Do You Remember?

Early photographs of Tillman Hall and Margaret Nance Hall around 1896 appear bleak without the trees that now grow along Oakland Avenue.

• The most talked about ghost around the campus is Benjamin Ryan Tillman, the former governor who helped establish Winthrop as a college for women. His dark, sinister portrait hangs in the lobby of the administration building that bears his name. Known for his bluntness, racist comments and low opinion of President Cleveland, he came to be known as “Pitchfork Ben.” Some say his spirit is locked in the portrait, which shows him in black with one eye visible. Others talk about how the former governor roams the bell tower and fourth floor of Tillman. Still others talk about unexplained chills or noises in the building.



• Tillman’s ghost is not alone. There are rumors of a student who haunts the second floor of Margaret Nance looking for her room. A deceased teacher supposedly rattles doorknobs in Lee Wicker.



• Ghosts aren’t the only novelties on campus. There are underground tunnels, shackles in Tillman and the resting place of the university’s founder and his wife. Actually the tunnels are crawl spaces put in for easy access to pipes. The shackles were used on the prison labor who built Tillman. And founder D.B. Johnson and his wife, Mai Rutledge Smith Johnson, are buried beneath the campus Little Chapel.



• As a fundraiser, the Student Alumni Council hosts annual Historical Ghost Tours during late October to remind students of Winthrop’s ghostly past.

During the annual ghost tour on Oct. 27, members of Alpha Psi Omega, the Theatre Honor Society, performed short monologues about Winthrop's history, oral traditions and ghost stories.