The professor who cursed a Kentucky college in 1826 — and got his revenge

Constantine Rafinesque’s Vengeful Curse on Transylvania University

Transylvania University got more than it asked for when it fired botany professor Constantine Rafinesque in 1826. The odd, self-taught genius didn’t go quietly.

Instead, he cast a curse that seemed to work right away. First, the university president died of yellow fever.

Then, the main building burned down, yet somehow only Rafinesque’s papers made it through the flames. Over the years, folks blamed him for deaths, fires, and even a cholera outbreak.

In 1924, the school tried to end the curse by bringing his remains back from Philadelphia. The curse lives on, though—they grabbed the wrong body.

Today, visitors to Old Morrison Hall can see the tomb where someone else’s bones rest under his name.

A Botanist With a Grudge Arrives at Transylvania University

Constantine Rafinesque showed up at Transylvania University in 1819 to teach botany and natural science. The self-taught French jack-of-all-trades had quite a story.

Born in Constantinople in 1783, he lost his dad to yellow fever in Philadelphia when he was ten. Before coming to Kentucky, he spent ten years in Sicily studying plants and animals.

Bad luck hit when his ship sank in 1815, making him lose all his scientific collections. Still, Rafinesque brought his wide knowledge and endless curiosity to Lexington.

His Scientific Work Thrived While His People Skills Failed

During his time at Transylvania, Rafinesque worked like crazy. He created scientific names for thousands of plants and hundreds of animals between 1819 and 1826.

He went beyond botany by finding 148 prehistoric Indian sites across Kentucky and saving the “Walam Olum,” a Delaware Indian migration story.

Students loved his hands-on teaching with real plant samples, and he tried to start a garden on campus. But his odd personality and forward-thinking ideas put him at odds with almost everyone else at the school.

The Bat Hunt That Destroyed a Friendship

While staying with bird expert John James Audubon in Henderson, Kentucky in 1818, Rafinesque spotted what he thought was a new bat flying around the room.

In his rush to catch it, he broke Audubon’s favorite violin to bits. Audubon got revenge by drawing a fake fish he claimed lived in the Ohio River.

Rafinesque believed it and wrote a serious paper about this made-up creature. When he learned about the joke, the two naturalists could never patch things up.

The Professor Gets Kicked to the Curb

Students noticed Rafinesque often skipped class to go on nature walks, giving him a reputation for laziness.

Gossip spread that he might have had a romance with Mary Austin Holley, the wife of university president Horace Holley.

Things came to a head in 1826 when Rafinesque and President Holley got into a heated argument that ended with Rafinesque losing his job.

As he packed, he sent forty crates of specimens ahead to Philadelphia, planning to start over somewhere else.

Angry Words That Haunted the Campus for Decades

As Rafinesque left campus for good, he didn’t go quietly.

He wrote in his journal: “I took lodgings in town and carried there all my effects: thus leaving the College with curses on it and Holley.”

Some say he shouted, “Damn thee and thy school as I place curses on you” while storming out. His threat targeted both the university and President Holley personally.

At first, everyone laughed off his dramatic exit as the ranting of a bitter ex-employee.

The University President Meets a Suspicious End

The laughter stopped when President Horace Holley got fired by the board of trustees in 1827, just one year after he dismissed Rafinesque. Holley left Kentucky to take a teaching job in Louisiana but never made it there.

During his trip south, he caught yellow fever, the exact same disease that killed Rafinesque’s father in Philadelphia years earlier.

When news of Holley’s death reached campus, people started wondering if Rafinesque’s curse might actually work.

Flames Consume Everything Except the Cursed Man’s Papers

More signs of the curse seemed to come in 1829 when Transylvania’s main building burned down. The fire gutted the original campus location in what is now Gratz Park.

The weirdest part? Among all the faculty materials stored inside, only Rafinesque’s papers survived the flames untouched.

Plans to build a replacement called Old Morrison hit another snag when a cholera outbreak struck in 1833, delaying construction and adding to the curse legend.

The Curse-Maker Dies Alone and Forgotten

Rafinesque spent his final years in Philadelphia living in poverty. He tried to make money by trading plant samples and giving talks about his findings.

On September 18, 1840, he died from stomach and liver cancer in a boarding house. Workers buried him in an unmarked grave in Ronaldson’s Cemetery, a crowded pauper’s graveyard.

People sold his huge natural history collections as junk, and scientists mostly ignored his work. But back at Transylvania, students kept his memory alive through stories of his supernatural revenge.

A Secret Society Plans to Break the Curse

By 1924, campus leaders wanted to end the curse once and for all.

They sent Dean Thomas Macartney to Philadelphia that February with a mission from a campus secret group called “The Hemlock Society.”

His job was to dig up what they thought were Rafinesque’s bones from Ronaldson’s Cemetery, which had fallen into terrible shape and faced demolition.

The plan seemed simple: bring the professor’s remains back to campus as a peace offering to his angry spirit.

The Wrong Body Comes Home to Transylvania

On Halloween night 1924, the remains arrived on campus with great ceremony. Workers placed the bones in a special crypt beneath the steps of Old Morrison Hall.

They marked the tomb with words from Rafinesque’s own autobiography: “Honor to whom honor is overdue.”

Years later, researchers made an embarrassing discovery—they had actually brought back the body of Mary Ann Passamore, a woman buried in the same overcrowded cemetery plot.

The real Rafinesque stayed behind in Philadelphia, his curse apparently still in effect.

The Ghost Who Laughs Through Fire

The curse struck again in 1969 when Old Morrison caught fire.

Flames destroyed the entire building except for one spot—Rafinesque’s crypt remained completely untouched. Firefighters swore they saw a man laughing in the doorway of the crypt before he vanished into the smoke.

Today, students compete each year for the chance to spend Halloween night in the tomb.

The university has made peace with its supernatural reputation, celebrating “Raf Week” and naming its dining hall “Rafskeller” in honor of the professor who just might still haunt the campus.

Visiting Old Morrison Transylvania College, Kentucky

You can visit Transylvania University at 300 North Broadway in Lexington to learn about Constantine Rafinesque’s curse.

The eccentric botanist professor allegedly cursed the school after being fired in 1826, leading to mysterious tragedies until his remains were brought back in 1924.

Call the admissions office at 859-233-8242 for weekday campus tours with 48-hour notice. Park at the Glenn Building’s circular drive.

Special tomb tours happen around Halloween, and US Ghost Adventures offers ghost tours including Old Morrison Building.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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