From: Anonymous
To: obiwan@ghosts.org
Subject: hell house information
Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 02:05:21 +0000
I live in Ellicott City and am familiar with Hell House. I have recently been looking for some information on it, simply because it is close to home and interestingly creepy! I have not found much, but I will tell you what I have come across so far.
Hell House is what is left of Old St. Mary's College. Im not sure if this was actually the old college or the old seminary. I have found both on the internet and have also heard both. I originally thought it was a seminary, other information leads elsewhere.
I have heard about stories of a man who lives up there, with a dog. The man was supposedly the original grounds keeper and when the place burned down, he stayed in a trailer with his dog. I have also heard that when people try to go up there, he will shoot at you and his dog will chase you away. However this is not true because my friends and I have been up there. We went up during the day and it was quite creepy but no dog and no man.
There is a wide path that goes all the way around the skeletal building. Grafitti is everywhere as is trash. We walked around to the back and walked up some steps to the greenhouse. We went in the green house(that was pretty creepy)...then there were a few more steps then a lightly treaded grass path (all the land around it was even with the path)..its kinda hard to explain. Then there were a few more steps. I must have been searching very carefully because this was very hard to see. It blended in very well. This trend repeated a few more times, until we were into the woods and could look back and see the building from a distance. I was curious where the steps lead to so I followed them. they lead to a circular cement piece in the ground. I have no idea what it was, but their seemed to be small paths all around. There was also a path as wide and flat as a driveway. We did not go on that path because it was very long and well who knows where it led to!(I think I was more curious than my friend.)
This Hell House structure is at the top of a very steep hill! When we were at the very highest point in the woods (by the cement structure) I looked across the hill and noticed the woods across the road. They were exactly the same height as the woods we were in. It almost seemed as if the driveway path I described earlier lead all the way around to it. The woods did not look untouched. Im not much for believing in ghosts. I did not see any "paranormal activity" or whatever its called. However that place was just creepy. I am trying to find information on the fire and how it got started. I have heard there was an original fire and then another one. I can't find this information anywhere!
Also, the female Potapsco Institute is sometimes also referred to as hell house. There are many stories to that place also, it is located not too far from old st marys college.
One last thing... across the train tracks and the river, (which is not far at all) is river road, and also hilltop road. From both of these roads you can see Hell House if you look up (way way up) Honestly I drive through those roads all the time and never noticed hell house. I never even knew it was there till somebody pointed it out for me. Very very creepy..but interesting!
I hope this helps...maybe you have some information for me about this place.
From: "Vetter Cpl Andrew S" (VetterAS@IIMEF.USMC.MIL)
To: obiwan@ghosts.org
Subject: FW: hell house
Date: Monday, February 18, 2002 6:54 PM
I visited a site on the internet about the hell house in Ellicott City and it has this e-mail address on it asking about any experiences with the hell house. Well, I have been there numerous times and I also have pictures. Although it burned down around Halloween of 1997, the brick shell of the old school still stands about 4 stories tall. It is a very eerie place especially at night.
One incident I will tell you about is the time I went there with my friend and our girlfriends in early January 1998. It was about 10:00 at night. We walked up the driveway which was blocked by a metal gate. As we approached the front of the building we heard dogs barking in the distance. The driveway continued around the right side of the building. We started walking down the driveway and when we reached the side of the building we saw a light coming towards us; like a motorcycle headlight. I was in the front but I was turned around talking to my friend so I didn't see it right away. My friend grabbed me and started to pull me as the others turned and ran. I turned around and saw the light also. Being athletic, my friend and I quickly passed our girlfriends and made it to the bottom of the driveway where we waited for them. Little did we know that my girlfriend had started to walk for some strange reason and my friend's girlfriend jumped off the cliff/wall on the left side of the driveway. We walked back to our car hoping they would be there but they weren't. We decided to go back to the end of the driveway. We saw my friend's girlfriend there and about 30 seconds later my girlfriend came down the driveway. When we asked what happened, my friend's girlfriend said she jumped off the wall because she couldn't run fast enough to get to the end of the driveway and she was scared.
Here is where it gets really creepy. My girlfriend said she started walking (I still don't know why) and a man on a motorcycle pulled up next to her. She said she clearly saw that it was a motorcycle yet it didn't make any noise. The man was older looking maybe in his late 40's early 50's and he had a scraggly looking beard. He asked her if she was there alone and she said no. Then he asked her if she knew that no one is supposed to be there. Then he rode off continuing down the driveway. He didn't turn around and no one saw him after we started running. How did he get passed the gate unless he rode through it; like a ghost can pass through solid objects. And why didn't his motorcycle make any noises? This just adds to the mystery.
Another incident of mine is when I went there with two other friends of mine. We walked up the driveway and decided to go around to the left side of the building instead of the right side where we saw the 'ghost'. We walked around the back and made it to the other side where we saw a small shack where the man was believed to be living in. Rumors say that he is there guarding the house because kids used to go there and party and were trespassing. He supposedly shoots rubber bullets and or rock salt at trespassers. Back to the story, we walked towards the little shack and suddenly we heard dogs barking. The noise was very close in front of us and we looked about 20 feet in front of us and under a car port was an entrance in the ground with a piece of plywood over it. We saw about 3 or 4 rottwieler heads pushing the wood up and of the hole. Their heads were about the sie of basketballs. We immediately turned around and started running back to our vehicles. Thankfully, the dogs did not get out of the hole in the ground. We made it safely toour cars and drove away.
I have been there many times at night and in the daytime. During the day we can always hear dogs barking and even once saw the old man talking to firemen when there was a fire at the neighboring factory around springtime 1998. This is not the same factory mentioned on the website. I do not know what kind of factory the one next to the hell house is nor do I know what kind of factory (mentioned as a cement plant?) on main street in Ellicott City. The name of the road that he hell house is on is River Road.
I joined the Marine Corps in October of 1998 and have been out of state ever since then but whenever I come home on vacation I always at least drive by the hell house. The most recent time I went there was in May or June of 2001. That is when I went up there and took pictures. They are great. I have pictures of the front of the buiding, the greenhouse in the back, and of a seemingly never ending stairway to the top of the driveway (located to the left if you are standing in the driveway facing away from the building. If you are interested I can send you copies of the pictures. E-mail me at devildog1017@hotmail.com if you want any more information.
Andrew Vetter
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This page (http://www.ghosts.org/hellhouse2001.html) last updated April 3, 2005.