Jennings Hall - Bennington College

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Jennings Hall is reported to be the inspration for horror author Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel “The Haunting of Hill House” and its 1963 movie adaptation. Jennings Hall is a gray stone mansion reportedly used by the college’s music department.

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Geographic Information

Address:
Bennington College
Bennington, VT
United States

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GPS:
42.92453693465052, -73.23795729873382
County:
Bennington County, Vermont
Nearest Towns:
North Bennington, VT (0.5 mi.)
South Shaftsbury, VT (2.1 mi.)
Old Bennington, VT (3.1 mi.)
Bennington, VT (3.8 mi.)
Hoosick Falls, NY (6.0 mi.)
Cambridge, NY (10.2 mi.)
Arlington, VT (11.2 mi.)
Williamstown, MA (14.8 mi.)
Valley Falls, NY (16.5 mi.)
North Adams, MA (16.8 mi.)

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Comments (5)

  1. In 2001 I attended Bennington College during the summer, where I took a music recording class. On one weekend I was in Jennings on the third floor I believe. Some of the rooms were converted to classrooms, the recording studio, etc, but some were unused and unchanged. The building only had three people in it at the time, myself included. I was working on my recording project with another student and the teacher. They were working, so I decided to explore a bit and walked down a hallway on the upper floor. I peeked into a few rooms which were rather boring. On my way back down the hallway I looked back into one of the rooms, which had an old metal framed twin bed and mattress. A pretty bare, old room. The first time I had walked past it I noticed the mattress was so old and worn that it was sunken in. Well, on my second pass, the mattress was flat. There was no more indentation. At the same time, I felt an intense tingling through my whole body. I hadn’t been even remotely afraid of the house before. Never heard it was haunted. But when I saw the mattress go from looking like someone was laying on it to flat, and felt what I felt, I got out of there so fast! I later mentioned being creeped out there and some other people told me it’s supposedly haunted.

    At the cemetery just outside the college’s property I had another experience. I had been there during the day and thought it would be fun to take my friends there at night. We went and were checking out all the really old graves, laughing and having a good time. I was eating an apple. Suddenly I felt tingling all over my body and looked over in a certain direction toward a big tree. My friends had all stopped talking and laughing at the same time. The apple fell from my hand, I remember, as I saw a misty figure under the tree. All at once we silently agreed to get out of there. We drove home totally creeped out. We’d all seen it. I went back the next day, in daylight, and saw a broken headstone leaning up against the tree. What was really strange, is the name on the headstone matched my first and middle name. You may be thinking we just saw the headstone leaning up against the tree in the dark, but that wasn’t it. What we saw was more than a short piece of stone.

    • Hello JH! I am new to this site and just came across your story. I had a studio in the basement of Jennings during the ’95-’96 school year and I had some very strange experiences. One of them definitely included having an intense tingling feeling through my whole body.

      I am an audio producer working on a podcast episode about ghost stories at Bennington College and I wonder if you would be willing to record your stories for the show. Please let me know!

  2. I am a current student and I study voice which means I practically live in Jennings. As a singer I can project very loudly and have been told on multiple occasions to keep it down so I began going to Jennings at all hours of the night so as not to disturbed anyone. One night, I had gone up at maybe around 2:30am and I was completely alone in the house. I am often drawn to the 3rd floor practice rooms so I went into one at the end of the hall and started singing. 15 minutes into my singing, I heard whispering and I was worried that someone truly was in the building and I was disturbing their practices. It dawned on me with how loud I was singing, I should not have been able to hear anyone whispering especially if they were in the halls. I am a scaredy cat, so I brushed it off so as not to panic and continued singing. I heard footsteps creaking down the hall very loudly and I started to get a bad feeling.
    My mind was trying to rationalize it and I kept repeating to myself it’s just someone coming to tell you to be quiet. From underneath the practice room door (which I had left slightly ajar when I entered) I could see the shadows of two feet, and they stood facing the door! I waited until they would knock or say something but they didn’t. I stood tensed up for about 10 minutes before I finally decided I wanted to leave (even with the shadow feet still showing from under the door).
    When I reached from the door, it was jammed. After several pulls it finally opened and no one was on the other side! I bolted from the mansion and ran straight back to my dorm. To this day I refuse to practice or work on any group projects late at night at Jennings.

  3. That is a wild experience!

    I am new to this site and just came across your story. I had a studio in the basement of Jennings during the ’95-’96 school year and I had some very strange experiences. I have definitely heard footsteps where there were no people, had doors slam behind me, and other super creepy experiences.

    I am an audio producer working on a podcast episode about ghost stories at Bennington College and I wonder if you would be willing to record your story for the show. Please let me know!

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