October 31, 2005

Do you believe in ghosts? The faculty at the Tandem Friends School does; they've seen them.

Footsteps, doors creaking, and running water are some of the many unexplained happenings that the faculty has seen at the Tandem Friends School.

"We both witnessed the door, the knob turned very slowly and then the door opened by itself," said Laura Johnson.

"I went out in the hall way, looked up at the top of the stairs, about two or three treads down there was this shimmer of light and then I said hello again and it slowly dissolved," said Paul Perkonson.

They believe the man behind these sightings is William Farish, who built this house back in the 1840's. Historians said he and 20 other relatives were buried in the makeshift cemetery, where the Tandem Friends School was later built. Almost a century later faculty members are seeing and feeling the ghostly hauntings.

"What I do remember physically was bandages around the head and a gray feeling so I just assumed it was a confederate soldier who had died in not a serine fashion and he's still hanging around here," said Nura Yingling.

Some believe the house was used as a hospital during the Civil War, but more recently, construction workers dug up a woman's casket while adding on another wing to the school.

"She was dressed and then had what was typical for that period of time, some kind of a cape," said Sandy Richardson, the school historian.
Which is leading everyone to believe there are many more bodies - and possibly many more ghosts.

These hauntings always seems to happen around Halloween, although no faculty is willing to stick around to find out.

Surprisingly, no children have seen any of the ghosts. School faculty members said though their experience was a bit frightening, they have never felt threatened.