Seaman's Bethel

"Seaman's Bethel - Campus Haunt"
The Seaman's Bethel is home to two mysterious spirits
By: Angela Davis
Whitney Rayl

When we first decided to write an article on the Seaman's Bethel, we thought it would be a simple, straightforward task: go get historical information and write the piece. Little did we know the magnitude to which this assignment would expand.

The first step in our task was to try and find any kind of small snippets about the Bethel online. So, we Googled the Seaman's Bethel and started perusing the articles that were presented to us. Oddly enough, none of the articles pertained to the history of the Bethel - but rather to a rumored haunting within it. Over and over we read the same lines: "The basement is haunted by the ghost of a small child who plays in the costume shop. The ghost of a seaman in a captain's coat haunts the fly loft."

This piqued our curiosity and we set off for the Bethel late one evening once the work of the day was done. The door was unlocked, and upon finding no one inside, we decided to go in.

Our first interest was the basement area. We walked down the cliched squeaky steps and tried to open the door. We were surprised to find the door unlocked, but driven by our curiosity, we continued on. All the lights were off and as we peered cautiously around the door, we saw a silvery figure standing right across from us. Startled, we moved to flip on the lights, assuming we had seen the ghost" - �only to find our reflections looking back at us in a full length mirror.

After sharing a hearty chuckle at our absurdity, we continued on through the basement area. After several minutes of searching and not coming in contact with any otherworldly spirits, we decided to move our search upstairs.

Upon arriving upstairs, we found an attic door leading up to what must once have been the fly loft. We pulled the folding ladder down and climbed up the rungs which looked like they hadn't been used in years. To our disappointment, there was no ghost up there either...simply a lot of dust and a couple of chairs.

Leaving the fly loft to itself, we returned to the ground floor. All of a sudden, we heard an indecipherable low voice speaking. We stopped and listened carefully, wondering if someone were trying to communicate from beyond the grave. However, this voice was soon followed by some muffled music and we realized that the sounds we were hearing came from a concert at the Mitchell Center.

We shared another laugh at ourselves and began to look around the ground floor. After several minutes of prowling through the bookshelves and looking at the different plants that were in serious need of care and watering, we came across some very real information to aid in our research of the Bethel: some historical photographs of the old building, along with information about its past.

"The Seaman's Bethel was erected at 75 Church Street in Downtown Mobile in 1860 by a local philanthropic institution to serve as a hostel for seamen visiting the port. The building is a rare example in Mobile of the masonry building of the gothic style and is recorded in the library of Congress as one of the significant buildings in the United States.

"During the Civil War, the C.S.S. submarine, Hunley, was reputed to have been assembled in the Bethel. A dormitory was added in 1901 but not moved to the University of South Alabama when the building was relocated.

"The Little Theatre of Mobile used the Bethel as a playhouse for a number of years beginning in 1923. It subsequently was used until 1969 for storage. Construction of Interstate Highway 10 threatened the destruction of the Bethel and the building was relocated to the campus of the University to preserve it.

"The Seaman's Bethel was dissembled and moved to the campus of the University of South Alabama and reopened in 1970 as the home of Theatre USA for student productions for the Department of Dramatic Arts.

"During reconstruction on the University campus, only the external architectural features were preserved. As the building proved inadequate for public theatre presentations, it served, at various times, as offices for the dramatic arts, a rehearsal hall, a classroom and storage for costumes and props. With the opening of the Laidlaw Performing Arts Center in 1998, the Bethel was transferred to the USA Honors Department as center for Honor students programs and activities."

Although it provided for some rather interesting reading, it wasn't a whole lot to go off of. So we made a few quick notes, took one last look about the Bethel, and left.

Time passed and the article got set aside to be replaced by working for Theatre USA's production of "Alice in Wonderland". However, as fate would have it, it was "Alice" that brought us back to the article at hand. We had managed to pull Jean Galloway, an adjunct professor in the drama department, aside for a moment backstage to see if she might know anything of the history of Bethel, when Rebecca Britton, another professor in the drama department, overheard our conversation.

"You know that place is haunted," she said.

We looked at each other, then turned back to Ms. Britton. "We've heard rumors."

"Oh, it is," she told us with absolute certainty. "I've had several students that had experiences there."

We asked her if she might be interested in an interview with the Vanguard and she readily agreed.

"When I got here, I heard there were ghosts in the Bethel and that was just from the students here and there," she told us. "I have a respect for that. I have a Grandmother that was a Fundamentalist Presbyterian that used to talk about some of the spirits that she and her brothers contacted during seances and she handed that respect along to me. I can tell you that I never had a problem with the theatre ghosts. My students, however, kept coming to me with stories about seeing the Bethel ghosts and what we came down to was that there were indeed two - one a little girl in Victorian dress and the other a seaman - an older seaman. Apparently they had been haunting the Bethel before we got it. Of course, when they moved it out here, who knew the ghosts would come with it?

"I never had any problems with the ghosts but one night when I was in the costume shop late at night, I had something happen. We'd already locked the doors up for the night and I was downstairs in the basement working. So I was simply working along when all of a sudden I heard someone walking around upstairs. There was no way anyone could have gotten in because no one else had any keys except some of the faculty - but the next day when I asked them if they had been there, they all said I must have been dreaming.

