1819 Presbyterian College with a Loyal Backstage Ghost
502 E Lamar Alexander Pkwy, Maryville, TN 37804
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Active college campus; open to visitors during public events and theatre productions. Campus grounds generally accessible during daylight hours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved campus walkways
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1819 · Presbyterian Education History · Early American Co-education · Civil Rights Era Integration
Maryville College's founding in 1819 places it among the oldest institutions of higher learning in the American South. Isaac L. Anderson, a Presbyterian minister, established the college to bring formal education to the Tennessee frontier, originally naming it the Southern and Western Theological Seminary. The Tennessee General Assembly formally chartered the institution under its current name in 1842.
The college established a long-standing commitment to inclusion that distinguished it from many Southern institutions — it admitted both male and female students from an early date, and notably enrolled African American students beginning in the 1860s, before being forced by state law to cease integration in 1901. That state prohibition, the Day Law, was not repealed until 1954.
Samuel Tyndale Wilson Chapel was for decades the center of the campus's cultural and religious life, designed by Schweikher & Elting and Barber & McMurry. The chapel also housed the college's drama and theatre program. In 2007, both the Fine Arts Building and Wilson Chapel were demolished to create space for new construction. The theatre program relocated to the Clayton Center for the Arts.
Sources
Lily is the best-documented of Maryville College's several reported presences. According to accounts collected in the campus newspaper the Highland Echo dating to 1993, she worked behind the scenes in the theatre department, always backstage, never on stage — a technical and support role for a woman who wanted more. The story goes that her lover left her for the star of a production, and she remained tied to the theatre even after her death.
She is seen in the catwalks above the stage, wearing the black-and-white dress that was apparently her habitual wardrobe. Students and staff involved in productions reported her over multiple years, consistently describing the same figure in the same location.
The original theatre space — in or near Wilson Chapel — was demolished in 2007. Whether Lily's reported presence migrated to the Clayton Center for the Arts, where the theatre program now operates, is not documented in available sources. Her legend is one of the more specifically characterized campus ghost accounts in the region: not a vague presence or an unnamed figure, but a named woman with a documented role in the institution and a specific, recurring location.
Notable Entities
Explore the historic Maryville College campus, founded in 1819 and one of the oldest colleges in the American South. The original Wilson Chapel was demolished in 2007 to make room for new construction, but the college's active theatre program continues staging productions at the Clayton Center for the Arts, where the tradition of Lily's presence in the catwalks lives on in campus lore.
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