Bowdoin's old medical building, where a 2007 renovation turned up a coffin lid in the subfloor
9 Bowdoin College Station, Brunswick, ME 04011
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
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Free
Bowdoin's campus grounds are open to the public at no charge; Adams Hall is an academic building with classroom and office use.
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Wheelchair OK
Campus quad with paved walks; multi-story historic academic building
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Est. 1861 · Medical School of Maine 1820-1920 · 19th-Century Anatomical Education · 2007 Coffin-Lid Discovery · Bowdoin College Campus Landmark
Adams Hall stands on the main quadrangle of Bowdoin College in Brunswick. The Medical School of Maine, a degree-granting medical college affiliated with Bowdoin, was founded in 1820 and moved into Adams Hall in 1862. The school trained physicians there until it closed in 1920, after a century of operation.
Medical education of that era depended on cadaver dissection, and Bowdoin's records and later reporting describe how bodies were obtained. According to coverage by the Bowdoin Orient and the college's own history, many cadavers were shipped in from out of state, including Maryland, where grave-robbing laws were loosely enforced at the time. The building retained physical traces of this work: basement alcoves used in handling remains and a black iron hook in the upper stairwell used to hoist bodies between floors.
The most striking discovery came during a 2007 renovation. Workers pulling up flooring on an upper level found that some of the boards were coffin lids, reused as cheap building material when the hall was fitted out for the medical school. The college's 2020 retrospective, marking a century since the school's closure, recounts the same coffin-lid find.
Bowdoin College itself, founded in 1794, counts figures such as Joshua L. Chamberlain among its faculty and presidents. Adams Hall remains an active academic building on campus.
Sources
Adams Hall is the most often cited haunted building on the Bowdoin campus, a reputation rooted directly in its medical-school past. The Bowdoin Orient and NewsCenter Maine have both reported student accounts of unexplained activity inside.
In one recurring account, a student studying alone in the Adams basement saw a shadowy figure that disappeared when she moved toward it. In another, a group of students preparing for a math exam reported seeing a wispy blue-green light that faded before they could examine it. The basement, with its former cadaver alcoves and the surviving hoist hook in the stairwell, is the focus of most of the stories.
The building's physical reminders of its anatomical history, the alcoves, the iron hook, and the coffin lids found in 2007, give the lore an unusually concrete anchor compared with most campus ghost stories. The accounts have been collected by student journalists, regional television, and David Francis's 'Haunted Bowdoin Tour,' which devotes a stop to Adams Hall. The reports are atmospheric, with no claim of harm, and treat the building as a place where its grim working history left a lingering impression.
Media Appearances
Walk Bowdoin's main quad and view Adams Hall, which housed the Medical School of Maine from the 1860s until 1920. The grounds are open to the public; the building's interior is an active academic space with classrooms and offices.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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