The "The Haunting Image Of Mary Dixon" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Talking with friends at breakfast about the nearby Moravian Church and the buildings that make up the Moravian Church Square in Lititz, Pennsylvania.  

The Lancaster Coin Club featured a commemorative
coin with Linden Hall Chapel on it's face.

One such building at one time served as a hospital during the Revolu- tionary War and was visited by George Washington.  Another small building, the Corpse House, was built to hold the bodies and caskets of those parishioners of the church who died.  The dead were not allowed inside the church proper and thus had to be placed in the Corpse House.  

Exterior of the Mary Dixon Memorial Chapel.

But, the one building that has always been my favorite was the Linden Hall Chapel which was built in 1885.  There are many stories that are told about the chapel, but the one most interesting and haunting is about a young girl whose ghost still seems to wander around the chapel on a daily basis.  Mary Dixon at one time was a student at Linden Hall which happens to be the oldest all-girls school in the country.  Mary was born in 1863 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  At the age of 13 her mother died and her father entered her in Linden Hall.  Six years later the music major returned home to be with her family.  Wasn't long before she fell ill with tuberculosis and died.  Her father, a wealthy businessman, decided to donate the funds to build a memorial chapel to honor his daughter Mary.  

Signage in front of the chapel tells of he history.
Click on images to enlarge.

The $25,000 chapel, completed in 1885 was named the Mary Dixon Memorial Chapel.  It is an example of high Victorian style architecture with a Germanic ambiance.  Seems that Mary is still seen by the girls at the school walking through the chapel as well as the halls of the school.  A few years ago the Vienna Boys Choir presented a concert in Lancaster for the benefit of the Parish Resource Center of Lancaster where my wife worked.  

Carol and I had the chance to usher the boys into the Mary Dixon Memorial Chapel where they were the guests of the Linden Hall girls choir.  The girls sang a few songs for the boys and then the boys did the same for the girls.  The voices echoed throughout the chapel and I'm sure Mary must have been thrilled with the music that was offered that day.  There are other ghosts that seem to inhabit the nooks and crannies around the Moravian Church Square, but perhaps none as interesting as Mary.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.