Citizen Alert: 2 Wonderful Lanterns Mystery Atlas Two antique lanterns inexplicably vanished from the main gates at Glendon College while the Whittemore family was in residence over the holidays.
There are many theories and guesses about what happened to two lanterns that went missing from the main gate of Glendon College — all pointing to the same person, a mysterious figure who darted between the campus’ heavily wooded campus and nearby woods late last week.
The lanterns weren’t just a simple crime; because they once belonged to the presidential residence, the lanterns might also have held some special meaning to the people who made them. As a result, no one is quite sure what happened to them.
“There are a lot of unanswered questions right now,” says Jonathon Good, who helped maintain the campus grounds when he lived there about 10 years ago.
There is now a flurry of activity to determine what happened, with Glendon College beginning to take down the Plexiglas from the top of the gates, where the lanterns were located. The initial vandalism lasted about four hours and the lanterns were brought down only after the woodshippers were alerted to the possible theft.
The university also is asking Glendon residents if they know anything about someone who might have been playing in the woods on the night they disappeared. And a variety of theories are flying among residents about what happened.
Are they historical artifacts that the college hired the Woodshop in College Park to restore? Is there another explanation? Is it just an honest mistake on the part of a maintenance worker? Good, the campus groundskeeper, believes the lanterns were stolen. The university is looking into that possibility, too.
Another Glendon resident, E. Clay Wartell, has created a video where he captures his recollection of the event from his perspective. In the video, Wartell reminisces about the lanterns, noting that they are quite rare because Glendon isn’t quite the mansion it once was. And he remembers them fondly.
“The fact that they just vanished, it’s really horrible,” he says. “It was a tough feeling for me. I was so sad to know that I can’t go back and look for them.”
Several candlelight vigils have been held at Glendon in recent days to try to get the word out. The college has posted signs around campus alerting students to the missing lanterns. And it has informed all 480 or so students who live on the main campus about the lanterns.
A candlelight vigil for the lanterns is scheduled to be held at the campus’ central fountain at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday. The college’s statement says that, at its discretion, it may allow individual students to hold their own candlelight vigil.
The lanterns were donated to Glendon in 2014. One has been one of the focal points of the presidential residence and has been the subject of several events, including an Easter egg hunt.
You might recall this: The president of Glendon College, the Whittemore family, split after 2015. Edward Glendon, the former president, and a former professional soccer player, took over duties from his old friend, David Whittemore, who is now the college’s chief financial officer. Edward Glendon wrote a heartfelt letter to Whittemore regarding the permanent separation of the Glends and Whittemores. The summer before the Whittemores left Glendon, they tossed the lanterns.
So what happened to them?
How did the lanterns wind up on Glendon’s campus in the first place? Did Edward Glendon arrange for them to be brought there? Did a maintenance worker screw them up? We still don’t know.
In either case, Glendon’s chief operating officer, Lynne Mullen, says that the lanterns will be returned to their original owners, either the Whittemores or Glends. Mullen also says she hopes they’ll be protected before the lanterns head to the University of Maryland’s Patuxent Environmental Research Center, so they don’t wind up on somebody’s front lawn.
Mullen says one year after Edward Glendon moved to Glendon, he handed over the lanterns in his basement. “They were his intimate mementos,�
