HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
The gazebo and iron cross that outlasted St. Mary's College seminary ruins in Patapsco Valley State Park.
Buzzard Rock Trail spur off S Hilltop Road, Patapsco Valley State Park, Ellicott City, MD 21043
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Patapsco Valley State Park charges a day-use fee (per vehicle on weekdays, per person on weekends and holidays). No separate fee applies to the ruins themselves.
Access
Limited Access
Wooded hillside above the Patapsco River, reached by an unofficial spur off the Buzzard Rock Trail with a steep, uneven stone staircase. Not a maintained or ADA path.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1868 · Redemptorist Catholic seminary, 1868-1972 · Absorbed into Patapsco Valley State Park, 1987 · One of the few surviving 19th-century seminary sites in the Baltimore region
The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, commonly known as the Redemptorists, opened St. Mary's College in 1868 on land purchased from the Ellicott family above the Patapsco River near Ilchester, Maryland. The five-story Italian Renaissance-style seminary building sat atop a granite cliff, with a chapel, classrooms, and terraced grounds laid out with fourteen pavilions representing the Stations of the Cross. Enrollment grew from 19 students at founding to close to 150 by the 1930s, training young men through a six-year course toward ordination.
The seminary closed in 1972 as enrollment declined nationally in Catholic religious orders, and the Redemptorists relocated their novitiate operations to Wisconsin. Two redevelopment proposals in the years that followed — luxury apartments in 1979 and a non-denominational monastery in 1983 — both fell through, leaving the campus vacant and exposed to vandalism through the 1980s and 1990s.
Maryland's Department of Natural Resources purchased roughly 77 acres of the property in 1987, absorbing it into Patapsco Valley State Park. An arson fire on Halloween night, 1996, gutted the main seminary building; a second fire followed the next year. The remaining structure was fully demolished by 2006. What's left today is scattered stone and masonry, a hillside foundation, and a small gazebo with a surviving iron cross that gives the site its popular name, Hell House Altar.
Sources
"Hell House" is the name that stuck to St. Mary's College during the roughly three decades between its 1972 closure and the final demolition of its ruins. Rumors from that period describe satanic rituals and animal sacrifice supposedly conducted among the buildings, sometimes tied to the surviving gazebo structure and its iron cross over what looks like an altar base — the detail that gives the site its formal name here. Coverage in the Baltimore Sun and elsewhere treats these stories as local folklore rather than documented events; no police record, court case, or verified account ties the site to an actual satanic group, and area journalists have called the rumors unfounded more than once.
What visitors report today is less dramatic: footsteps echoing on the remaining stone stairs, unexplained cold spots around the foundation, and the general unease that comes with a graffiti-covered ruin at the edge of a state park. None of this rises above the level of visitor anecdote, and no formal paranormal investigation of the site is on record. The seminary's actual history — a working Catholic school for over a century — has largely been overshadowed by the abandonment-era nickname and the rumors that came with it.
The Buzzard Rock Trail off S Hilltop Road leads to an unmarked spur climbing toward the former seminary grounds. What remains is scattered masonry, foundation walls, and a small gazebo structure with a surviving iron cross over an altar-like base — the feature that gives the site its name. The trail is steep in places, the ruins carry heavy graffiti, and broken glass is common underfoot, so sturdy shoes are worth it.
Some links on this page may earn HauntBound a small commission when you book, at no extra cost to you. Our editorial picks are independent. Full disclosure
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Free Guide
9 verified stops, rated for families, mapped in order. Free.
One email to confirm, then the guide link. Unsubscribe anytime.
Maribel, WI
The Maribel Caves Hotel was a limestone mineral-springs resort built in 1900 near Maribel in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. Developed by Father Francis X. Steinbrecher around the natural springs and caves on the family property, it drew well-to-do guests from Milwaukee and Chicago before declining into a tavern and eventually a fire-gutted, storm-collapsed ruin.
Tucson, AZ
El Tiradito has marked a corner of Tucson's Barrio Viejo since at least the 1870s, associated with folk legends of a man killed there and buried on the spot. The city deeded the lot to preserve the shrine in 1927, and in November 1971 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places — the only shrine in the U.S. dedicated to a sinner, not a saint.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPLongmont, CO
Constructed in 1897, the building initially housed the Milo G. Rice Undertaking firm, with a working mortuary in the basement accessed by a street-level chute used to slide bodies down from the sidewalk. The chute has since been concreted over.