HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
The 1926 residence hall at this Franciscan university near Olean, whose off-limits fifth floor and war-memorial legend of alumnus William J. Cooper anchor the campus ghost lore.
3261 West State Road, St. Bonaventure, NY 14778
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
The campus grounds are free to walk; residence halls are not open to the public.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Walkable campus with paved paths; residence-hall interiors are restricted to students and staff
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1926 · Oldest Franciscan Campus Residence Hall (1926) · Documented Student Folklore Tradition · Closed-Off Fifth Floor · War-Memorial Legend of William J. Cooper
St. Bonaventure University, a Franciscan college near Olean in western New York, has a campus whose older buildings have accumulated decades of student folklore. Devereux Hall, completed in 1926, is among the oldest structures on the grounds and served generations of students as a residence hall.
The building's fifth floor, which once held student rooms and common space for campus clubs, has been closed off. The university's own archived student pages catalog Devereux as the largest single source of myth and legend on campus, grouping its stories into a handful of recurring legends. Among the named figures attached to the building is alumnus William J. Cooper, identified in those archives as a World War II veteran whose name appears on a campus war memorial.
The bell tower associated with the campus is said to have been relocated from the former Lynch Hall, now De La Roche, following a fire in 1933. The university maintains the archived ghost pages as a record of student tradition rather than as a paranormal claim, and the stories are passed down primarily through residents of the hall.
As a working university, St. Bonaventure does not open its residence halls to the public, and the lore is best understood as living campus folklore documented by students and the student newspaper rather than as a commercial attraction.
Sources
The legends of Devereux Hall cluster around its sealed fifth floor. Students living on the fourth floor have reported hearing footsteps through the night and water running with no apparent source. The university's archived student pages group the building's stories into a few recurring legends, the best-known involving the fifth floor, a figure named William J. Cooper, and a set of third-floor tales.
The fifth-floor lore holds that a 'black mass' was supposedly performed there long ago, and the student newspaper has reported that a friar, Fr. Alphonsus Trabold — a campus figure known for teaching about the supernatural — is said to have performed a blessing or exorcism on the floor, after which it was described as never quite the same. One student told the paper of severe nightmares that led her to request a room blessing.
William J. Cooper, identified in the university archives as a World War II veteran, is the subject of a quieter legend: he is said to have returned each year to walk the back wing of Devereux and to view his name on a war memorial outside the hall, where his engraving was described as standing out sharper than the weathered names around it. After campus construction moved the memorial, whether Cooper still walks the halls is left an open question in the archives.
The stories are student tradition, documented by the university itself and by the campus newspaper, rather than the product of formal paranormal investigation.
Notable Entities
Visitors can walk the grounds of this Franciscan university and view Devereux Hall, the 1926 residence hall at the center of the campus ghost lore, from the outside. The hall's fifth floor is closed to students. The dorm interiors are not open to the public.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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