Mānoa Valley was once a heavily cultivated landscape, checkered with lo‘i kalo. The numerous streams that ran through the wide valley provided water for irrigating the fields, sustaining generations of Hawaiians. After Kamehameha I’s conquest of Oʻahu in 1795, the valley also became an important food source for his army.
In the early 19th century, portions of Mānoa were associated with aliʻi, including Kameʻeiamoku, his son Hoapili, and his granddaughter Liliha, who later married Boki, governor of Oʻahu. The couple maintained a residence in the valley, and Boki and a British business partner experimented with growing sugarcane and coffee there. By the mid-1800s, more than 30 landowners were recorded in the Mānoa area. Over the following decades, land ownership shifted, and more homes were built, yet some agricultural activity continued.
When the College of Hawaiʻi began acquiring land in Mānoa in 1907–1908, the property was far from empty. Small agricultural fields, some enclosed by stone walls, were being cultivated by Hawaiian and Chinese tenants. The university began clearing its newly acquired property in 1909, a process that continued for years.
In 1915, a large area of the developing campus was cleared and graded to create Cooke Field, the university’s first athletic facility. But Cooke Field was relocated in 1937 to make way for further campus development. Hemenway Hall was completed on part of the former athletic grounds in 1939. The remaining property would eventually become the site of a new university library.
Construction began in the mid-1950s, and the four-story reinforced-concrete building was completed in 1956. Originally called the New Library, it was named after Gregg M. Sinclair, the university's president at the time.
The building is well-known in campus folklore as a haunted location, with recurring student and staff reports of inexplicable events. An old newspaper editorial column interviewed a student who said she heard footsteps approach her stall in the basement restroom, but when she exited, no one was there. After reporting this to the librarian and some other students, they all went down to investigate, leaving someone to guard the door. They found nothing and no one in the restroom, but as they turned to leave, one of the stall doors suddenly slammed shut. This was followed by paper towels being yanked out of the dispenser by an unseen hand. The group of students and the librarian bolted for the door, nearly trampling the guard they left outside.
After we shared a video about the Sinclair Library on our social media, a man emailed us about his own encounter in the basement’s audiovisual room.
When Paul began studying music at the University of Hawaiʻi, he often found himself in the audiovisual listening lab at Sinclair Library. Although his classes required him to listen to hours of assigned recordings, he hated going down to the basement.
He couldn’t explain it, but something about the listening lab made him uncomfortable. The feeling was strong enough that when he found out that the library offered recordings, he jumped at the opportunity. This meant he could take the music with him and listen somewhere else, without having to spend hours in the lab.
Paul said that although the high-speed duplications were hard to listen to because of warbling and distortions, he still preferred that over listening in that basement room. In his email, he said he was curious whether other students or staff had the same experiences.
Another woman messaged us with a similar story. She said that looking back, she can’t say exactly what initially bothered her about the listening lab. There were no shadows and no figure lurking in the corner, and nothing she could point to as the source of her uneasiness. She simply knew she didn’t want to be there any longer than necessary. One day, her nerves were seriously tested.
When she arrived one afternoon, she was relieved to notice another person sitting at one of the work stations. She chose a nearby station, placed her bag on the desk, leaning it against the partition. As she walked away, she heard a loud thump and turned to see her bag on the floor. When she looked in the direction of the other person, they were gone. No one stood up, and no one passed her. She didn’t hear any footsteps or shuffling.
At first, the woman just stared at her bag, trying to figure out how it could have fallen off the flat, level desk. She knew she didn’t put it at the edge. She decided to ignore what just happened and get to work. However, when she finally sat down to begin, she felt someone standing next to her and put their hand on her shoulder.
“I never jumped so high,” she said.
There was no one in the room with her, but she is adamant that she distinctly felt the pressure of a hand on her shoulder.
Although the Sinclair Library is now closed as it undergoes a transformation into a new student-support center, we wonder whether the newly renovated space will also be haunted. I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.
The authors can be reached at hawaii.mysteries@gmail.com
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