5- "HAM" and "JAM" On The MARY BALDWIN COLLEGE CAMPUS In STAUNTON!.....

A) Staunton...in the "Queen City of the Shenandoah Valley"
B) "Ham and Jam"....and who they were? Which MBC dorm is haunted and originally was a hospital, with one dorm room being the old operating room? Is there a secret natural cave tunnel from the campus to past the old railroad depot in downtown Staunton? And what did Julia Baldwin, founder, do during the Civil War when the Yankee soldiers invaded the campus?
C) "Ham and Ham" are the two large statues of dogs at the top of the steep stairs to Old Main. Tale is...they are supposed to bark whenever a coed virgin walks by. They have yet to bark...some say.
D) There is a dorm along Frederick Street in front of the main campus that originally was the town hospital, with the operating room converted to coed rooms. For years, stories have abounded of strange "suffering" sounds and even muffled screams coming from that area of the old dorm.
E) There IS a cave that runs from Sears Hill down under the RR tracks and up towards the College. I found the entrance up on Sears Hill and talked wth old-timers who shared their experiences, as children, of going into that tunnel on Sears Hill before it was sealed by the police! They also claimed that the tunnel extended over to an outcropping of rocks visible on the hillside Campus beside old Main and..."Ham and Jam."
F) An underground lake under the basin (Central Ave.) a block from MBC! FACT...in 1910 the lake drained and created a CAVE-IN, with one house disappearing, the town fireplace with a huge hole in front of it and three other deep holes. Have seen the pics of this 1910 cave-in! Also, did my research into 1910 Staunton newspapers about the calamity....that one guy hired a boy to take visitors around one hole, filled with water, for 10-cents, giving the boy a penny each. I did go down into a submerged small stream bed smackdab in that 1910 cave-in area and did find a waterfall and cliffs under the center of Staunton, Augusta and Beverley Streets hidden beneath the middle of town!!!
G) My research did uncover a story of Julia Baldwin, founder of Mary Baldwin College, having the coeds hide hams and food under their large skirts when a group of Yankees came onto the Campus during the Civil War, searching for food to steal!
H) When the very old and honored Staunton Military Academy (boys) closed, next to the MBC Campus, the College bought the land and bldgs. and extended the MBC Campus, up on the large S.M.A. original hill. By the way, there are MANY hills around Staunton...some say seven!
I) Colleges and universities abound with PRANK stories, and MBC has one or three. There is a steep lawn bank in front of the MBC Library, where a city street once existed. Once, some guys from a Valley school slipped into town late one winter night and carefully sprinkled potent fertilizer on that steep lawn bank. Months later, during early spring rains, the fetilizer took effect, "loudly" revealing the two, uh, naughty words for all to...see.
two HUGE naughty words, overnight, became quite visible