Dr. Jordan puts on Annual Ghost Story Telling Event

By Semein Washington
Rotunda ReporterOn 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.
Perhaps also a native of the nineteenth century was Eliza C. Scott. Her woodland grave is the only one untouched in a collection of twenty seven near our presidential house. It is supposed that she was never looted for the disease by which she died. Eliza C. Scott was a victim of tuberculosis, known then as consumption. Even in her decease, she was forever quarantined by the town.
On Longwood soil, there is yet another early site; the unsold plot 123. Plot 123 was the treasured family burial ground of a now extinct Chamberlain clan. With no objections available, the ground stayed presumably untouched. Its location can be found near Cunningham dormitory where the ancient Chinese Elm is rooted. Also, at North Cunningham, the speckled grass patterns of the lawn were pronounced as evidence of burial shafts.
It is, by demonstration of Dr. Jordan, that our ghost rich history should be all the more fitting. First, there is Longwood's site at Farmville. As we listened, the professor explained that far more graves were left unaccounted for, or misrepresented, than the thousand plus with name and marker. On excavation of the grounds after the 2001 fire, artifacts from the retreat and many other relics were found. Amongst them were mourning thimbles, mementoes from the funeral of a young girl.
Finally, we possess a patron saint whose narrative could pass for a good ghost story. Joan of Arc was captured by her enemies and burned at the stake under the charge of witchcraft. When the fire died, her executioner searched the remains. Everything lay firmly charred except Joan's still beating heart. Seeing this, he relit the fire and bundled her ashes in a blanket. The executioner then disposed of Joan in the river Seine. According to myth, two white doves rose from her descending ashes.
Many presenters would feed us these tales in a false spooky voice. Dr. Jordan did not use such a tone. Rather, he spoke with his own casual-humorous voice; in conversation with the audience. He changed only in a spike of theatrical anger, keeping his composure through the most gruesome details. At the end, he morphed his speech from slight mockery to something truly unsettling. With a drop of the lights, except those that cast his shadow on the canvass, he admitted to telling the ghosts where we lived while they promised not to hurt us.
Kala Quinn and Marie Veillette, who attending the stories together, thought positively on their experience. "I thought it was really educational to learn about the history of my college," said Quinn. Veillette agreed, "It's a Dr. Jordan-Longwood tradition that I missed as a freshman.