School spirit: FRANKLIN, MA — Even after a century, members of the philanthropic Ray family may still be hanging around their old haunts, according to staff at Dean College. Workers at Ray House, which serves as the school's admissions office, and several staff members, including Vice President of Enrollment Jay Leiendecker, have reported encounters with spirits they believe are Ray family members. The house was their former home, built in the 1800s. Sensing a spirit, or seeing a shadow flash by is not rare at Ray House, Leiendecker said. "It's not once every so many years - there's definitely a spirit living in the house," he said, adding, "Nothing bad has happened." In fact, if the otherworldly inhabitants are members of the Ray family, he said they're probably quite friendly ghosts, because they were incredibly charitable people in life.
Although encounters are common, they can still be startling.
"We had window-washing crews come here on weekends, and a man was washing the window inside and out one Saturday," Leiendecker said, pointing to his tall office window overlooking the campus, "and he apparently went screaming for the hills after he saw ... something." "He ran from the building and never came back again, never came back for his equipment," Leiendecker said. Another staff member noted the window washer, eyes bulging, did try to explain he had seen a ghost and then bolted. Jeanne Remillard, an administrative assistant who works at Ray House, recalled going about her business one morning when she heard a loud thud that sounded like a car crashing, coming from below. "The mirror simply slid down the wall - that thing weighs more than you can imagine, at least a ton. It is a huge mirror," said Leiendecker, estimating the mirror measures at least 6-feet by 6-feet. Shockingly, after the a crash, the mirror did not break, the frame did not crack - there was not even a scratch, said Leiendecker and Patricia Samson, public relations director for the college. "It went straight down the wall, landed on the floor and didn't break," Leiendecker said, shaking his head.
The sitings have been pervasive enough that history professor R. A. Lawson, head of the Dean History Project which focuses on the college's history, has included the phenomena in his upcoming book. Lawson writes in his manuscript's introduction about "the students' ubiquitous and persistent questions about ghosts in (almost all of) the campus buildings." The book, which does not yet have a title, will come out in the spring. There have been times, after the sun goes down, when Leiendecker is working in his first-floor office, and the hair on his arms inexplicably begins to rise, and he just feels - something - nearby, he said. "You feel like somebody's in the room with you. ... You're sitting here at night and some of that stuff happens - you want to log off and go home," Leiendecker said, laughing.
Employees have also reported faucets turning on by themselves, seeing shadows race across the room, and hearing commotions in the house despite being alone. Remillard had a particularly big scare early one morning, again working quietly at her desk, when she heard someone making noise in an adjacent room, and assumed it must have been a co-worker. When she called out to her colleague, however, no one answered. She checked the entire floor to find no one. To this day, Samson said she always makes sure to announce herself with a loud, "Good morning!" while coming up the stairs to let Remillard know it's someone in the flesh. The Ray family donated money for the school's science building, the Ray Building, which houses a domed theater, and eventually, they gave then-Dean Academy preparatory school their home, Ray House, Samson said. "They were very philanthropic and generous to Franklin," Leiendecker said. And the Rays were not the only philanthropic Franklin family of the 1800s to haunt the college, many believe; there have been numerous sightings of a little girl ghost at Thayer House, which burnt down in the mid-1990s, Samson said.
The property, a lot on the corner of Rte. 140 and Emmons Street, has been empty since the fire, she said. "Before it burnt down, students reported seeing the face of a young girl in one of the windows. I don't know if a spirit is tied to a location, or object," Samson said. There is some speculation that the top floor of Dean Hall, built in 1868, is also haunted, but it is closed, Samson said.
At the Ray Family burial plot in Franklin, the marker for James F Ray, 1847-1929 reads. "He is not dead. He is just away."
