There are just too many questions about Sarah the North Hall ghost for us to not put some information about her online. If you have anything to add, please let us know.

The legend: Supposedly a student fell to her death in the atrium of North Hall. Some say she jumped. Some say she fell. Many say the building is haunted by her ghost. The legend has lots of variations. Every time we hear it, it's different.

The known: North Hall was built in the 1870s, but it didn't look like it does today. The renovation/expansion which added the atrium (a.k.a. the Well) was completed in about 1908. According to one source, the Well was boarded over for fire safety reasons in summer 1930. And in the 1970s the building was closed. So, if there was a death, it would need to be in the period between when the Well was built and before it was boarded up, 1908-1930.

The unknown: Who the ghost is, if there is one. While there are theories, we can't identify a student that is the basis of the Sarah story.

The proof: There isn't any one way or the other. Several university classes and employees have tried to identify the basis of the legend, but no one has found the girl who supposedly met her end at the bottom of the Well.

Is it possible that this entry in the 1866 catalog is the source of the name "Sarah" for the ghost of North Hall? It doesn't match the time frame of when the Well was open, but the ghost doesn't appear to have a name until the 1980s or so (A "Flashlight" article from 1992 didn't refer to her by name). Perhaps the legend got someone looking in the University Archives. When they found the name and 'deceased' they assumed it was the girl. No one knows for sure, but it was an interesting find.

On the afternoon of March 16, 2025 a line of storms blew through the Mansfield area with winds near 60 mph. The wind and hail lasted only a minute or two, but the powerful storm left its mark. Trees fell, the power went out, and part of the roof or North Hall was damaged. Facilities teams were on the scene quickly helping to mitigate damage to the building and the community was notified of the issue: a partial roof collapse over the building's atrium. It appeared that part of the atrium roof had peeled back or was blown off. Pieces of slate from the roof were scattered around the building. Immediately, speculation began about the role Sarah, the library's rumored ghost, played in the day's events.

Initial speculation was that Sarah took the opportunity of the damaged atrium roof to escape the building after a century of being confined to the premises (if someone died falling down the atrium it would have occurred between 1908 and 1930). According to a facilities staff member who responded on the evening of the event, water was dripping inside North Hall indicating there was some exposure to the elements. No one knows for sure the size of the opening needed for a ghost to escape, but this may have been the best opportunity Sarah has had. The quick work of our facilities team and others had a temporary roof in place in a matter of days, and the building was quickly determined to be structurally sound. But Sarah had ample opportunity before the work was completed to make her escape.

Others speculated that Sarah sensed the storm coming and leveraged the high winds to push her way out through the atrium roof. You can see from the pictures that the Southwestern corner of the roof was damaged. This is in line with the other damage to trees in the area, including the downed trees on the hill behind the building. If Sarah felt the storm coming and concentrated her spectral energies in line with the storm, who is to say that she didn't affect her own escape? We have no way of knowing the limits of her strength or any ability to know if her desire was strong enough, leaving open the possibility that she took matters into her own ghostly hands. If this is the case, we appreciate her causing relatively minor damage to the building and its contents. It could have been significantly worse. Thank you Sarah for your consideration.

The most outrageous speculation is that Sarah herself conjured the storm, focusing its strength to tear open the roof so she could be free. This speculation was born from how many trees fell in the surrounding neighborhood in a direct line leading up to North Hall, as if Sarah was gathering the full strength of the storm to set her free. This is difficult to believe since Sarah has had many years to accomplish this if it were within her power. However, perhaps she has been building her strength and waiting for conditions to be just right. She has had sufficient time to study up on atmospheric science since the library became part of North Hall in 1996. Perhaps she has been preparing for this and just now was able to pull all the pieces together to make it happen. Perhaps too, she reached her limit of ghost hunters pestering her, and only recently became annoyed enough to act on these intrusions into her private life.

It would be difficult to prove any of these theories, but it makes one wonder the role Sarah had in the March 16th storms. While there is a lot of speculation, what we know for certain is that Sarah hasn't been seen in North Hall since that day. Sarah, if you escaped, we wish you the best and hope you enjoy your new life.

Supernatural Lore of Pennsylvania
Edited by Thomas White

North Hall ghost is discussed on pp. 71-75 in the chapter "Haunted Libraries of Pennsylvania" by Elizabeth Williams-Herrman.
Not available online.