St. Michael’s College is located in Colchester, VT. It’s one of those colleges you drive by all the time and admire the beauty of the historic buildings. Seemingly, a picture perfect campus with a typical Vermont look and appeal. But are there strange things going on behind locked doors?
Saint Michael’s College, known locally as “St. Mike’s”, sits in Colchester, just outside Burlington. It is one of those campuses you drive past and admire, with handsome historic buildings and a classic Vermont look. But students have been telling stories about the place for decades, and some of them involve locked doors.
St. Mike’s May Have Ghostly Inhabitants
Founded in 1904 by priests of the Society of St. Edmund, the college has collected a long list of campus legends: a friendly nun who haunts a theater, a bell that rang with no bell to ring it, rumors of a restless presence in the oldest building, and a story of students dabbling in the occult in a dormitory attic. None of it is proven, and some of it contradicts itself, but it is a good set of stories.
The Herrouet Theater and Sister Sarah
On North Campus, on the grounds of the old Fort Ethan Allen, stands the Herrouet Theater. The federal government built it in 1933 for the entertainment of soldiers. The college bought much of the fort after the army base closed in 1960, and students later used the theater for films and plays. Today it is used mostly for storage and building props.
Campus legend says it is haunted by a nun known as Sister Sarah (Seven Days spells it “Sara”). According to a student-paper account, she worked at the college until her death in the late 1950s. Students say she has been seen smiling from the audience seats, and that props move or vanish. When productions moved to the McCarthy Arts Center, Sister Sarah is said to have followed. One alumna described seeing an older woman backstage during tech week for a production of Crimes of the Heart; the woman smiled, disappeared, and reappeared outside before vanishing again.
Despite the stories of disappearing props, every account describes Sister Sarah as friendly. Seven Days says she lingers out of love for the theater, and actor Rusty DeWees, who performed there with Vermont Rep, described the presence as joyful.
The Chapel and the Phantom Bell
Beside the theater stands a chapel built in 1941. The Edmundite order supplied chaplains to the army base, but the college itself never used the building for worship. Vermont Rep staged plays there through the 1980s, including David Budbill’s Judevine, and left in 1990. It is now used mostly for storage. People walking between the chapel and the theater often say they feel watched, even in daylight.
The best-known story is about a fire. As campus legend has it, the Herrouet Theater was saved from a fire in 1978 when Sister Sarah rang a phantom bell that woke the students who raised the alarm. No one has ever found a bell that could have made the sound.
Founders Hall
Founders Hall was the college’s first building, put up in 1903–1904 by the Edmundites by renovating an old barn on farmland they had bought. At first it held classrooms, a dining hall, a gym, and dorm rooms. Later it served as a residence hall and then as administration offices. It closed around 2019, and demolition began in the spring of 2021. The cupola was saved and the site is slated to become green space.
Over the decades the building collected its share of ghost rumors. One alumnus recalled a story that a girl had died in one of the rooms and haunted it. Staff members who worked on the third and fourth floors said it was “a little creepy up there.” Because the building was so old, he said, there was never a shortage of haunted-room rumors.
Other Spooky Spots
Recent students have added their own stories. One theater student said the stage lights cycled through cues by themselves while she painted the booth, which she credited to Sister Sarah. Another said the theater shop light switched on without warning. A student in Joyce Hall reported using a pendulum on the fourth floor and sensing a friendly presence.
The Joyce Hall Attic and the Occult Rumor
The most unsettling legend dates to the early 1970s. In the version told by Vermont author Joe Citro, a group of students climbed into a dormitory attic at night, drew a pentagram on the floor, and lit a candle at each point. A visiting outsider is said to have encouraged them. A resident assistant later saw students and others chanting around the pentagram by candlelight. A few weeks later, over the Christmas break when the dorm was closed, the group returned, and the assistant reportedly found a mutilated sheep at the center of the circle.
Those involved were expelled, according to the story, and the priests removed the pentagram, sprinkled holy water, and prayed in what Citro calls, “if not an actual exorcism, at least a cleansing ritual.” The attic door was locked. Some say the intruders were trying to summon something; others say they were trying to close a portal. Citro does not name the dorm in his commentary, and the attribution of the story to Joyce Hall comes from campus lore. Residents of the upper floor have long reported footsteps and odd lights, and some insist the pentagram can still be seen. Citro ends with the only fair conclusion: “Who can say for sure?”
For more campus and statewide legends, see Joe Citro’s books, including The Vermont Ghost Guide (2000).
Joseph A. Citro has written extensively about Vermont folklore, ghosts, legends, strange history, and the unexplained.
