Huntingdon College

The story

Huntingdon College is a Methodist liberal arts college in Montgomery, Alabama. It began on 2 February 1854 as Tuskegee Female College and became the Alabama Conference Female College in 1872 under the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1908 it bought 58 acres in Montgomery, with a landscape designed by Olmsted Jr., according to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia's summary of the college history says that on 24 August 1909 the college moved furniture, supplies and records into Hamner Hall, and the building burned the same night, destroying the archives of its first fifty years. The 1909-10 school year was spent at Sullins College in Virginia. We read no primary source on the fire. Flowers Hall was completed in 1910 according to Wikipedia (the National Register form dates it 1909-1911), and the school became the Woman's College of Alabama. The campus has a National Register listing (registered 2000, prepared in 1999 by the Alabama Historical Commission) that names Julia A. Pratt and Massey Memorial Halls among the early buildings. The name Huntingdon College dates from 1935. Men were admitted after the First World War, with the first male graduate in 1934.

The building tied to the legend is Pratt Hall, and its fate is unclear. Wikipedia says it was converted to the education and psychology department. The college library says that "upon the demise of Pratt Hall" the Red Lady "moved" to Jackson Home, without saying what that demise was. The 1999 National Register form lists it as a standing contributing hall, with its cornerstone laid on 31 May 1912 and completion for the fall term that year. We could not resolve what has happened to it since.

The legend

The Red Lady is said to be a student from the early 20th century, a New Yorker who was isolated on campus. After a quarrel with the dormitory president she is said to have taken her own life in her room in Pratt Hall, and to have been found draped in a red bedspread. Her apparition is said to appear on the fourth floor, and on the anniversary of her death crimson light is said to flash from the transom. Her first name is given as Martha in some tellings and Margaret in others. Reports credit the alumna and author Kathryn Tucker Windham (class of 1939) and the professor Margaret Gillis Figh, in a 1969 book.

An older Red Lady also exists in the stories: a woman in a scarlet dress carrying a parasol, said to have been seen at night in a Tuskegee-era dormitory and passing through a gate. No identity is given for her. Wikipedia places her in the late nineteenth century. The story is credited to Windham and to Daniel Barefoot (Haunted Halls of Ivy), neither of whom we read directly.

The oldest written trace we found is Windham's 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, published by Strode in 1969, with a chapter on the Red Lady. The college library itself calls this the only written account of the Red Lady story. Windham's journal and student oral tradition probably came first. A 1931 yearbook is said in a search summary to show a student dressed as the Red Lady, but we never saw it, so we do not rely on it.

The key point is that we found no document of a death: no record of a student dying in Pratt Hall, no family name and no date. The first name changes between tellings. A search of local historical newspapers for the college and for Pratt Hall returned nothing, including nothing on the 1909 fire or a suicide. This looks like campus folklore rather than a documented event.

A second ghost, "Frank", is said to haunt the library. A student gave him that name in the early 1990s, according to the college library. He is credited with doors closing, moaning and books found open, and a blue chair that was moved and later disappeared. Wikipedia lists other stories, including a murdered student and a drowned boy, but we found no source for them.

What remains today

Huntingdon is an active college. Its campus historic district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with 13 contributing buildings at the time of the nomination. We found no official ghost tour.

Visiting

This is a working private campus, and visitors should treat it as one. We found no official ghost tour, and the library's "Ghosts of Huntingdon" guide is the college's own account. If you go, check with the college first about public access and stay out of residence halls. A good way to see the stories is to read the college library's guide and the Windham chapter before a visit.

Sources

1. National Register nomination #00000138 (texte intégral) — U.S. National Park Service · Public record
2. National Register of Historic Places file (NRHP #00000138) — U.S. National Park Service · Public domain (U.S. government)
3. Wikimedia Commons category : Huntingdon College — Wikimedia Commons
4. USGS 1:24000-scale Quadrangle for Montgomery South, AL 1958 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1958 · Public domain (USGS)
5. USGS 1:48000-scale Quadrangle for Montgomery, AL 1927 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1927 · Public domain (USGS)
6. Ghosts of Huntingdon — Huntingdon College Library, 2026
7. Huntingdon College Campus Historic District, NRHP registration form (#00000138) — National Park Service / Alabama Historical Commission, 1999
8. Official website
9. Red Lady of Huntingdon College — Wikipedia
10. Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.