Guilford College is known throughout Greensboro as being spiritual. Whether that be for their Quaker roots and values or for the presence of something supernatural, there is no doubt that something makes the campus special. Students, staff, and faculty a like have had experiences and have heard the stories. This is a comprehensive page of those tales and the history behind them. For a list of these events view the timeline at the bottom of the page.
Lucas
In 2016, the Greensboro Library, with assistance from the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, compiled a list of some of the documented soldiers who fought and/or died in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse (“Guilford Battle,” 2012). There is no “Lucas” in the list of documented dead– but there is a “Lewis.”
One name is featured and again throughout many of the aforementioned articles detailing Guilford’s hauntings: Frank Massey. A former interfaith coordinator, now a part-time lecturer in the Religious Studies department, Frank generally is, and indeed was, in our case, the go-to name for information regarding Guilford ghosts.
In an interview with Frank, cross-legged in the grass outside of Dana, he detailed a primary rule in dealing with spirits: “For the most part when I talk about this, I use the word spirit as opposed to ghost…. ‘Ghost’ has a negative connotation.” When interacting with these spirits, the goal is to “be in relationship with them, to talk to them.” Frank exhibited this belief during the interview, in addressing the spirits evidently watching us from the steps of the auditorium. “Okay another one– here, as of right now, there’s a little girl up on the steps right here, leaning up against the second column.” Frank pointed at what was, to us, empty space. And a few minutes later, in describing Dana’s ‘paranormal’ inhabitants: “This little girl can get a little nasty at times, the one here on the– excuse me, you do have an attitude at times!” (addressing the spirit). “She’s very protective and so she’s made fun of, yadda yadda, so she’s a little nasty.”
Many spirits are here, according to Frank, to help the students– “When you start working with spirits, you can’t see only the good spirits– there’s good and there’s not so good; there’s good and then there’s really not good.”
It is essential to acknowledge that the common skeptic may lose interest here. Regardless of one’s belief in living image, Casper-esque “ghosts,” it is undeniable that, at the very least, the belief exists. These beliefs represent cultural fear, the intrigue of the “paranormal,” the lust of thrill. However, many stories, again, beg to be true.
For example– Frank also told of several living in the quad outside of Guilford’s art building. At the time of the conversation (October 5, 2018), there was parked in the grass a large trailer, a “chicken coop on wheels,” intended to advertise the prophesied growth of the Guilford Farm at a recent campus event.
“Outside, about fifty feet out from Hege Cox, there’s a little Native American encampment. Somewhere between four and six– it’s almost like a family unit…. I’ve had a lot of conversations with them, and they don’t appreciate the invasion of that trailer there. Now, whatever that thing is, they don’t really appreciate it, there was no asking for permission to bring it in there. And so it’s sitting right there, right on top of their encampment. Okay i’m getting really weird….”
Then, about a week later, Hurricane Michael broke land in Greensboro, cancelling classes and tormenting Guilford for a long weekend. Only two trees were felled by the storm– one, ancient, dead, and understandable, near the library; the other, ancient yet alive, thick and thriving, by Hege-Cox, utterly destroying the chicken coop on wheels that had constantly harassed the spirits reportedly living there.
Some of the most intriguing information Frank offered was first provided as a minor detail. In telling us of the spirits in Dana, Frank stated, “There are four: Lucas, the one upstairs– Lucas doesn’t sound right, but anyway, he’s willing to go buy Lucas….” (Frank went on to describe Lucas and three little girls, not two, as commonly believed: the little girl on the steps, who has a temper, a little girl on the stage, a “typical spirit,” i.e. “very shy and it’s hard to see her,” and a little girl in the choir room).
This passing comment, the ambiguity of Lucas’ name, later served to solidify our research into the ‘true’ identity of Lucas, the original life and legend that birthed the spirit.
Greensboro Library’s compiled list of soldiers in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse held but one name resembling “Lucas”– Lewis Ricks.
Lewis Ricks was born in 1741 in Nansemond County, Virginia. According to a book of family genealogy compiled by Guy Scoby Rix in 1908, based off of research by Joel Ricks from 1893 and 1896, one of the earliest known ancestors of the Ricks family was Quaker. Isaac Ricks (then spelled Rickesis), born in England in 1638, settled in Warrasguyeake, Virginia (what later became Nansemond County), a land “peopled largely by Puritans and Quakers.” Isaac Ricks “was a Quaker, and was a member of the Quaker Church.” Furthermore, descendants Abraham and Robert Ricks “built a Quaker Meeting house on the Western branch of the Nansemond River, and were paid 32,000 pounds of Tobb (Tobacco) which was the medium of exchange,” (Rix, 1908).
Lewis Ricks’ parents were Benjamin Ricks and Patience Helty. Of Benjamin, Guy Rix writes: “He had good property [400 acres], but was not wealthy,” (Rix, 1908). Lewis was the third oldest of thirteen children.
In 1768 or ‘69 (the exact date was lost), Lewis Ricks married Nancy Ann Joiner, and over the next decade they had four children: Charity, born October 13, 1770, who had three children; Jonathan, born February 18, 1772, who had five children; Mourning, born October 26, 1776; and Michil, born September 17, 1778. Later, “Lewis was drafted into Army of the Revolution, and it is supposed he was killed at the battle of Guilford Court House Mar. 15, 1781,” (Rix, 1908.
The battle itself “proved pivotal to the American Victory in the Revolutionary War” (History.com). British troops, under General Charles Cornwallis, numbering roughly 1,900, faced off against some 4,400 Americans, led by Nathanael Greene. The fighting lasted about two hours and ended with American retreat, although Greene’s troops, not drastically diminished, managed to kill, wound, or capture around a fourth of the British. This great casualty supposedly resulted in Cornwallis’ abandonment of his campaign in the Carolinas and led him into Virginia, where he was forced to surrender weeks later.
