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? […]
