Chapel Hill landmark haunts Franklin Street

A nighttime visit to the Horace Williams House might leave the impression some of its previous tenants never quite moved out.

The residence is a historical landmark on Franklin Street, constructed as a simple farmhouse in the 1840s. First purchased and renovated by a UNC professor in 1855, it has been tied to the history of the University ever since.

As years have gone by, its legacy has grown. Rumors of the house being haunted have also grown.

Ernest Dollar, the executive director of the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill, has become familiar with these rumors since he began working at the house in 2007.

“It all started in 1953,” he said. “A lady who lived at the house named Catherine Berryhill wrote a letter to the new inhabitants of the house, giving them information. And at the very end, she wrote

‘…And don’t let me forget to tell you about the ghost.’”

Berryhill, who grew up in the house, is generally credited with the first ghost stories surrounding it. As a child, she claimed a ghost visited her bedroom at night and conversed with her.

In her mind, she said, it was the ghost of Horace Williams, a UNC philosophy professor and the previous tenant of the house from 1897 until his death in 1940.

Fred Weaver lived in the house after Berryhill. He and his wife also said they believed the ghost of Williams inhabited the home.

“It seemed that his study creaked a lot,” Weaver said in 1974 to the Chapel Hill Newspaper. “We always used to say that Horace walked at night.”

The legends continued to grow and be passed down by various tenants until the preservation society acquired the house in 1973. Since then, other strange occurrences have gotten the attention of many visitors.

“There are numerous accounts of things being moved around and voices being heard in empty parts of the house,” Dollar said. “We often hear a knock at the door, and when we go to greet visitors, no one is there.”

With so many stories swirling around, the Horace Williams House has gained the attention of ghost hunters and paranormal investigation groups.

Dollar joined an investigation conducted by Triangle Paranormal Investigations in October 2007 in an attempt to prove or disprove the haunted theories.

Armed with audio and visual monitoring equipment, the team observed the house late at night. When an investigator asked, “Do you have a name?,” photographs were taken of an orb seemingly generating its own light.

A camera was set up in the parlor room to monitor activities, but shortly after it was turned on, the team noticed that the battery was drained and the power was off.

“Things like that have happened before,” Dollar said. “Electronics in the parlor room just seem to stop working.”

And these occurrences haven’t just been limited to the team of investigators.

“Just recently we got a visit from a little old lady who claimed she was sensitive to the paranormal,” said Sherril Koroluk, the assistant to the director of the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill. “She wanted to walk around the house to see what happened.”

Koroluk followed the woman through the house. Nothing happened until she reached Catherine Berryhill’s former bedroom.

“As she entered the doorway, she stopped and stood still,” Koroluk said. “I saw every hair on her arm stand straight up.”

Whether or not he believes the house is haunted, Dollar said he understands the obsession people have with the supernatural and why it draws them to the house.

“I think people see this old house, realize that someone lived here, then hear these stories,” he said. “They want to believe it’s haunted. Maybe it is.”



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