Southern Vermont College (SVC) closed in 2019, but its hilltop campus above Bennington still carries a reputation. The college’s main building, a 27-room mansion known as The Orchards or the Everett Mansion, has long been the center of ghost stories told by students, staff, and security officers. To understand the legends, it helps to start with the man who built the house.
The Man Behind the Mansion
Edward Hamlin Everett (1851–1929) was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated from Bennington High School in 1869. His fortune came from glass. He began as a bottle salesman for his stepfather, Henry Putnam, inventor of the Lightning fruit jar, and in 1880 bought the Star Glass Works in Newark, Ohio. That business grew into the American Bottle Company. Everett also developed natural gas wells in Ohio and, before the 1929 crash, was estimated to be worth $40 to $50 million.
Between 1911 and 1914 he built The Orchards as a summer residence on roughly 500 acres of Bennington farmland. Architect George Oakley Totten Jr. designed it, and its blue limestone and red tile roof were modeled on English country houses. His primary home was in Washington, D.C.
Amy’s Death
In 1886 Everett married Amy Webster King, daughter of his business associate Oren Granger King. They had three daughters. Amy died on March 20, 1917, at the family’s Washington residence, after what a contemporary newspaper described as a month’s illness following a severe operation. She was 53 and was buried in the Everett mausoleum at Park Lawn Cemetery in Bennington.
Local legend tells it differently. In some retellings she drowned in a pond on the Bennington estate. Others whisper of suicide or murder. No documentation supports any of these versions, but they have shaped the best-known ghost story on campus.
A Second Marriage and a Bitter Will
On March 27, 1920, Everett married Grace Belle Burnap, a singer born in 1879. They had two daughters. Everett died on April 26, 1929, after surgery in Boston. His will left most of his estate to Grace, and his three daughters from his first marriage challenged it. A Vermont jury sided with the daughters in 1930, the parties signed a settlement in 1934, and related probate disputes were still reaching the Vermont Supreme Court in 1943, where the justices described the fight as “prolonged, bitter and inconclusive.”
Grace used the estate as her main residence until 1952, when she sold it to the Congregation of Holy Cross, which ran a novitiate there until 1974. That year, Southern Vermont College, which had roots in the 1926 St. Joseph Business School and later St. Joseph College, moved to the estate. The mansion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. The college announced its closure in March 2019 and closed that May.
The Lady in White
The most enduring story is of a woman in white. Students and staff have said she is the spirit of Amy Everett, sometimes seen near the estate’s upper pond, where legend says she drowned, and sometimes in the mansion itself. Some accounts describe only a white-clad figure or a shadow in the moonlight. Because Amy’s recorded death took place in Washington, her story is best read as a legend that grew around a woman few people knew.
Hooded Figures and Night Security
The second familiar figure is a hooded presence in dark robes, said to have haunted the halls since the building was a Holy Cross novitiate. Those who report him say his face is never seen. Edward and Grace Everett themselves are also reported, less often. Night security staff and students have described smoke or fog in hallways, lights switching on in locked rooms, doors unlocked after being secured, windows found open after a security sweep, and footsteps in empty buildings.
The Third Floor and the Abbey Room
Two spots draw the most attention: the third floor, and a room called the Abbey room, which reportedly has a strange energy. The Abbey room, now a classroom, was once part of the quarters for house staff, and the story goes that a maid hanged herself there. This is a campus legend only. College president David Evans told the Rutland Herald there was no indication of any violence or mysterious deaths on campus.
The Library and the Theater
The library occupies a room that was once the Everetts’ dining and music room, and students have long recorded their experiences there. Library staff have kept a “ghost log” since 2004. In the theater, once the novitiate chapel and later home to the Oldcastle Theatre Company (1977–1994), students have reported piano music coming from the empty room.
Still Standing
Whether or not you believe the stories, the Everett Mansion is a fascinating place: a Gilded Age summer house, a monastic training house, a college, and now a quiet campus with an uncertain future. The ghosts, if they exist, have had plenty of history to haunt.
Article image courtesy of Jared C. Benedict
