Ghost of Helen Peabody
Throughout most of its existence, Western Female Seminary enjoyed a cordial, if not always warm, relationship with neighboring Miami University. During the nineteenth century in particular, contact between the men and women of the two institutions was strictly controlled by administrators concerned for the moral well-being of their charges.
Western Female Seminary Principal Helen Peabody, an outspoken opponent of coeducation, was especially protective of her students and always suspicious of the Miami men who occasionally, and not always innocently, wandered onto Western property. Ms. Peabody took her convictions to the grave, and it is not hard to imagine how she would have reacted to the sight of Miami men freely roaming the corridors of the Hall that now bears her name.
In fact, it appears that Ms. Peabody may have done far more than merely turn over in her grave. According to some witnesses, her spirit leaves the tomb occasionally to watch over the women of Peabody Hall and to haunt the men who now dare to walk its corridors. Those who have seen her claim that Helen Peabody remains in death, as she was in life, a very formidable woman.
