Georgia's Oldest Private University with a Locked Room and a Lingering Presence
1501 Mercer University Dr, Macon, GA 31207
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Active university campus; open to visitors during public events. Campus grounds generally accessible during daylight hours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved campus walkways
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1833 · Georgia Baptist Education History · Oldest Private University in Georgia · Antebellum Southern Academia
Mercer University traces its founding to January 14, 1833, when Mercer Institute opened in Penfield, Georgia, with 39 students. The school was named for Jesse Mercer, a prominent Baptist minister whose financial endowment — combined with a gift from Josiah Penfield — made the institution possible. It gained university status in 1837 and is recognized as the oldest private university in Georgia.
The university remained in Penfield until 1871, when the decision was made to relocate to Macon, which offered better transportation connections and a larger support community. The Macon campus has been the institution's primary home since.
Boone Hall was completed in 1950 as part of the university's mid-century residential expansion. The building is named for Sallie Goelz Boone, known to generations of students as 'Miss Sallie,' who joined the Mercer faculty in 1904 and served as a librarian, literature professor, and student counselor. Boone Hall now forms part of the Mary Erin Porter Complex, housing primarily female undergraduates.
Sources
The locked room on the top floor of Boone Hall is a physical fact, not just a legend: the space is sealed, its window opaque. Campus accounts collected by the Macon-based community organization Gateway Macon and by WGXA television attribute the closure to a death on that floor — a female student who, the accounts state, died by suicide after being rejected by a sorority.
The second phenomenon associated with the building is exterior and seasonal: during winter, when the campus is less populated and the building's exterior is more starkly visible, students have reported seeing what appears to be a hanging apparition at the center balcony. The figure is described as visible from outside the building rather than from within.
The blacked-out window and locked room contribute to the legend's longevity as a piece of campus oral tradition, providing a physical anchor that most campus ghost accounts lack. Whether the room was sealed specifically in response to the death, for unrelated structural or administrative reasons, or as a consequence of the death's effects on the room's usability is not established in available accounts.
Explore the historic Mercer University campus — founded in 1833 and the oldest private university in Georgia — and view Boone Hall from the exterior. The dormitory's top floor contains a room that has been locked and its window blacked out following a reported suicide. The interior of the residence hall is not accessible to non-resident visitors.
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