MacDonough Hall

Since Twenty years have gone by I would like to submit the story of the scariest place I've ever lived.

I have lived in many places that I consider haunted. Are spirits attracted to certain types of people? I'm not sure, but ghosts seem to like to mess with me for some reason. My husband has never had anything happen to him, so is a non- believer. I, on the other hand, have had many things happen to me in many different places. The scariest place being Mac Donough Hall in Plattsburgh, NY.

In 1984 I was a sophmore at S.U.N.Y. (State University of New York) at Plattsburgh. My friend (let's call her Amy) and I decided the spring before that we wanted to room together in the fall. Since we were Freshmen when we put in for dorm choice we got our last choice, Mac Donough Hall.

This dorm is a big old sprawling building (formerly a mansion?) at the far end of campus with two large wings that housed students. It is known to be haunted, there is some tale of two grave stones being found there when they were building it, then the next day the stones went missing (I'm not completely sure of the whole story).

In the fall of '84 Amy and I moved into the second floor of the west wing. The whole time I lived there I always felt like someone was watching me. It was a constant looming, menacing feeling. I never liked walking the halls alone, it was a really bad feeling, this feeling of being watched. I was never comfortable there.

Every single night the fire alarm went off, sometimes more than once. Of course, everyone had to leave the building. There was no explanation for these fire alarms, there was never a fire.

One day while Amy and I watched, the washcloth on our towel rack lifted up by itself and fell to the floor. Ok, no big deal, not that scary. But what really freaked us both out was the night something came into our room. I was trying to fall asleep on the top bunk, Amy was studying nursing below me. All-of-a-sudden I got that feeling, sleep paralysis I think it's called, something came over, was smothering my body so I could not move. I have had this happen to me before in the house I grew up in and knew I had to yell out, if I could, to get it off. So, I yell out Amy's name and it goes away. She yells out, "What?" and I don't recall if I told her what I felt or not, but she tells me, "Something called out our names!"

I didn't last much longer as her roommate, we fought over something stupid and I moved out. We are still friends to this day and see each other every summer at Cape Cod. A couple years ago we were talking about Mac Donough Hall and that night in particular and she says to me, "Remember how I said it said both our names? Well, it didn't. It only said your name, but I didn't want to scare you." Great! I'm glad she didn't tell me back then! Tooo freaky. She said it said my name quickly over and over "Mary Mary Mary Mary" (not my real name). I often think about that creepy old dorm and think one day I'd like to go back and check it out again.