Haunted Indiana: Saint Joseph's College in Rensselaer
Saint Joseph's College - Photo from the SJC Website
Located in Jasper County, Indiana, Rensselaer is a small town of less than 6,000 people. Right outside of the city sits the gorgeous campus of St. Joseph's College. Father Joseph A. Stephan came to Indiana during the 19th century from Germany to work with Native American students. When it became a full college, it named itself in his honor.
Also known as St. Joe or SJC, the college was always quite small. In 2017, the school board announced it would close. A lack of funding led to the decision. Through a partnership with Marian University in Indy, St. Joe got a second chance at life. Just one year after closing, the board revealed plans to open again as a junior college. The Roman Catholic private college now offers a small number of programs for its students.
Even those who don't know about the college's history have heard one or two ghost stories about its campus. Some claim the haunting started in the late 1960s. A group of seminary students living on the campus brought a Ouija board and unlocked something dark and spooky. Others believe the St. Joe campus is haunted by other beings.
Drexel Hall
Drexel Hall is one of the oldest buildings on the SJC campus. It opened in 1888 as the Saint Joseph's Indian Normal School. Father Stefan and a group of missionaries believed that a boarding school was the best way to educate Native Americans. They took small children from their families and made them live on-site in an attempt to assimilate them with the white people.
Roughly seventy young boys lived in Drexel Hall during the Normal School days. Not only did they live and eat in the building, but it was also where they played, made friends, and took classes. When the Normal School closed in 1896, the building sat empty before becoming part of the SJC campus. Long before the college shut down, Drexel Hall was no longer in use.
Indiana Landmarks, where I once worked, claims the college stopped using Drexel Hall in the 1970s. It simply cost too much to maintain such an old structure. Drexel Hall even landed on the group's list of the state's most endangered sites in 1999. A grant awarded to SJC gave the college money to rehab and reuse the building.
That has not stopped the ghost stories though. Local legend says the chapel inside dates back to the Normal School days. It has a deeply unsettling feel that visitors pick up on as soon as they enter. Others claim they hear voices like hushed whispers coming from the closed-off areas of Drexel Hall. It became a rite of passage for new students to sneak inside and talk about what they saw and heard.
SJC Chapel
I wanted to start with the St. Joseph's College Chapel as a friend had an unusual experience there. While sitting in the chapel early one morning, he heard a strange noise and looked up to see a dark shadow close to the altar. Though he looked for others or anything that could cause the shadow, nothing was found. Former students had similar experiences with dark shadows inside the chapel.
Another tale surrounds a strange light seen in the chapel. Legend claims a priest and a sister fell in love while working on the campus. Though they knew it was wrong, they just couldn't stay away from each other. He would head to the chapel every night, wait for everyone to leave, and signal her with a lantern. They managed to spend a few stolen moments together each week. When administrators learned of the relationship, they moved the sister to a new school. Upset over losing his lover, the priest killed himself. The light is a reminder of what they once shared and something only couples see.
Aquinas Hall
Named for Saint Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas Hall was once one of the biggest dorms at SJC. Though it's now closed, some wonder if it's still haunted. Students whisper about an exorcism that supposedly took place here. During the 1970s, a student living in Aquinas Hall suddenly and abruptly changed. He went from being a nice and quiet young man to someone no one wanted to be around.
When some of the priests working for the campus tried to talk to the student, he lashed out and began speaking in tongues. In the hopes of saving him, the priests arranged for an exorcism. No one knows what happened that night, but something went wrong. The college denied an exorcism happened, but there was no sign of the young man again.
Former students claim Aquinas Hall always had a weird feeling. While all of the priests refused to talk about what happened or what they saw, some also refused to step foot in the building again. SJC heard so many complaints from students about banging sounds coming from inside the walls and dark shadows that it used the building for offices. Even then, the complaints continued. Before the college closed in 2017, it had stopped using Aquinas Hall because so many refused to work there.
Halas Hall
As a Roman Catholic College, St. Joe had some strict rules back in the day about what students could and could not do. One young woman had an intense relationship with a male student. They would sneak off for some private time in the woods or anywhere else they could find as rules prohibited students of different sexes from being alone. When she learned she was pregnant, her young lover refused to believe her.
Worried about losing her spot in the college and what her parents and Church would think, the woman kept her pregnancy a secret. Wearing bulky clothes and keeping to herself even kept her roommate from learning the truth. The woman went into labor in Halas Hall, the dormitory named for George Halas of the Chicago Bears who had a training camp there.
Though she took precautions and did everything she thought she needed to do, she was all alone and could only do so much. By the time she finally gave birth, her young child was already gone. Upset and unsure of what to do, she buried the tiny body in a pile of trash and tried to go on with her life. Students who lived in Halas Hall claimed to hear the eerie sounds of a baby crying and seeing the shadows of small children running by.
Dwenger Hall
As part of the Order of Precious Blood, Bishop Joseph Dwenger had a connection to the college. When SJC built Dwenger Hall in 1907, they named it after him. Dwenger Hall uses Indiana limestone and opened as a dormitory. Unlike modern dorms, students lived in large, shared spaces. They had little amenities beyond a simple bed.
At some point, the college used the building as an infirmary for sick students. Nurses worked around the clock to care for those stuck there. Once the infirmary closed, the college used Dwenger Hall as office space. Many faculty members had offices here in the 1960s and even more in the 1970s after a fire destroyed a nearby structure. From what I could find online, it looks like SJC stopped using Dwenger Hall in the 80s and it's sat empty ever since.
One of the more popular legends claims the priest who handled the exorcism was so distraught when it failed, he killed himself. The priest believed he was responsible for whatever happened to the student. Some even claim that while the student lived in a different building, Dwenger Hall was where the exorcism occurred. Ever since it closed, students claimed to see ghostly lights moving through the building at night. Others report feeling uneasy when walking by as if they can feel eyes on them.
SJC Theater
Also haunted is the SJC Theater. Students whisper about a suicide that occurred here. The most popular story claims the priest from the ill-fated exorcism found his way to the theater, wrapped a noose around his neck, and hanged himself. Another legend says it was a male student who killed himself after his girlfriend ended their relationship and he picked up some bad reviews after his last show.
Many of the stories come from students who worked in the theater. They would often feel someone touching them and look around to see they were alone. During performances, it was common for those working backstage to put down props and find them missing only seconds later. Some even heard people walking around on the catwalk when it was empty.
Saint Joseph's College is in Rensselaer, Indiana, though it also has a Collegeville address. Let me know if you visit and see anything strange or if you want to share your experiences!
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