Drive-By
Campus Exterior Viewing
View the historic Manor house from the surrounding Franklin Pierce University campus grounds overlooking Pearly Pond. The building interior is restricted to the university community.
- Duration:
- 30 min
No photograph
on file
Est. 1902on file
HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
- 01Apparition of a woman on the stairwell
- 02Phantom piano music
- 03Cold spots and 'strange' sensations on the third floor
- 04Reports of a disembodied head
+ 1 further entry on record
Haunted House / Historic Home
The Manor (Peterson Manor), Franklin Pierce University
A grand 1902 mahogany-tycoon's estate house, now Franklin Pierce University's oldest building, where decades of students and a faculty paranormal investigator have reported a third-floor presence and a ghostly woman on the stairs.
40 University Drive, Rindge, NH 03461
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
No public tours; the Manor is an active university administrative and residential building viewable from campus grounds.
Access
Limited Access
Hilltop campus with sloped lawns overlooking Pearly Pond; gravel and paved walkways.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1902 · Founding building of Franklin Pierce College/University (1962) · Grand estate house of mahogany importer George D. Emory · Former Davard's Manor Inn (1948)
The hill above Pearly Pond in Rindge, New Hampshire has a long documented ownership history. Captain Asa Brewer held several hundred acres there from 1837 to 1853, transferring the land to Zachariah Whitney. In 1902 Whitney's son sold the property to George D. Emory, a wealthy importer of mahogany, who added a grand 'Manor House' and an elegant barn-carriage house for his prize horses on the crest of the slope, building the estate to entertain his guests.
Over the following decades the Manor passed through a series of owners documented by the Franklin Pierce University library: Emory's son inherited it, followed by a Mr. Robinson (a soap-company heir) and a Mr. Lowe, who ran it as an inn catering to literary and intellectual guests. From about 1929 into the 1940s the Boy Scouts of Fitchburg used the grounds as a summer camp, and the actress Alma Monaco, a former George White Scandals dancer, owned it briefly in the late 1940s.
In 1948 the estate became Davard's Manor Inn under Howard and Mrs. Musgrave, operating as a country lodge with a dining room and cottages on roughly 350 acres. In 1962 Frank S. DiPietro purchased the hilltop estate and founded Franklin Pierce College (now Franklin Pierce University), chartered by the New Hampshire legislature on November 14, 1962. The Manor served as the college's first dormitory and dining hall.
The building was renamed Peterson Hall in 2004 to honor President Walter and Dorothy Peterson and is referred to as Peterson Manor today. It has undergone major renovations in 1985, 1989, 1990, and 2000-2003, and over the years has housed the library, a radio station (WFPR), a coffeehouse, and administrative offices. It remains the oldest building on the Rindge campus.
Sources
- https://libguides.franklinpierce.edu/campushistory/peterson-manor
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Pierce_University
- https://www.hauntedplaces.org/item/franklin-pierce-college-the-manor-peterson-hall/
Apparition of a woman on the stairwellPhantom piano musicCold spots and 'strange' sensations on the third floorReports of a disembodied headFigure seen watching from an upper window
The Manor is the centerpiece of paranormal lore at Franklin Pierce University. According to the university's own library history, communications professor Bill Jack conducted controlled investigations of the building in 1997 and 2003, during which participants reported a 'disembodied head,' cold spots, ringing wind chimes, and pronounced 'strange' sensations concentrated on the third floor. These faculty-led investigations are unusual in being documented by the institution itself rather than only by outside ghost-hunting groups.
A separate strand of campus folklore, repeated on paranormal aggregators and in the original Shadowlands Haunted Places submission, holds that the building was once a brothel run by a woman named Edna McGuinness, whose portrait supposedly still hangs in the second-floor stairwell, and that her apparition has been seen on the stairs holding a child, accompanied by a phantom piano and a figure watching from a second-story window toward Pearly Pond. It is important to note that this 'brothel' chapter does not appear anywhere in Franklin Pierce University's detailed, continuous ownership records, which account for the building's use throughout the early twentieth century; 'Edna McGuinness' cannot be independently verified and should be treated as unconfirmed campus folklore rather than documented history.
What is consistent across sources is that the third floor of the Manor has a long-standing reputation among students and staff as the most active part of the building, with reports of footsteps, shadows, and uneasy feelings persisting for decades.
Notable Entities
The woman on the stairs (folklore identifies her as 'Edna McGuinness,' unverified)
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Sources & Further Reading
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Manor (Peterson Manor), Franklin Pierce University family-friendly?
An active college campus with a handsome historic building; pleasant for a daytime exterior walk, but there is no public interior access or attraction-style experience. Overall family fit: Moderate.
How much does it cost to visit The Manor (Peterson Manor), Franklin Pierce University?
No public tours; the Manor is an active university administrative and residential building viewable from campus grounds. This location is free to visit.
Do I need to book in advance?
No advance booking is required, but checking availability is recommended.
Is The Manor (Peterson Manor), Franklin Pierce University wheelchair accessible?
The Manor (Peterson Manor), Franklin Pierce University has limited wheelchair accessibility. Terrain: Hilltop campus with sloped lawns overlooking Pearly Pond; gravel and paved walkways..