Uncover campus mysteries

By Jon McDonald

From ghosts to graveyards to inept construction crews, legends and tales abound at Santa Clara. Which stories are true and which are too terrifying to believe?

Indian burial ground

If Scooby Doo is any indication, American Indian burial grounds are virtual ghost factories, and there's one smack dab in the middle of the Santa Clara campus.

Over the last 20 years, 20 bodies have been unearthed in the area between Kenna Hall, Walsh Administration, the Alameda Mall and Arts and Sciences, said campus archaeologist and professor of anthropology Russell Skowronek. The last were found 10 years ago during construction around the Walsh building.

The bodies were buried between 400 B.C. and A.D. 800 and most likely belong to ancestors of the Ohlone tribe, Skowronek said.

"Most of them have been reburied or left where they were found," said Skowronek.

Two other graveyards lurk under the campus grounds. About 1,000 burials are in a 19th century cemetery between the Mission Church and O'Connor Hall, and 2,000 more are just off The Alameda at the end of Franklin Street.

"It's hard to dig a hole around here without running the risk of digging somebody up," said George Giacomini, history professor and local historian.

The levitating Holy Man of Santa Clara

Father Magin Catala, remembered as "the Holy Man of Santa Clara," served as a Franciscan priest at the Mission here from 1796 to 1830. He ate only corn bread and milk and spent long hours praying in front of a crucifix that still stands in the Mission Church to the right of the altar.

"Before he died, there were accounts that were then told over the next 50 years that he would pray in front of that crucifix so much he would levitate," Skowronek said.

Catala's body was placed in a coffin in the Mission Church, but not until a crowd took his clothes for holy relics. People still told stories of Father Catala 50 years later and pushed to make him a saint. He remains under consideration in Rome.

After the Mission Church fire in 1926, Catala was transferred to a hermetically sealed container behind a marble plaque in the rebuilt church. Skowronek tried, but could not find his body.

"No one knows what happened to Father Catala," he said. "So we are missing a priest who may be a saint."

Swig meant for USC

Legend holds that Swig Hall was accidentally constructed at Santa Clara instead of the University of Southern California.

"I don't know where that one ever started," said Giacomini. "Ben Swig didn't have any connection to USC."

The eponymous Swig was once the chairman of the university's Board of Trustees. "He was not a person who was interested in seeing his name on everything," Giacomini added.

USC paid Santa Clara to change our name

What ever happened to the University of Santa Clara?

The name was once, and remains officially, Santa Clara College. When the school added law and engineering in 1912, they began calling it the University of Santa Clara. Newspapers called it SCU to avoid confusion.

"In headlines, they'd refer to us as SCU," recalled Giacomini. "In the text, it was University of Santa Clara."

Giacomini was in the office of former University President William Rewak, S.J., when the name change was announced in the mid-1980s.

"Father Rewak just said, 'We're going to change the name on the stationary to Santa Clara University,' " he said. "But certainly not because USC asked us to do it."

USC did not buy the acronym with the $2,000-a-piece palm trees that line Palm Drive.

"Bologna," said Giacomini. "We bought the damn things from some nursery."

The haunted dorms

The ghost that inhabits Walsh and McLaughlin Residence Halls has spooked students, staff and campus ministry staff member Matt Smith, who experienced the ghost as a resident minister in Walsh.

"People call him Buddy," Smith said of the ghost, who reportedly looks like an American Indian child.

While few residents have encountered the ghost, many report eerie noises. "A lot of people say it sounds like furniture moving upstairs," said Smith, adding that others hear the sound of marbles.

Junior Carlos Torres is organizing a ghost tour of Walsh for Oct. 30 at 9 p.m.

Contact Jon McDonald at (408) 551-1918 or jmcdonald@scu.edu.