It’s just another night in Pocumtuck, “Poc,” in 2006. A girl stirs in her sleep. She gets up, still drowsy, and wanders down the hall to the bathroom. A thud jolts her awake. The sight of a girl down the hall, someone she’s never seen before, in a ghostly white nightgown with brown hair, makes her blood run cold. The hallway smells like violets. When she returns to her room, the curtains she swore she closed before she went to bed last night are now wide open.
16 years later, it’s September 2022, and there’s breaking news: Poc’s old friend, Violet the Ghost, is back again…and she’s ready to have some fun.
Girls living in Poc I have long claimed to have seen Violet stumbling down the halls, moving people’s chairs, making loud noises in the dead of night, and leaving handprints on peoples’ windows. Violet was probably first sighted around 2006 according to students who lived in Poc in 2011. When concerns about Violet boiled over in 2006, Dean of Spiritual and Ethical Life, Jan Flaska performed a cleansing ritual, infamously called an “exorcism” in whispers between students. In 2011, students living on Poc I once again were suspicious that the dorm may be haunted, as many of them claimed to have seen Violet after “experimenting with a Ouija board,” according to a Scroll article written by Caroline Kjorlien ’13 in December 2011.
Poc used to be a hotel filled with violet flowers possessing a violet-tinted atmosphere. For this reason, the residents of Pocumtuck dorm back in 2011 named the ghost Violet. However, as their suspicions of paranormal activity grew, students talked to Mr. Flaska, who then agreed to perform a spiritual cleansing of the dorm in 2011. In a recent interview, Mr. Flaska said he brought in “two native healers or spiritualists,” Reverend Mary Ann Tourjee, or Raven Spirit, and Reverend Nancy Higgins, or Grandmother Standing Bear, with whom he “did some smudging, did some drumming, and did some chanting.” Mr. Flaska also added that at the end of the cleansing ritual, the spiritualists said that Violet the Ghost was now making her way to another realm, since before, she was “stuck” in Poc.
According to the Deerfield Inn’s website and the Greenfield Recorder, the Deerfield Inn, originally built in 1884, experienced similar ghost sightings in the past. Ever since the notorious Deerfield Raid of 1704, the Inn has been a reported hotspot for spirits. Two resident ghosts—Cora and Hershel—have been sighted knocking on doors and pushing on the backs of guests. Amateur ghost hunters have even visited to film a documentary on the Inn’s paranormal occurrences, recording footage in areas where sightings had been reported.
Similarly, students of Poc have reported sightings and paranormal experiences across multiple halls. One Poc II student, Kathrine Margulis ’24, believes that she had a run-in with the ghost. According to Margulis, Violet entered a room and she saw the shadows of Violet’s feet and heard the door open, but when she went to look and see if anyone was in the room, there was no one there. Lillian Auth ’24, a student on Poc I, described her haunted experience: “[Late Saturday night], I saw [a figure] in the hallway with … long black hair, and a black coat walking into my friend Evie’s room … When I walked into the room to say hi to her, I saw no one was in the room and so I was really freaked out.”
Deerfield Security Officer Brandon Ambo said, “[The Deerfield Security] doesn’t like [to go to] the Kendall late at night. I have heard the sound of doors slamming behind me [when there was no one there]. There is a general eerie feeling and I get chills down my back. I stopped going to that building [at night unless necessary].”
Mr. Flaska reported that so far this year, he has gotten a few emails about the ghost sightings, but said he is happy to do some spiritual cleansing if that is what the community wants.
Consensus about Violet varies by person, with some students unfazed and others saying that they were really nervous. But for now, Violet remains a mystery.