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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN·WHITEWATER
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1981•. T-r" ...•0'" L ?Ti~?L""i VOl. 81, NO. 10 ~ ;1 ~ H - ••• lJ 'Ul'~-_ ....-- P .
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be explained. ,A person's aura - his energyforce - can be seen in dim Ii.~"t. And storiesabound about drowned swimmers who, when'
, revived, recalled hovering over t:leir rescuers .One thing seems certain - Whitewater. for
whatever reasons. became known inspiritualist circles from its earliest years.
Indian legends. always fo,d of tribesdwelling as one in the, land of their spiritualancestors, inseparable in life ancl death. Earlywhite settlers to the area no:ed the close
proximity between the ruins of an old Indianvillage at the site of .tod3y's moderncemeteries, and ancient burial mounds west ~of the new village, with skell~lons atop one.another. Little remains there today.
They may still be walking th land. Recently, in an area several miles N:tsidc the citywhere many Indian artifact~ have bee'nfound, a couple . had a new house built.Strange disturbances in the kitchen, including opened cupboards. displaced kitchenware, muttered voices, and late nightfootsteps, occurred for a year afterwards.then ended.
Early settlers to( Whitewall>r seemed interested in spiritual mattus as well.Spiritualism, a semi-religious movement
By Chuck RamsaySpecial to the RP
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Whitewater is known for its u'niversity, itschurches, itS taverns and its lakes yet there once was more than just student IIpirits effervescing about the town, as a darker side liesin its past. ' ' , \
In. the late nineteenth and early twentiethcentury, the city was also known as a meCca ofmodern spiritualism and, according to somestorie~, it was the biggest center for witchcraftin the country after Salem.
As .with any tales concerning the superpatural, separating legend from fact andstory from rumor is needed before looking atWhitewater's past. Stories passed down twogenerations or heard thirdhand take on asnebulous a form as their eerie subjects.
Belief in spiritual afterlife, including supernatural forces, can only be taken on faith.Scientific examination has debunked manyspurious ghosts, fake mediums and supposedmagical powers. There are few recorded interviews with spirits candidly talking aboutthe afterlife.
Yet, a gut feeling persists that there isanother life and dimension beyond that can't
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_Whitewater, Wis. - History - Buildi~(Morris Pratt Institut~"u
believing in gifted mediums communicatingwith the dead, spread nationwide andreached the area along with settlers from Newyork in the 1850's ..
Morris Pratt, one such pioneer, convertedto spiritualist after a seance in Lake Mills in1851. He thought that a scientific approachto the spirits would enhance mental andmoral powers, as well as profit him.
Financial advice from a medium sup
posedly resulted in windfall profits for Prattfrom an Ironwood, Mich., iron mine. In
gratitude, he endowed the Pratt Institute in1889 towards spiritualist studies. it being theonly such preparatory school and church of itskind in the country.
According 'to Elizabeth Wright, past.ptesident of Whitewater's historical society,Underground Railroad "tunnels" and KuKlux Klan doings here hI the twenties weren'thalf as mysterious as the sean.ces held eachSunday night in the third floor chamberwhere "everything was white. Curtains,wallpaper, ev~n people had to wear white. Nooutsiders were admitted." .
At its zenith, the Institute had45 studentsand six teachers boarding at the Institute,with lectures and more standard church ser-
vices filling the large hall on the second floor.The Depression forced the Institute to closedown for awhile. and it later moved toMilwaukee.
Dorothy Schroedl, a longtime resident, at·tended seances there as a child and recalledhow the room would be darkened, the
medium would go into a trance, and spiritswould begin speaking in nonnal voices tellingof life beyond and foretelling the future.
Many townspeople came to the sessions,either to watch the show, or to communicate
'wilh relatives, Schroedl said .. ,Her grandfather returned from a seance
'one night and told how a sp~rit had warned ofa large fire near their house. Several dayslater, a grass fire burned up, to their propertyline, Schroedl recalled.
In its final days here, the Institute was forced by its financial situation to open up itsseances to the public, passing the hat fordonations. ~me stories remain, about,riggedsessions conducted with a person under a
. table doing table rapping, and other propsbeing used. Both Wright anti Schroedl do notbelieve that the Institute's sessions were real.
Regardless of the truth about the Institute,Continued on page 7
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1F/!mE ROYAL PURPLE October 28,1981 Page--7
Haunts from page 1
it was held responsible by many townspeoplefor strange happenings within the somberVictorian mansions.
Rumors of witchcraft, demonic possession,madneu afflicting city residents and of thedead somehow having influence over theliving, have been a part of the city's past that~esidents· are reluctant to talk about, saidUW -Whitewater Information ServicesDirector Dale Reich. "It's b~n a. source ofembarrassml"Ilt .••
Reich discounted local legends of supposedhauntings in town as thin air. "I've seen zeroevidence for it myself." he said.
These include a tale- of the ghost of AlbertSalisbury wandering Salisbury Hall late atnight. looking for unwary journalismprofessors and one about a hanged gradstudent haunting the old chancellor's housenow being moved from Main St. to Tratt St.
However. one tale of the unexplained happened recently at the Alpha Sigma SororityHouse, 614 W. Main St., u members sat
"down to supper.' Members heard noisescoming out of the basement and found bricksfrom a walled-up tunnel entrance lying on the'floor. No one had been seen entering orleaving, said member Karen Camplain.
Other incidents include tales of suicides in
the town's early annals. and the body of alocal Ku Klux Klan leader found on a church
lawn one' night in 1925.
Perllaps the strangest story that's provablehappened on Halloween Night in 1970.Lights were seen bobbing n~ar several cryptsin a cemetery by two fishermen on one of the .lakes. A coffin of a little girl. removed by per~ons unknown, was found on the universitymall the next morning.
"Several anonymous sources. related howWhitewater, in association with the spiritualhappenings in the lut century, sUf>posedly
became the second biggest center of wit. chcraft in the country at the time.
"Older people here are terrified," said oneperso'n adding that most people are reluctantto talk about the subject. That, plus thenatural tendency to create or add to storiesabout the supernatural make it hard tobelieve just what is fact or fiction.
Several legends of the past tell of large witches' covens held in the field where Wells Hall
now stands,-of "believers" buried upright in acircle around an altar in Oak Cemetery, andof witchcraft books kept locked in the publiclibrary, supposedly responsible for threesuicides from borrowers.
Whether there is any truth to these legends{emalns questionable .. However, another
. source believes that a witchcraft cult groupremains active in the ar~a today. Threesightings of groups in recent years add somecredibility to this story. A ceremony in ahouse. with candles 'and robes, was observedby several persons, while a rite was seen on afarm outside the city.
Last Halloween, a dorm resident lookedout and saw a group in white and black robesholding a ceremony in Starin Park Cemetery,a site which.is sacred to them, said the source.Two or three' other sites. the most importantbeing Oak Cemetery. are also used ..
The witness ruled out the possibility of thescene as a student prank. "That's not the first
. time it's been there_"
Whether such a group exists, and whetherlocal legends can be believed, remains to beproven to the skepti<;. Also. in a university.town, said Reich, "it doesn't take much forstudents to exaggerate for fun," or to try tospook newer students. Halloween alwaysbrings forth such tales each year, he said.
Whatever the case may be. it's interestingto note that the site of the old Pratt Institute,at Center and Fremont: saw the razing of"Pratt's Folly" in 1961. and the constructionof the now defunct phone company offices.Long-distance communication with the deadhad been replaced by .long-distance calls tothe living.
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