The House That Became Hill House Anyway: Jennings Hall (Vermont)
About this episode
The episode explores the hauntings of Jennings Hall at Bennington College and its connection to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.
For generations of students at Bennington College, Jennings Hall has been the building you don't want to be inside after midnight. Phantom piano music drifts from locked practice rooms. Footsteps pace empty corridors. Doors slam without wind. And one story claims a terrified professor once fled into the Vermont snow as violent knocking traveled through the mansion toward him. But Jennings has another claim to fame: that the imposing granite estate inspired Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. It's a perfect story. It's also almost certainly wrong. Tonight, we explore the genuine hauntings of Jennings Hall, the strange musical history embedded in its walls, and the surprising collection of psychic researchers, Manhattan architecture, California mansions, and family history that actually helped Shirley Jackson build Hill House.
Topics covered
- hauntings
- history
- Shirley Jackson
- Jennings Hall
- Bennington College
Keywords
- Jennings Hall
- hauntings
- Shirley Jackson
- Bennington College
- Vermont
- ghost stories
- piano music
- psychic researchers
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Bennington College
Books & works: The Haunting of Hill House
Places: Vermont
More episodes of Haunted American History
- The Curse That Erased the Hayden Family: The Hayden House (Vermont)
- The Ghost Story That Changed With The Building : The Everett Mansion (Vermont)
- The Devil's Not on Trial: The Fall River Murders (Massachusetts)
- The Murder Blamed on Witches: Jeannette DePalma (New Jersey)
- The Boy Who Never Made the Bus: Macin Smith (Utah)
- The Haunted House With a Ghost on Staff: Asylum 49 (Utah)
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