The great battle, however, was a few hours preceded by a smaller one, left nameless and overlooked until 1977 when Guilford alumnus and long-time professor Algie I. Newlin dubbed the conflict “The Battle of New Garden,” and produced a book by the same name, subtitled “The little known story of one of the most important “minor battles” of the Revolutionary War.” It began around sunrise, when British scouts spotted American soldiers near New Garden Meeting House. Soon after, German troops joined the British and for around three hours a series of clashes and skirmishes were fought along New Garden road.
The death of Lewis Ricks is somewhat vague. All accounts cite that he did indeed perish close by on the Ides of March, 1741, but nowhere states which battle. Or, for that manner, the precise wounds he suffered that brought on his demise. All we are left with is an eerily picturesque description of the scene by his brother, William, retold here by Guy Scoby Rix:
“He [Lewis] was a Quaker and did not believe in shedding human blood, and it was said by his brother William, who was in the battle with him, that he stuck his gun into the ground and went into the battle without his arms, and that was the last seen of him by his brother.” (Rix, 34).
“He stuck his gun into the ground and went into the battle without his arms, and that was the last seen of him by his brother.”
Guy Scoby Rix, Genealogy. 1908
Yet again, the details of this story beg for the myth to be true– a man with a name similar to that of the modern lore, the absolute Quaker in life and (especially) death, now haunting the site of his last battle, providing guidance to young Quaker students finding their paths…
But this could only be the case if Lewis Ricks indeed fought in the Battle of New Garden, not the Battle of Guilford Courthouse– for his death to mark the site of his “haunting,” he must have had to perish during the initial battle. However, these two were often lumped together– prior to Newlin’s 1977 publication, “It [had] never received the attention which it deserves in the general history of North Carolina or in the history of the Revolutionary War in that state; nor [had] it ever been honored with a name,” (Newlin, 1977). Lewis easily could have been killed in the Battle of New Garden without it being known, as it was included in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse until the past few decades.
And, as far as Dana Auditorium being built on the site of a field hospital– maybe! Dana Auditorium (or the land on which it would be built) was in the general vicinity of the violence. After the Battle of New Garden, the horrified Quaker community was left to tend to the injured and dying– New Garden Meeting House was converted to a hospital and several of the family homes nearby took people in (Newlin, 1977).
Although no clear documentation of these homes exists, Newlin says, “The two-story log house which stood near the Cross Roads has been referred to as a hospital for the wounded and is reputed to have been filled with casualties from the battle at that place,” (Newlin, 1977). Although the “Cross Roads” marked on the map (see image left) is up the road from today’s Dana Auditorium, located today at the intersection of Ballinger road, Fleming road, and the curve of New Garden (ironically making Eagle Medicine the approximate modern-day location of this log house hospital), the point still stands: these houses were frequent, and their locations not exact.
Of the aftermath of the battle, Newlin writes:
“As the Battle of New Garden shifted from one place to another the two contending military forces left their dead and seriously wounded lying where they fell. The grounds around New Garden Meetinghouse and at the Cross Roads must have been grim pictures after the fighting ended and the two forces had moved on to the next scene of conflict. Many dead and seriously wounded were scattered over these grounds.” (Newlin, ‘77).
Perhaps needless to say, fields of dead and dying do not an un-haunted campus make.
Addison Coffin, Levi Coffin’s cousin, wrote that, in 1830:
“[people who had] taken part in the battle of in burying the dead and caring for the wounded pointed out mounds in the burial ground at New Garden that contained 21 bodies of the wounded who died in the old meetinghouse, from the battle near by, and the pit near Tate’s grave, in the woods, had 20 of the dead buried in it, while the Hessians were buried in the open field where they fell, like animals,” (Coffin, 1892).
Furthermore, Newlin goes on to state that:
“During the past twenty-five years, gravediggers have found parts of human skeletons while digging graves in the New Garden cemetery. Two of these were near the east border of the present graveyard, and one was on the gently sloping hillside above the northwest corner of the cemetery. These parts of the present cemetery were in the woods adjoining the graveyard in 1781.” (Newlin, 1977, 52)
This all said, aside from the ambiguity of Dana’s previous purpose as a field hospital, is it really that much of a stretch for the spirit occupying the current campus to have died there? Practically a stone’s throw away, random, unmarked bodies were discovered not too far in the past. And, if “Hessians,” or Germans, were buried “in the open field where they fell,” couldn’t Lewis Ricks have easily been mixed up among them?
Butler, Lindley S. “New Garden, Battle of.” Weapons in the War of 1812 | NCpedia. 2006. Accessed November 30, 2018. https://www.ncpedia.org/new-garden-battle.
Coffin, Addison. “Battle of Guilford Courthouse.” The Guilford Collegian 4, No. 6 (February 1892): 137
“Guilford Battle List R-Z.” Wake County NCGenWeb. December 03, 2012. Accessed November 30, 2018. https://ncgenweb.us/nc/guilford/guilford-battle-list-r-z/.
History.com. Accessed November 30, 2018. https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/battle-of-guilford-courthouse.
Newlin, Algie I. The Battle of New Garden. Greensboro, NC: North Carolina Friends Historical Society, North Carolina Yearly Meeting, 1977.
Rix, Guy Scoby. History and Genealogy of the Ricks Family of America. Salt Lake City: Skelton Publishing co., 1908
Page written and created by Ana H., Caroline W., and Joseph P.
