HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Italian stonemasons who dug the Rockefeller College foundation in the 1910s reportedly unearthed FitzRandolph family skeletons, which were interred in the archway wall — residents in rooms above the arch have reported furniture moving and paintings shifting on their own.
203 Madison Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Princeton University campus is open to visitors during normal hours. No admission charge to walk the campus.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved campus paths. The exterior of the archway and quadrangle are accessible; the residential interior is not open to visitors.
Equipment
Photos OK
Built over FitzRandolph family cemetery — earliest Princeton landowner family · Skeletal remains reportedly reinterred in archway wall during construction · Named for John D. Rockefeller III · Princeton residential college with documented paranormal accounts among students
The FitzRandolph family is woven into Princeton's earliest institutional history. Nathaniel FitzRandolph donated the land on which Nassau Hall stands — the first and oldest building on the Princeton campus, completed in 1756. The family maintained a presence in the area across generations, and a family burial plot occupied land on the northwestern edge of the campus.
When construction began on Rockefeller College, Italian stonemasons excavating the foundation reportedly uncovered skeletal remains from this FitzRandolph burial ground. The discovery posed an immediate problem: the construction was already underway, and relocating remains off-site would have been both logistically complex and, in the early 20th century, not necessarily the default solution. The reported resolution was to inter the remains in the wall of the archway that forms the main entrance to the residential quadrangle.
The college was named for John D. Rockefeller III, who contributed substantially to Princeton University. 'Rocky,' as it is known among students, sits in the northwestern portion of campus and houses undergraduate students in a residential quad configuration. The archway itself is a prominent architectural feature — a passage that students use daily — making the reported presence of the reinterred remains both architecturally central and, in the context of the haunted accounts, immediately legible.
Sources
The ghost reports at Rockefeller College are architecturally specific: the affected rooms are those directly above the archway in which the FitzRandolph skeletal remains were placed. This specificity — a named location within the building tied to a documented physical fact (the construction discovery of remains) — distinguishes the account from diffuse campus ghost lore.
The documented reports come from a student couple who lived in rooms above the arch. They reported that a couch and a painting in their room would move without anyone touching them — the furniture found in different positions, the painting on the wall shifted from where it had been placed. The accounts were apparently independent in the sense that both residents observed the phenomena.
The Princeton ghost tour circuit includes Rockefeller as a stop, with guides pointing out the archway and recounting both the construction history and the student accounts. Princeton Magazine's documentation of the city's top haunted locations includes Rocky in its list, citing the cemetery discovery and the student ghost reports as the core of the building's paranormal reputation.
Notable Entities
Rockefeller College appears on Princeton ghost tours as the site of documented FitzRandolph family cemetery remains discovered during construction. Visitors can see the archway where the reinterred skeletal remains were placed in the wall. The tour covers the building's history and the ghost reports from students who lived in rooms above the arch. Princeton campus is accessible to visitors during daylight hours.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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