McKenzie College Is Haunted!

It's the site of a bloody massacre! Bloody handprints can still be seen on the ceiling!

This blurry Polaroid, taken long before the days of Kodak Easyshare, shows a building at the site of McKenzie College. This structure burned to the ground in the 1990's.

McKenzie College, a long defunct institution of higher learning, was located three miles southwest of Clarksville, in Red River County, Texas. Today the site boasts a marker from the Texas Historical Commission, but little remains to indicate what a great school once existed at that place. When I was child, a building or two of the old campus still stood. One succumbed to fire in the 1990's. The other may yet stand.

The marker on the site of the old college is actually a medallion. In the nearby McKenzie Cemetery is another marker, the text of which notes:

I distinctly remember hearing, in my younger days, of how "Indians" had attacked McKenzie College and slain the students and faculty. For some reason, some of the victims were hanged by the hands on the front porches of the buildings. It was also claimed that the perpetrators (in some twisted, ingenious way) tied some of their victims to the ceilings of the buildings in such a way that the outline of their bloody handprints could be clearly seen on the ceiling. How this was done has never been made clear, but this unique feature of the murders became the centerpiece of a ghostly legend.

Buildings once stood in the trees just beyond this iron gate.

At certain times, it was said, anyone who was brave or adventurous enough (foolish enough?) to creep up to one of the surviving buildings and peer through a window would see these bloody handprints - which incidentally had been painted over many times - appear on the ceiling and begin to drip blood!¹ On a few occasions it was even claimed that the dangling bodies of victims could be seen hanging from the porches! In short, the claim appears to be that at least some of the victims and the handprints of others would appear as phantoms to mark the scene of a hideous massacre.

The old college site lies down County Road 1287 in Red River County, Texas. The road is about a mile long and at one point it is not navigable in rainy weather.

As usual, and as I had suspected, historical sources unanimously fail to mention any so-called "Indian massacre" at McKenzie College. The truth is much more mundane: the college operated from 1841-1869 (some sources say 1868) when it became financially impossible for the owners to keep it open. On June 25, 1868 (or 69), Reverend McKenzie, whose full name was John Witherspoon Pettigrew McKenzie (ca 1806-1881)² closed the school permanently. McKenzie College does not appear to have ever fallen victim to Indian raiders - or any other raiders, for that matter. It did fall victim to lack of money.

McKenzie Institute was a very successful school and for many years it was the largest college in Texas. At one time, all the Methodist ministers in Texas were trained in its facilities. Reverend McKenzie was called "the Old Master" by his students. In addition to secular classes, the college also held required chapel classes, Bible study, and 4 A.M. prayer sessions. Both B.A. and M.A. degrees were granted in 1860.

¹A similar tale is told of the Wheelock Academy near Millerton, Oklahoma, which itself was an Indian school. It seems as though abandoned buildings will invariably provoke such tales.
²Sources disagree on the exact dates of both the Reverend's birth and death.

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