Daemen College : Student Life : Daemen Insight : Curtis Hall: Ghost Haven or Gossip Magnet?
Curtis Hall: Ghost Haven or Gossip Magnet?
By Anne Brady
Halloween is a time for ghosts, goblins, and obscene amounts of sugar, but the post Halloween world can be a little lackluster for most college students. There's no need to fret, however. There just might be ghosts residing right here at Daemen College.
The Story
Our ghost story, which has been passed from generation to generation on the Daemen campus, centers around Curtis Hall, where the sociology, psychology, and PA departments are currently housed.
Before it belonged to the college, Curtis Hall was reportedly home to twin brothers, who lived at separate ends of the building. The brothers, according to the ghost story, despised each other. One night, after a particularly nasty fight, each brother retired to his wing of the house. Allegedly, both brothers committed suicide by hanging at the exact same time. Curtis Hall has been rumored to be haunted by their ghosts, who have moved chairs, tied knots in shoelaces and played an assortment of other tricks ever since.
The Facts
Kathryn Graf, assistant director of Annual Giving and Alumni Relations, combed through the history of Daemen College to find out more about the building we know today as Curtis Hall. It was originally owned by the Coplons, a prominent, philanthropic Jewish family who emigrated from Lithuania. The family consisted of Samuel and Rosa Coplon, their three sons -- David, Joseph, and Philip -- and one daughter.
The building was constructed in 1918 by Joseph and David. The two collaborated on most of their business dealings, but despite this, no official records indicate that they were twins. They built Curtis Hall as a double home, connected by a living hall and loggia. The second floor apartment in the northwest corner was intended for Samuel and Rosa. Tragically, after living there for just one day, Rosa Coplon passed away. According to Dr. Ellen Banks, a psychology professor who works in Curtis Hall, it was because she accidentally ingested cleaning fluid.
"The great granddaughter of the original residents came to visit one summer with her beautiful twin daughters," said Banks. "She wanted to see where her great grandparents had lived, so I took her on a tour. She told me her great grandmother, Rosa Coplon, moved into the house, and started cleaning. There was a bottle of cleaning fluid stored in a lemonade jug. [It was a common occurrence at the time for cleaning products to be stored in other bottles.] She drank it and died."
Curtis Hall was purchased from the Coplon Family in 1956, when Daemen was still Rosary Hill College, and became the first residence hall for students. It was originally called Alverno Hall, and later renamed after Patricia Curtis, a member of the first graduating class of Rosary Hill, who went on to become a professor of music at the college, and later vice-president. It was eventually renovated to house classrooms.
Ghost or no ghost?
No twins, no ghost, no ghost story… right? Many would agree with this statement. "I don't subscribe to ghost stories," said Kathryn Graff, citing the fact that many faculty members who have worked at Curtis for years have seen nothing. Dr. Banks, one of those faculty members, doesn't believe the building is haunted, either. She has never seen anything supernatural and she thinks belief that the building is haunted is due in large part to the fact that it was once a residence for nuns, and "people find nuns mysterious."
Some people would beg to differ, however, like Cheryl Bird of Daemen’s Center for Sustainable Communities. “I regularly tell the story I was told when I started working in Curtis,” said Bird. “The two twin brothers hated each other, and the father built the mansion with identical sides for each twin so there would be no further arguments over that. If you look at the architectural drawings hanging in the first floor of Curtis (on the CSCCE and Social Work side), you can see this.One of the twins became engaged, and eventually the other twin stole away his fiancee. The first twin committed suicide in Curtis, and that is the ghost that lives there!”
Daniel Stachewicz, a Daemen senior,decided to take a group of incoming freshmen ghost hunting during his first year as an orientation leader.
“We went over by Curtis Hall in the dead of night," Stachewicz recalls. "We went around back and started talking to the ghosts, asking them to show themselves. We wanted to hang out with them. I swear to Allah, in one of the windows, the curtain moved, and then there was this noise that was kind of like someone fell into the wall. I remember a few of the freshmen screamed. The people who lived behind Curtis actually came out in their nightgowns and started screaming at us, to which I replied ‘Look, you don't understand, there's a ghost in our midst!’ … They told us to vacate the premises immediately!”
Other Hauntings
If the Curtis Hall ghost story didn’t play out as expected, not to worry. There are other hauntings reported on campus as well.
“To my knowledge, Canavan remains haunted,” said Dr. Peter Siedlecki, an English professor at Daemen who has never seen any semblance of a ghost in Curtis. “I believe that the lower level of Rosary Hall is also quite haunted -- I think by a former student who refused to lower her skirt to the required level as dictated by the mirror opposite the second floor landing. When pursued by the Nun-of-Discipline, she is reported to have scampered downstairs and was never heard from again. Only her white gloves remained in a wadded crumple outside the room that is now the Alumni Office.”
Now you have the facts and personal accounts. Is there really a ghost in Curtis Hall? You decide.