Thursday, September 29, 2016

Teacher Killed All the Students in Binghamton, NY, Schoolhouse




Press & Sun-Bulletin [Binghamton, NY]
29 September 2016


Gerald Smith, Correspondent

[…] Working in the reference department of the Broome County Public Library for over 20 years gave me several instances where I had to explain to someone why what they thought was true was not. […] [T]he one I was always asked to answer was to tell them about the psychotic schoolteacher who went berserk one day and slaughtered all of students of the Ingraham Hill Schoolhouse in the Town of Binghamton. The murdered students were then buried next door in the Ingraham Hill Cemetery. […]

I am not sure how this urban legend might have started, but started it did. About every two years, young students would be sent to the library, or deduce that our place was the one place that could answer this puzzle. Being the county historian, I was brought in to answer these perplexed young people.

I told them that this legend has no basis in truth. Yes, there was the Ingraham Hill Schoolhouse, and yes, next to it is the Ingraham Hill Cemetery. But that is where the connection ends. I would point out that if the teacher had indeed killed all of those students, why are all the dates of the 123 people buried in the cemetery different from each other? […]