A New Bloomfield military boarding school founded in 1836 and closed in 2018, long known as the nation's oldest continuously operating military academy, with cadet ghost lore centered on its Chapel and the 1840 Maples building.
200 N Carlisle Street, New Bloomfield, PA 17068
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
The academy permanently closed in June 2018. The former campus sits in the borough of New Bloomfield; there is no public tour or interior access. View the historic buildings from public streets only.
Access
Limited Access
Hilltop campus on N Carlisle Street; sidewalks and grounds vary. Buildings are not open to the public.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1840 · Founded in 1836 as Bloomfield Academy; relocated to its hilltop site in 1840 · Long promoted as the oldest continuously operating U.S. military boarding school · Renamed Carson Long Institute in 1914 by Theodore K. Long in memory of his son William Carson Long · Permanently closed in June 2018 after more than 180 years
Carson Long Military Institute traces its origins to Bloomfield Academy, founded in 1836 by Robert Finley as a Latin grammar school in New Bloomfield, the seat of Perry County, Pennsylvania. The school began with only six students. In 1840 it relocated two blocks up the hill to its present site, where the first building was constructed that same year; that structure survived to serve as the school's reception hall and museum, known on campus as The Maples.
In 1914 the academy was purchased by Theodore K. Long, a graduate of Bloomfield Academy and Yale who had become a prominent Chicago lawyer and city councilman. Long renamed the school Carson Long Institute as a living memorial to his son, William Carson Long, who had died at an early age in a logging accident. Under the Long family the school developed into a military boarding academy, providing mandatory military training for boys in grades six through twelve.
For much of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Carson Long was promoted as the oldest continuously operating military boarding school and college-preparatory academy in the United States. Generations of cadets passed through its hilltop campus at 200 N Carlisle Street.
In the summer of 2018 the school's governing body announced that, owing to insufficient enrollment, Carson Long would not reopen for the 2018-2019 academic year, ending more than 180 years of operation. The historic buildings, including the 1840 Maples and the campus chapel, remain in the borough of New Bloomfield.
Sources
Carson Long's ghost stories were passed down among cadets for decades and were collected by the Pennsylvania Haunts & History project, among other regional sources. The most frequently retold legends center on two campus buildings.
The Chapel is the focus of the best-known account. A former cadet from the mid-1980s described to Pennsylvania Haunts & History that an old piano in the building's basement would sometimes seem to start playing on its own during activities. Cadet tradition also attaches a ghost story to a portrait of a former school head, Colonel Edward Holman, that hung in the Chapel: students said the painting's eyes appeared to follow people around the room, and the figure was nicknamed for a pair of glowing 'red eyes.' These details are folklore rather than documented fact, and HauntBound presents the Holman connection only as the legend cadets told, not as a claim about the man himself.
The Maples -- the 1840 building used as a reception hall and museum -- carries its own stories. Cadets and visitors have reported seeing a pale figure looking out of the bay window, hearing voices, and witnessing doors opening and closing or museum exhibits being moved. According to an anonymous Shadowlands submission, one student claimed to see his trunk slide across the floor of his room, and an instructor reported hearing laughter coming from The Maples when the building was empty.
As with most campus ghost lore, these reports are anecdotal, and a former school president publicly denied any hauntings or that any student ever died on campus. The site is presented here as a closed historic academy with a documented body of student folklore rather than a currently operating attraction.
Notable Entities
View the historic buildings of the former Carson Long Military Institute from public streets in New Bloomfield, including the 1840 reception hall and museum building known as The Maples. The academy closed in 2018 and there is no interior access.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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