The Haunted MedChi Building in Mt Vernon

At the cusp of the 1800s, more than 100 professional and trusted medical practitioners gathered in Annapolis, Maryland, awaiting the approval of their petition to establish an incorporated society. They aimed to serve as the architects for future educational and regulatory medical standards, hoping to cut down fraudulent claims and, as their mission statement notes, “ignorant practitioners or pretenders to the healing art.”

Known as The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of the State of Maryland, the charter established itself on a plot of land on Baltimore’s Cathedral Street. Today, the building stands as an archive of everything The Maryland State Medical Society (or MedChi) has done over its 220-plus active years, but there’s a curiosity within its walls, a watcher who, long after her passing, remains tied to the MedChi archives.

Who haunts the MedChi Building?

Society members come and go, but Marcia Crocker Noyes will always be part of MedChi. The former librarian, who worked with the society for 50 years until she died in 1946, lived at the MedChi Building as a crucial resource for doctors. Her importance to the society cannot be overstated, and it makes sense why she remains behind so many years later.

While Marcia is a welcomed specter in the walls of the MedChi Building, not every apparition, phantom, or poltergeist in Maryland is as friendly and dutiful. A Baltimore ghost tour will underline a mix of pettish phantoms and good-natured ghosts.

Forming the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of the State of Maryland

Doctors of the 19th century weren’t just thwarting dangerous, old-school ideas about medicine and healthcare. They were also going up against fraudulent healers and radical medical practitioners who actively put the sick and the desperate at risk. 

Coming off the devastation of the 18th-century smallpox outbreak that spread across North America, there was little room for fallacies in medical education and regulation. When the prevalence of poor or antiquated healthcare is so high, how can one prevent the masses from falling victim to misinformation and ne’er-do-well snake oil salesmen? In 1799, 101 medical professionals from almost every Maryland county gathered to hear the fate of their proposed charter. 

To their delight, the Maryland Legislature approved it, allowing for the official formation of a society that would work to advance healthcare and ensure citizens had access to proper treatments. One of its first achievements came in 1807 when it established the framework for the University of Maryland School of Medicine. In the years that followed, the society established a medical library, helped vaccinate the public, and created the world’s first college of dental surgery.

In 1889, Dr. William Osler, co-founder of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, visited the society’s library only to find 7,000 unkempt volumes. Under his urging, the society moved to a building on Eutaw Street but quickly outgrew the space. With the urgent need for a bigger archive, the society chose a plot of land on Cathedral Street in 1908 and laid the foundation for the MedChi Building. Here, thousands upon thousands of medical volumes would be managed by a dedicated and hardworking librarian.

The Keeper of the MedChi Archives

An orderly archive was crucial for the society’s doctors, who would turn to the bounty of volumes for answers to medical phenomena and more common diseases. With a patient in need of care, it wasn’t feasible for them to browse the expanding library of books. Instead, they turned to the society’s live-in librarian, Marcia Crocker Noyes.

Born December 1869 in Saratoga Springs, New York, Marcia didn’t grow up in the medical community or even with a known interest in medicine. Rather, she wished to be a dress designer, a dream that never came to fruition. Instead, she left New York to live with her sister, Kitty Noyes Marshall, in Baltimore. There, she took a job as a relief worker at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. For three years, she served under Dr. Bernard Steiner, eventually earning a supervisory role. 

When Dr. Osler took over as president of the Maryland State Medical Society, Dr. Steiner saw no better fit than Marcia. Within her first year, Marcia developed the Classification for Medical Literature system that’s still used at MedChi’s library today. Despite her administrative role, she was also integral in the development of the new MedChi Building, frequently inspecting its progress until its completion in 1909. 

A Fixture of the MedChi Building

The society’s doctors saw great value in keeping Marcia close to the archive, so an apartment was added to the fourth floor as part of the construction of the MedChi Building. Complete with a rooftop terrace and garden, the apartment was comfortable for Marcia and her maid and also gave doctors 24-hour access to her librarian services. 

For 50 years, Marcia served the society, but her passing in 1946 wasn’t the end of her career as a librarian. Her legacy, which includes being a founding member of the Medical Library Association, remains part of the MedChi Building, as does the ethereal form she left behind. The haunting of the MedChi Building is no more than a dedicated worker continuing to oversee the very archives she organized and managed. 

Knowing their importance, it’s safe to suspect that Marcia’s apparition merely wants to ensure doctors continue to have unimpeded access to resources that can save lives. Library visitors have claimed to see the spectral form of the building’s librarian moving through the stacks as if searching for the best volume to solve a patient’s unique ailment.

The Ghosts of Baltimore

Marcia is one of many spirits who only aim to exist within their plane, wanting only to go about their business. Maybe they’ll engage with the living, rapping gently on a door or tugging on a set of sheets playfully. Marcia remains engrossed in her work, her footsteps echoing in empty hallways as she browses the building’s texts. 

The MedChi Building and the ghost of Marcia Crocker Boyes represent the advancement of medicine and an important part of Baltimore’s history. So many other spirits haunt spots throughout the city, some of which are included in a Baltimore ghost tour. For even more stories like Marcia’s, check out our blog, and be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Sources:

https://www.medchi.org/about-medchi

https://baltimoreheritage.org/behind-the-scenes-tour-of-the-medchi-building/

https://medchiarchives.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-medchi-building.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC198800/?page=2

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC194645/?page=1

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC194629/