1878 memorial library said to be watched over by the woman it was built to honor
30 Library Drive, Bethlehem, PA 18015
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to enter during open hours. As a working university library, public access may be limited during exams or restricted periods; check Lehigh University Libraries hours.
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Wheelchair OK
Multi-level historic library on the hillside Lehigh University campus
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Photos OK
Est. 1878 · Memorial to Lucy Packer Linderman · Designed by Addison Hutton · Lehigh University Founding-Era Architecture
Lehigh University was founded in 1865 by Asa Packer, the railroad magnate behind the Lehigh Valley Railroad. In the 1870s Packer endowed a library for the campus as a memorial to his daughter, Lucy Packer Linderman, who had died not long after her marriage to Garret B. Linderman.
The building opened on April 21, 1878. Architect Addison Hutton designed it on a semi-circular plan with a domed rotunda reading room, an arrangement that drew comparisons to the British Museum's reading room. The $500,000 endowment was substantial for the era and reflected both Packer's wealth and the personal nature of the gift.
The library has been renovated and expanded several times over its long life, including a major restoration in the 2000s that returned the historic rotunda to prominence while modernizing the building's systems. Lehigh's own library exhibits and the student newspaper, The Brown and White, document this history in detail.
Linderman remains an active library and one of the most recognizable buildings on Lehigh's hillside campus. Its combination of Victorian architecture and a memorial origin tied to a young woman's early death has made it a natural anchor for the campus's best-known ghost story.
Sources
The library's central legend ties directly to its origin. Because the building was endowed as a memorial to Lucy Packer Linderman, who died young, students have long said her spirit lingers there. The most repeated version holds that she flickers the lights at the end of each night, a quiet signal that it is time to close.
The second strand of the lore is less specific: the ghost of an elderly man, described as a longtime library patron, said to appear among the stacks. Neither story has any documented event behind it; both are campus folklore that has circulated among generations of Lehigh students and appears in the student newspaper's coverage and in Lehigh Valley News features on the area's haunted buildings.
The legend is gentle by the standards of the genre. It frames Lucy not as a frightening presence but as a kind of caretaker of the room built in her name, which fits the building's history as a memorial. Visitors interested in the story should treat it as university folklore set against a well-documented architectural and family history.
Notable Entities
The 1878 library's domed rotunda and Victorian reading room are among the most striking interior spaces on Lehigh's campus and can be visited during open hours. As an active university library, hours and public access vary; the building is best seen as a self-guided architectural and historical stop rather than a ticketed attraction.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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