Spring Break
Identifying the ghosts of Epperson House
Melissa Orihabor
Issue date: 10/26/09 Section: News
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Epperson House, also known as Hawthorne Hall, is now home to the School of Architecture.
But its history tells of a much darker tale - one of abortion, a drowning and suicide.
The Epperson House originally belonged to Uriah Spray Epperson, a wealthy philanthropist who played a key role in the construction of Convention Hall (which burned to the ground three months before the 1900 Democratic National Convention was to be hosted there and was rebuilt in 90 days thanks to the efforts of President Harry Truman).
Epperson's mansion was built in 1923, complete with 48 rooms and a swimming pool.
It was home to Epperson, his wife Elizabeth, their daughter-in-law (whose name is not known) and a woman known as their adopted daughter, Harriet Evelyn Barse.
Barse was an organist who was very close to Elizabeth.
The ghostly tale of Epperson House involves many different players and several deaths.
The hauntings said to occur in the house are reportedly due to the residents who died in the home before it was turned over to the university in 1942.
The Toy and Miniature Museum next door to Epperson House was once where hired help lived.
They would travel to the house through an underground passageway that has since been filled in with dirt.
It is said Barse asked one of the members of the staff to assist her in a home abortion that lead to her death.
It was also rumored a botched gallbladder surgery played a role in her death, but there was no autopsy done and the gallbladder surgery story is seen by some as a cover-up for the supposed affair she was having with a member of the hired help.
The daughter-in-law supposedly died in the home, too. Rumor says she hung herself in the attic.
She was a member of the wealthy Epperson family, but had allegedly fallen in love with a lower-class laborer who worked at the docks.
She was forbidden by her family to see the man, so she took her own life.
An unnamed caretaker also died in the Epperson House by drowning in the basement pool.
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