The Red Lady of Huntingdon College

Windham, Kathryn Tucker, and Margaret Gillis Figh. "The Red Lady of Huntingdon College." 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1987. 97-106. Print.

Huntingdon College has been haunted since 1910. Several students have seen apparations of two women wearing red who walk the dormitory halls during the course of the night. The first ghost was seen when the college was located in Tuskegee before it moved to Montgomery. She was seen one night on the top floor of the dormitory, known as Sky Alley, after all of the lights were turned off at ten o'clock. She was walking up and down the halls of Sky Alley in a red evening dress and she carried a red parisol. She made no sound and stared straight ahead as she strolled the halls. The students who saw the spirit gathered in one room and pushed a washstand against the door to be sure that they were safe from the ghost. Although the door was secured, the students could still hear the tap,tap noise of her footsteps throughout the hall. At dawn the sound of her clacking heels died away and she was spotted disappearing. None of the students saw the ghostly spirit again and nobody could explain the reason for her appearance at the college. The second ghost, however, had a plausible reason to come back for visits. She was a former student named Martha who attended Huntingdon College when it moved to Montgomery. She was originally from New York but she came to Huntingdon because her father specified in his will that his daughter must attend her grandmother's alma mater. Martha was dressed in red when she arrived to Huntingdon and she brought a red bedspread and red curtains for her windows. Most accessories throughout her room were also red and when asked about it, she refused to explain her obsession with the color. Her room was on the fourth floor of Pratt Hall and many students that resided on the fourth floor sensed that she was different from them because she was wealthy and they mistaked her shyness for arrogance. Martha isolated herself from the other students and rarely spoke to her roomate. Her roomate became frustrated with Martha and asked the housemother if she could move out. Martha had many roomates and one by one they all requested to move out. Finally, the president of the dormitory moved in with Martha. The girl was known for her ability to make friends and get along with most people, so she figured she could help Martha come out of her shell. Martha remained solitary and any attempted friendship that her roomate tried to make had failed. The roomate packed her belongings and prepared to leave. Just as she was leaving, Martha returned to the room. She became upset and confronted her roomate on her departure; "So you couldn't stand me either, like all the rest of your stuck-up friends. I was beginning to think you really wanted me to be your friend, but you hate me just like the rest. Well, I'm glad to be rid of you! Take your things and go! But I'll tell you one thing, my dear: for the rest of your life you'll regret leaving this room." Martha was saddened by the fact that the person who she believed to be her only friend couldn't stand her either. She formed a habit of wandering the rooms where other girls got together, but her presence made all the other girls flee, leaving her alone. Her behavior became very strange. She would wait until the lights were out to visit one dormitory after another and stare in to space as if she were in a trance. She began walking up and down the halls throughout the night and alarm the other girls by opening and closing their doors, then hurrying back to her room. One evening after Martha had not attended any classes or meals for the day, her former roomate (the dormitory president) decided to check on her to make sure she was alright. She opened the door to Martha's dorm and screamed. Girls from all over the fourth floor of Pratt Hall ran from their rooms to see what the commotion was about and found the dormitory president lying in a faint within the doorway of Martha's room. They found Martha dressed in her red robe and draped in her red bedspread with blood around her on the floor. Martha had slit her wrists and bled to death. Students at Huntingdon College still say that on the date of Martha's suicide each year, rays of crimson light flash down from her window and "the Red Lady" returns to haunt the halls of Pratt Hall.

My beliefs about ghosts and spirits are being greatly altered as I continue to research this topic. I used to believe that ghosts and spirits were just made up and now I'm starting to believe that they actually do exist, and that scares me. Personally, I'm not quite sure if I believe that these accounts really occured because I don't want to believe that they really occured. However, the authors of my book provide some supporting evidence that these events really took place. One of the authors of my book, Margaret Gillis Figh, is a former English teacher of Huntingdon College, so she would know firsthand about the Red Lady that roams the halls of the institution. I believe that the spirit of Martha still visits every year on the date of her suicide to fulfill what she prophesized to her former roomate who left her when all she needed was a friend.