The Importance of Peter the Ghost at Centre College
Centre College was founded in 1819 in Danville, Kentucky. With Centre College comes a prestigious education, a tight knit community of students, faculty, and staff, and endless opportunities for success. An additional thing that comes with Centre College is paranormal activity - a topic that is known by most students. When thinking about Centre College and the paranormal, many ghost stories can be found online or heard on campus. However, one place in particular serves as the focal point of Centre ghost stories: Breckinridge (Breck) Hall. Breck was built in 1892 as part of the Danville Theological Seminary and was later acquired by Centre in 1901. Breck was destroyed by a fire in 1908 and later rebuilt to serve as a dormitory along with various college offices and classrooms and housed cadets from the college’s World War 2 Air Force training program. The walls of Breck encase a decade’s worth of history, along with that history come ghosts. But, why does it matter that Breck is haunted? What does that do for us at Centre? The paranormal activity in Breck joins members of the Centre community together over the common bond of the thrill and fear of ghost stories and forces us to look back, question, and remember memories we’ve had in these spaces, allowing Centre to forever occupy our thought.
Many individuals that have been a part of Centre’s community have their own ghost stories about Breck. The most popular stories are from retired facilities director, Wayne King, and current director of housing, Ann Young. In an interview with current Centre student, Mackenzie Conkling, King recalls two roommates who would wake up in the middle of the night with their door open, despite having locked it before going to bed. King eventually replaced the lock, yet the boys woke up again that night with their door open, the window open, and their radio on — events that were inexplicable. One summer while doing routine room checks and repairs, King had gone into a room on the 3rd floor of Breck to see a large painting of a face on the wall. King called Young to have her examine it and when they tried to clean it up, it would not come off the wall. King and Young returned the next day to find the face completely gone, despite no one being in the building after they left the day before. King also recalls a personal experience a different summer when he heard doors slamming throughout the building uncontrollably only to find no one else in the building. Both King and Young believe that this ghost’s name is Peter, as this was the name told to them a psychic named Elizabeth who came to investigate Breck. While no one is sure about who Peter exactly was, his name has become popular on campus when talking about paranormal experiences in Breck.
Countless stories of Peter are passed down through the Centre community, but why do these stories matter? Do they do something more for Centre than serve as a form of thrill and fright? Michael Bell describes ghosts associated with physical places “a connection between past and future,”.[i] This is precisely (part) of what Peter is: he unites many generations of Centre students. Students who have experienced paranormal events within Breck share a connection by having experienced Peter. Furthermore, students who hear accounts of these paranormal experiences are connected in the sense that they know of Peter. These connections have formed an in-group between the students, faculty, and staff and Centre. This in-group is held together by the powerful bond of shared fear, thrill, and speculation.
Stories of Peter, and other ghosts on Centre’s campus, operate further to alter the way we think about our own experiences of Centre and Centre as a place. Lucas Mozingo, a Centre graduate, describes his knowledge of the ghosts on Centre’s campus as a positive experience, saying, “it's interesting to think back and to look back and say, ‘Oh, if there are the spirits that are still hanging out, there must have been a must be a good place for them. I hope it's a good place for me going forward, too,’”.[ii] Mozingo touches on the fact that some feel the spirits on Centre’s campus as comforting — as indication that maybe this place will become as memorable for them as it was for the spirits. Ghosts on college campuses remind us that someone is there, especially for students who are experiencing life without adult supervision for the first time. These sentiments of comfort and security increase the sentiments of the in-group bond at Centre.
The idea of Peter existing in Breck can also cause students to look back on seemingly ordinary experiences in a different light. I lived on 3rd floor Breck my sophomore year and I can remember my lights turning off while in my room alone and thinking nothing of it. Another time, the window in our back stairwell shattered and we never received an explanation. After exploring the idea of Peter and paranormal occurrences on Centre’s campus, I find myself going back to these moments and questioning the nature of them. Ghost stories at Centre force us to question seemingly normal occurrences and make unforgettable moments memorable. In a certain way, to me, that increases Centre’s charm. These ghosts engrain memories in our minds that are set on campus, forcing us to always keep Centre in our minds.
The ghost of Peter and the many stories from Centre students about paranormal activity in Breck bond the community together with shared feelings of fear and thrill, but also force us to think about and question our experiences at Centre. These stories will forever leave Breck labeled as haunted and eerie. Centre alumna Valerie Mims remembers Breck by the fact that it “had a weird history, and everybody knew it, and everybody kind of expected (unique experiences),”.[iii] In “The Ghosts of Place”, Michael Bell states, “Ghosts are much of what makes a space a place,”.[iv]When students acknowledge the history of Breck, Peter defines that building. How he defines Breck is up to the interpretation of the individual, but what is certain is that Peter forces us to acknowledge him and brings together those who do in a way that perhaps only those who are within that group understand.
-Sarah Stodghill
Bibliography
Ann Young, interview by Madison Malloy. January 13, 2021. Interview and Transcript for Centre College.
Bell, Michael Mayerfield. “The Ghosts of Place.” Theory and Society 26, no. 6 (1997): 813-836.
“Breckinridge Hall.” Centre College CentreCyclopedia. Centre College. https://sc.centre.edu/ency/b/breckinridge_hall.html
Lucas Mozingo, interview by Alana Pugh. January 19, 2021. Interview Transcript and Video for Centre College.
Tucker, Elizabeth. Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses. University Press of Mississippi, 2007.
Valerie Mims, interview by Amanda Gosper. January 15, 2021. Interview Transcript and Video for Centre College.
Wayne King, interview by Mackenzie Conkling. January 15, 2021. Interview Transcript and Video for Centre College.
Endnotes
[i] Bell, Michael Mayerfield, “The Ghosts of Place,” Theory and Society 26, no. 6 (1997): 816.
[ii] Lucas Mozingo, interview by Alana Pugh, January 19, 2021, Interview Transcript and Video for Centre College, 17:01.
[iii] Valerie Mims, interview by Amanda Gosper, January 15, 2021, Interview Transcript and Video for Centre College, 10:22.
[iv] Bell, Michael Mayerfield, “The Ghosts of Place,” Theory and Society 26, no. 6 (1997): 815.