Have you ever felt a slight chill while walking up the College Ave. hill, and it was much more than a midsummer sweat? Perhaps you’ve woken up in the middle of the night in Cawthon and seen a girl peering through your window (on the 4th floor!). Don’t worry – you’re not ill or in the middle of some sort of mental episode – you’ve probably just had a paranormal experience. FSU is home to several ghost stories, with wraiths purportedly haunting different buildings and landmarks around campus. While many students and alumni hold these stories near and dear to their hearts, keep in mind: they’re campus mythologies born of the imagination of FSU’s inhabitants.
The oldest ghost story originates decades before the institution was even founded. Written about in Tallahassee: A Capital City, Gallows Hill was constructed in 1829 as a place to hang Tallahassee’s most unsavory criminals, right about where the Westcott Fountain is today. The first and most famous execution to happen at Gallows Hill was of a mother convicted of killing her own child. Over the years, students have reported feeling chills and hearing strange sounds while traversing the Westcott Fountain at night. Another story from long ago involves the ghosts of the Confederate Cadets trained at the (briefly named) Florida Military and Collegiate Institute, one of FSU’s predecessor institutions. Members of the FSU ROTC have made claims that the ROTC parade grounds are haunted by the cadets, where they continue their drills and turn off the lights during showers.
For those who live in Cawthon Hall, they don’t have one ghost to worry about – they have two. One story told is about the ghost of Sarah “Tissie” Landrum Cawthon, the namesake of Cawthon Hall. Cawthon, the first Dean of the College Home (now known as Student Affairs) at FSCW was hired to oversee that students were consistently on their best behavior, and representing themselves as fine young women. She was described as becoming dismayed when students picked up more modern and revealing fashion, started drinking and smoking and public, and expounding more liberal ideas during the Roaring ’20s. In Haunted Halls of Ivy: Ghosts of Southern Colleges and Universities, it is said that her ghost moved into Cawthon Hall after its dedication, and she continues to look over the female students in the dorm. Some say that her new residency in Cawthon Hall occurred not-so-coincidentally when campus became co-educational and men moved into the dorm.
Illuminations 
Have there been any stories about Reynolds Hall before it was renovated in the 1990s? I lived on “Zero Alley” and we were sure that there was a ghost, but we could never get any evidence.
While there are no “official reports” of hauntings in Reynolds, it’s possible it has a ghost or two!
I lived in Zero Alley too from 1990-1992! My hall mates and I all had spooky experiences on the floor, and also in the breezeway study room. I lived on the 1st floor 1989-1990, and there were tons of rumors about the bathroom being haunted. Jennie Murohree was called the “hall of the screaming virgins” because of some ghost story about a girl who threw herself out of a 3rd story window.
Do you mind answering a few questions about this? I live in murphree.
Interesting to hear all of this, as I lived in Cawthon Hall 1990-91. At that time, it was exclusively a co-ed Transfer Student Dorm. I lived on the 4th floor south-side “men’s-wing”, often referred to as the “5th” floor, but this was not the case, 4th was the highest level short of being on the roof. A 5th floor is a misnomer, as per the buttons on the elevator. When you entered the dorm from the Landis Green side, due to the hill the Dorm was built into, you were at street “ground” level, I believe the elevator designated this as the B-level, or basement. The South-side 1st floor were Housing Offices, and the elevator skipped this level altogether, you could only choose from 2nd, 3rd, or 4th floor. During off-business hours, if you were sure the Offices were vacant, you could pull hard enough on the elevator doors to make them open, but I assume there were motion-sensors that would detect if you exited, and risked getting caught walking around (Others attempted it).
The north side “women’s-wing” had their own elevator, and 4 floors. Other than the 1st floor, 2nd-4th had unlocked double-doors separating the wings.
The official “front” of the Dorm faced East, and had multiple entrances at this 1st floor level, where a “common-room” connected the North and South Wings at the main level.
It was in this common-room, full of leather chairs and couches, tables, and fireplace, that I felt if any was the most creepy area of the Dorm. It had that old mansion type of feeling, where if there were vintage portraits on the walls, the eyes of the people in the photos would follow you as you walked by. Often time this was a popular study-area at all hours of the night, especially since we had a curfew for not being in the girls-wing after-hours, but this was a co-ed common area, and was virtually never empty.
I’m sure there were instances late at night where people in this area thought they heard/saw things that weren’t there, and other nooks and crannies throughout the building where a little exploration could lead you to somewhere where you weren’t supposed to be, mostly behind unlocked doors and windows, to possibly stumble upon things you weren’t supposed to see.
I had such a terrifying incident happen to me in Salley Hall in 1980 that I haven’t ever breathed a word of it for fear of being committed. Did anyone else have such experiences, there?