"That was the only personal thing I have of that.

"The other is a student that got permission to work in the shop late one night. His name was David and he was working on finishing up a wedding gown for a friend of his. Well, it was about two in the morning and he was sitting at the cutting table when he looked up and there was a little girl there, just watching what he was doing.

We asked her how it was that the Theatre came to belong to the Honors Department.

"There was a big feud between the Drama & Honors Departments over who would get control of the Bethel," Ms. Britton explained. "We put up a good fight for it, but in the end it was given to the honors students. Though, there have been several people that have told me that the ghosts are more restless now that we have moved out."

When we asked her to elaborate, she said, "Well, the ghosts never really bothered us. They were just...curious. But now I've heard they're causing a bit of trouble."

Intrigued by the interview with Ms. Britton, we renewed our investigation full force. What was once a simple historical assignment suddenly became a ghost hunt.

Several more trips were made out to the Bethel on various occasions. We'd sit around and play a few games of chess, just waiting for some spirit to decide to show up and tell us a little bit more about who they were and why they were there.

The sea captain was easy enough to figure out. The Bethel having been a sanctuary for weary sailors, there were probably some very strong connections to the place. But why the young girl in the basement? What history did she have there?

As we began to research the stories more in depth, we had several people approach us with their own experiences and tales.

One girl, choosing to remain anonymous, told us about a seance that she and some of her friends held one evening in the Bethel. Armed with candles and a Ouija board, they decided to do it in the basement area, hoping to get in touch with the little girl that lived down there. They turned off the lights and sat in the dull glow of the candle, softly calling out to whatever spirits might be present.

After about half an hour, they began to give up and become disinterested when suddenly one girl jumped up, her face pale and frightened. Her friends asked her what was wrong and she said she felt a cold chill on the back of her neck like someone had just rubbed ice against it.

Not wanting to miss the opportunity of speaking with the ghost, one of the girls turned to the board and voiced the question "What is your name?" and delicately placed her fingers on the marker. After a moment of nothing happening, the pointer suddenly moved slowly across the board and spelled out a name - Anne.

"Why are you here?" one of the others girls asked and again the pointer moved.

'Protect', the word read.

"Protect? Protect from what?" the girl asked...when suddenly the sound of loud footsteps was heard.

The four friends jumped and then stayed still. They were afraid one of the Campus Police was upstairs walking about and that they would find them holding a seance. The footsteps continued - pacing back and forth - heavy and with a slight dragging sound.

Finally the footsteps stopped and after a few minutes, the girls quietly gathered up their things and prepared to leave. However, upon going upstairs they found no one there...all the doors were locked just as they had been when they came and the lights were still off. Nothing was moved about or meddled with and all four girls were quite certain they'd experienced a supernatural phenomenon. Shaken, they ran from the Bethel and did not come back for some time.

Excited by the feedback we were receiving, we continued our search for what lay in the dark past of the old Bethel. Several times we attempted to sneak into the Bethel late at night but we were thwarted by Honor students that seemed to actually be studying (we're still not quite sure what all that was about). So we decided to leave them to their pastimes and come back at a more reasonably late hour when they were gone.

On our final trip to the Bethel, we decided to really make it worth something. After making a recording of the history that could be found on the wall beneath the pictures, we settled in for a bit. We'd brought our mutual friend, Buzz, along with us (who knows, maybe the ghosts would like him more than us) and together the three of us sat in the dark for some time, simply listening.

After about ten minutes, an honor student wandered through and we spooked her by sitting around in the dark so silently. She asked to know what we were doing there and we explained we were reporters doing research.

The mood was sufficiently killed.

We decided there was nothing we were going to get out of that evening, and so the lights were turned back on so we could finish writing down what we needed.

Unfortunately, the lights didn't come on directly and so we sat there and waited...and waited...and waited. The lights usually took awhile to come on, but never this long.

I (Angela) finally got frustrated with the lack of lighting and kindly requested that the ghost behave himself and turn on the lights for us.

At that moment one light flickered on.

Curious now, I looked about and then posed the question, "Is there a ghost here?"

The next light came to life.

The three of us turned and smiled at each other before I remarked, "You know, it'd be great if you turned on all three lights."

The last light came on.

Satisfied that our work was indeed done for the night, we headed back to our dorm room to begin work on the Seaman's Bethel story.

Sadly, the story left us with more questions than answers. Why is there not a lot of history known about the building? Why has the sea captain never shown himself to anyone? Was it his footsteps that Ms. Britton and the girls heard pacing about? Why is the young girl in the basement? What or who was she trying to protect the night of the seance?

Is the Seaman's Bethel really haunted?

Though the article is done, our research continues. If you have a story pertaining to the Seaman's Bethel or are interested in assisting us in finding out more, please contact us at: [email protected]

Haunted or not? True tales of spirits or the ramblings of delusional college students? Ghosts or merely an old creaking building? That is simply for you to decide.

Happy Halloween.