Pennsylvania Hall (Penn Hall, Old Dorm) is the Gettysburg College central administrative building and the college's oldest building. Designed in 1835 by John Cresson Trautwine, it was built in 1838 as a "temple-style edifice with four columns in the portico".

During the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, Pennsylvania Hall was used as a hospital for wounded troops of the Union and Confederate Armies. The building is also used for the convocation and commencement traditions of entering and departing the college via building.

Jon describes an encounter that took place when he was working as a secretary in Penn Hall in 2003, recounting, “I took the elevator, and when it opened, there was a full working Civil War hospital in the basement, with, like, lights, people walking around working, soldiers. I swear to God I just looked at it like it was in a movie, and I just stared. The elevator door shut.”

Penn Hall, the oldest building on campus, was built in 1832 and served as a hospital for wounded soldiers as well as a morgue during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. The hospital is described as having been extremely gruesome, and soldiers were often fully conscious during their ghastly operations.

“I stood there for a minute and hit the ‘open’ button, and when the doors opened, it was a regular basement. Nobody ever heard of anything like that or saw it too. I swear, though, that this happened,” Jon says.

According to a story found in Mark V. Nesbitt’s Ghosts of Gettysburg, Jon is not the only one to have witnessed this scene. Nesbit writes, “Two campus administrators in the 1980’s took the elevator down to the basement of Pennsylvania Hall, and unexpectedly saw bloody patients and doctors in the hospital there. “

Some of the abnormal things reported include the appearance of random papers containing short stories, essays and poems that have reportedly been seen fluttering across hallways and up and down staircases in the building. In addition, mysterious statements of national praise have appeared to manifest themselves in red ink along the walls outside of the President’s Office. The reported statements have included: “is recognized as one of the country’s premier journals…,” and “major literary journal in the U.S.”