Massachusetts Hall at Harvard, a long four-story red-brick building with white-trimmed windows, dormers, tall chimneys and a white balustrade, seen from the Yard in early spring

Harvard College – Cambridge, MA: Holbrook Smith and the Ghost Stories of Harvard Yard

Northeastern US Haunted Schools

Massachusetts Hall, the oldest building at Harvard, has a ghost story with a name, a claimed class year and a famous last line. Elsewhere in Harvard Yard, the student newspaper recorded a Revolutionary War “ghost” in Hollis Hall in 1940 and a freshman’s sighting in Weld Hall in 1985. The buildings are well documented. The hauntings are folklore, and this guide keeps the two apart.

What the record says

According to Harvard Magazine, Massachusetts Hall was built in 1720 and is the oldest building on campus. The magazine reported in 2001 that offices occupied its first two floors and 24 first-year students lived above them.

Harvard’s planning office dates Hollis Hall to 1763, built as a dormitory with £2,500 from the colonial legislature. It says soldiers took the building over during the Revolution.

Weld Hall is much younger. The planning office says it was built in 1871 to a design by Ware and Van Brunt. The Crimson reported in February 1962 that it would be remodeled, with a new stairwell and a common room, and a May 1962 article said the interior would be replanned to add rooms. Widener Library opened in 1915, according to the Harvard Gazette. Eleanor Widener built it in memory of her son Harry, who died in the sinking of the Titanic.

The legends

Holbrook Smith, Massachusetts Hall. Harvard Magazine’s 2001 account describes Smith as a “tall respectable-looking older gentleman,” in the words of Burriss Young, the assistant dean of freshmen who lived in the hall from 1961 to 1996. Smith said he belonged to the class of 1914, but no one found such an alumnus. He is said to have chatted with residents in the first weeks of each term and never opened or closed a door. After student complaints, Young asked him to leave. Smith, he recalled, looked at him with “the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen” and said, “You’ve ruined a perfectly good thing.” According to the account, Smith was never seen again. Young added that “Eighteenth-century buildings should have ghosts.”

The ghost of Hollis Hall, 1940. The Crimson on February 20, 1940 printed a message that threatened “supernatural powers” unless first-year students left within 36 hours. Its author called himself an old Revolutionary soldier tired of living in the attic. Yard police called it a trick by a student in the hall.

An old woman in Weld, 1985. In the Crimson on November 9, 1985, a Weld North resident said she saw “an old woman with a dark cloak and grayish hair” leaning against a wall. A proctor passed on a legend that a spirit was bricked into the walls when Weld was rebuilt after a fire in the 1960s.

Eleanor Widener and the plywood. A former library staffer, Barbara Burg, told the Gazette that in the early 2000s, while Harry Widener’s portrait was off its wall for cleaning, pieces of plaster fell onto desks in the memorial room. The staff guessed his mother was unhappy and taped up a photocopy of the portrait. After that, she said, nothing else unexplained happened that she could remember. A lighthearted 2023 Crimson feature retells the plaster episode and says students have reported seeing Eleanor Widener in the stacks.

What the record does not support

  • Holbrook Smith as an alumnus. The Gazette says no record can be found of him, and Harvard Magazine says no one could locate such an alumnus. He is a story told by students and one dean, not a documented person.
  • Weld “burned down in the 1960s.” The proctor’s version is contradicted by the records read here. They describe a planned 1962 remodeling of a building from 1871, and neither 1962 Crimson article mentions a fire.
  • A haunted Holden Chapel. The 2023 Crimson feature tells a story about a woman named Emily Pickham and Holden Chapel. No earlier source or record of the woman was found, so the story is not repeated here.
  • Any confirmed haunting. Each account is one person’s, a possible prank or a retelling years afterward.

Visiting

Massachusetts Hall, Hollis Hall and Weld Hall are first-year residences, and Massachusetts Hall also holds offices, so treat all of them as private and stay outside. Widener Library is open to Harvard ID holders, who may bring up to four guests, according to Harvard Library, and visiting researchers can apply for access. Harvard Yard is generally open by day, but gates and hours change, and Harvard’s accessibility page lists current gate hours. The free Official Historical Tour of Harvard lasts 45 to 60 minutes, leaves from the Visitor Center in the Smith Campus Center at 1350 Massachusetts Avenue and ends in the Yard. Registration is required in advance. It is a history tour, and no university ghost tour was found. Confirm times before you go.

FAQ

Who was Holbrook Smith?

He is the ghost of Massachusetts Hall in a story Harvard Magazine recorded in 2001. He is said to have claimed the class of 1914, but no record of such a student can be found.

Is Harvard haunted?

Nothing has been confirmed. The stories come from students, proctors and staff, and the oldest documented one here is the Hollis Hall message of 1940.

Can you visit Massachusetts Hall?

It is a working building with first-year residences and offices. Harvard Yard has free public tours that explore the Yard, but no tour of the dormitories was found.

More haunted schools in Massachusetts

Massachusetts has no other posts here yet. For another university with a long-running ghost lore, read about Indiana University in Bloomington. To plan your own visit, see the campus ghost walk guide.

Sources

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Top image: Massachusetts Hall, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 2007. Photo: Daderot, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped, via Wikimedia Commons