Patapsco Female Institute

Three distinct ghosts haunt the Greek Revival ruins of a girls' school atop Mount Misery in Ellicott City: Annie, a student who died waiting for her parents; the Gentleman, who walks a floor that no longer exists; and the Shadow, a dark figure that vanishes when you look directly at it.

Dog walkers see her the most. Annie shows up near the treeline at the Patapsco Female Institute ruins, usually in a Victorian day dress with a high collar and petticoat, sometimes a nightgown, sometimes a ball gown. She watches. Historian Rissa Miller, who has studied the site extensively, says Annie is "most commonly spotted by people walking their dogs." The dogs tend to notice her first.

According to local legend, Annie Van Derlot was the daughter of a wealthy Southern plantation owner who enrolled at the institute and hated it from day one. Her letters home described the experience as an "incarceration." During a harsh Maryland winter, she came down with pneumonia. Her family traveled north to bring her home, but arrived too late. Witnesses describe her ghost gazing toward the entrance, eternally waiting for parents who got there one day behind schedule.

In the early 1980s, a man recalled sledding near the institute as a child and seeing Annie standing near the large trees, watching his family. She radiated "sadness and despair." Miller notes that while the Annie Van Derlot story might be urban legend (there are no records of anyone dying on the property), a ghost named Annie does inhabit the site. Whether she's the real Annie or something older, she keeps appearing.

The institute is a striking ruin. Designed by architect Robert Cary Long Jr. in the Greek Revival style, built from rare yellow-tinted granite donated by the Ellicott brothers, it opened on January 1, 1837. Under headmistress Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps (who ran the school from 1841 to 1856), this was one of the first schools in the country to teach mathematics to girls. At its peak, 150 students attended, including Jefferson Davis's daughter Winnie and Thomas Jefferson's great-granddaughter Sally Randolph, who later returned as headmistress herself. The school sat atop Mount Misery in Ellicott City, which is a perfectly appropriate name for a haunted hilltop.

The Civil War killed the school financially. Southern families couldn't pay tuition. After decades of struggle, the institute closed in 1891 and cycled through second lives: a hotel called Burg Alnwick, a World War I veterans' hospital with 50 beds, a 1930s summer theater called Hill Top Theatre, and finally a nursing home. In 1958, Howard County ordered all wood removed to prevent fires, leaving the building a permanent ruin of granite walls and empty window frames.

Annie isn't alone up there. The Gentleman is a residual haunting in 1940s-era clothing who walks across a floor that no longer exists (the second floor is gone) and stares out windows before vanishing. Miller explains that residual ghosts "never change, never vary. They appear in the same place and will never turn and look at you." Chesapeake Shakespeare Company production manager Lauren Engler experienced this firsthand while locking up after a performance. Sudden panic gripped her throat. A colleague later saw a stern man in old-fashioned clothing at a first-floor window; he vanished after she screamed.

The Shadow is rarer. Visitors notice a shadow beside them that resembles a man, but there's no physical form casting it. It disappears the moment you look directly at it.

There's also Miss Margaret, a former headmistress who apparently still makes her rounds. Witnesses see her in white garments at the top of the grand staircase, accompanied by the smell of lavender. A stern spirit haunts the kitchen area, insisting on order. During a 2021 investigation, a spirit communicated through dowsing rods that she "had been quite happy at the school but had died there." Ghost hunters have photographed figures in third-floor windows where no human could physically stand today.

Miller attributes the intensity to Ellicott City's geography. The Tiber River crosses the Patapsco River at this spot, creating what she calls a "liminal or thin space where the spirit world is closer." The granite walls contain crystal quartz, which some paranormal researchers believe stores and releases energy. "We've got these things that all seem to coalesce at the same spot," Miller says, "and it results in being extra haunted."

Annie keeps showing up near the trees. The Gentleman keeps walking his vanished floor. Miss Margaret keeps making rounds nobody assigned her. The institute closed 135 years ago, but somebody forgot to tell the staff and students.