“I just couldn’t take the noise anymore,” said Miss Bettie, the infamous ghost of The University of Maryland’s Rossborough Inn. She had been haunting the halls of UMD’s oldest structure for almost two centuries and was the cause of many spooky legends surrounding the old structure.

Rossborough Inn was completed in 1803, making it not just older than the university itself, established in 1856, but the oldest building in the entire City of College Park. Bettie managed the inn during the American Civil War, and when she passed, her ghost remained, leading to inexplicable sightings and events over the years. Faint footsteps heard when one is alone, doors closing and lights turning off seemingly of their own accord, vases of flowers popping up, a strange face or yellow dress appearing in mirrors or windows — all legends born of her spectral presence.

“Oh, I used to adore possessing people who visited the inn,” said Bettie. “Back in 1956 I took over the body of a man on the football team. He had such big muscles. We actually used to win back then.” Not everyone is an enjoyable possession, however. According to Bettie, she always avoided the students coming from Glenn L. Martin Hall, claiming that they always smelt peculiar and that she hadn’t seen eyes that haunted since the Battle of Antietam in 1862. Bettie also recounted a strange man she saw several years ago. She had never seen him on campus before, but noticed a tag on his jacket with the name “Willard.” She observed from a window, hoping to spook him, however the sun bouncing off the man’s bald head caused too much glare for him to notice the ghoul. 

However, Bettie’s haunts and horrors are now a thing of the past. She was already dissatisfied with the street construction on Baltimore Avenue causing less passersby. The expansion of Purple Line development to the area between the Rossborough Inn and Turner Hall was too much to bear. Never in her centuries of haunting had she experienced construction so disruptive and inconvenient, and she quite literally saw the entire university built around her. When asked about the consequences of their disruptive construction projects, a local foreman commented “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!” 

Deciding she’d had enough of the bureaucratic infrastructure projects of the human world, Bettie collected incense, blessed salt, and a rosary. After drawing a circle around herself with the salt and lighting the incense, she held the rosary and started reciting prayers until she managed to exorcise herself to the realm beyond, where she would finally have some peace and quiet. 

She will be sorely missed, except by those she possessed, haunted, terrified, or otherwise caused distress.

Image Credits: Kenlynn Ingham