History & local legend
Andrew Bayne Memorial Library in Bellevue occupies the former home of Amanda Bayne Balph and her husband, architect James Madison Balph. They moved into the house he designed in 1875. After James died in 1899, Amanda lived there until her death in 1912, leaving the house and grounds to the borough for a library and park.
Among her conditions was a request to preserve the property’s elm trees. Dutch elm disease eventually made that impossible. The library’s own history of the haunting says reports of Amanda’s presence increased around the removal of the last elm, known as the Lone Sentinel, in 1998.
Staff describe upstairs footsteps, misplaced belongings, and lights or equipment behaving unexpectedly. Neighbors have reported a woman at Amanda’s former bedroom window. Former library director Sharon Helfrich recalled a particularly memorable incident during an outdoor film screening: when a DVD player failed, she noticed an attic light was on. Upstairs, she asked Amanda to let the film play and promised not to complain about the light. When Helfrich returned, the equipment was working. The library tells these stories as encounters with its mischievous former owner.
