it was constructed as a men's dormitory. And for decades, that's what it was. Male students lived, studied, slept here. And then a tragedy struck in the fall of 1971. I'll tell you the legend first Speaker 4 (16:00) as like. It's kind of shared on campus, and then I'll tell you the real story. The Speaker 5 (16:04) legend says that Thanksgiving of 1971, everyone packed up to go home for the holiday, except for one student, one boy who was planning to stay on campus. Unfortunately, this boy died by suicide in his dorm, and his body wasn't discovered for some time. Again, according to legend, when he was discovered, his body was so badly decomposed that the smell was impossible to get out. Residents started complaining of the smell for weeks and for months. It never got better. It got so bad that the janitors literally sealed up this one wing of the dorm, meaning there are stairs that go to nowhere within this building. Wow. And did the smell Speaker 4 (16:41) ever correct itself? Speaker 5 (16:42) I mean, no one goes in that hallway anymore. Right. So I don't know. This staircase is now referred to as the stairs to nowhere. And naturally, many people have reported eerie sensations and hauntings in this space and building. And so many people. hear of this legend when they're on campus. Like you and I for sure would have added this to our little ghost hunting tour. Because the legend says that if you go up this, if you find the stairs, first of all, go up them and knock three times on this portrait. Because literally this is the wall. It's like a portrait of a hallway. It kind of is back rooms-esque. Very. In a way. But it's like, why not just like leave it as a blank wall? Why add to this? Why to make it look like it's a hallway? I don't know. Maybe they're trying to add to the legend. But so the legend says if you walk up there, knock three times on that portrait, three knocks Speaker 4 (17:32) will respond. I wonder how many people do this. Because like knowing how many students are on this campus. A lot. Popular paranormal. Is there a line Speaker 5 (17:40) every night to go knock? What if you live in that building? That would be annoying. Ooh, that would. But popular paranormal shows have even investigated the stairwell. There's a student named Emma West who went looking for the stairway to nowhere during her freshman year. And when she found it, she immediately had chills of her entire body and felt a presence. People have also claimed that if you knock on the door, it's a hollow knock, meaning that like there's like a big hallway on the other side. Speaker 4 (18:05) But maybe there's such an eerie Speaker 5 (18:07) feeling because the student's tragic end has been turned into an urban legend and a drunken dare. I'm like. playful adventure. But the truth is a young man really did spend his final moments on the other side of this wall. And he did have a name. Speaker 4 (18:19) And on the Speaker 5 (18:19) other side, Speaker 4 (18:20) it might not even be haunted. Like the hauntings might just exist right there at the door that everyone's knocking on because of the energy that people are putting forward there. And Speaker 5 (18:30) this is the thing is like during the legend, in every iteration of the legend I found, not once is a student's name mentioned. Like I literally had to go Speaker 4 (18:38) searching for it. Yeah. I get it, though, because of like privacy and stuff. Like I feel like at LMU, it was the same