Haunted Canada 9

  To Tamara Sztainbok, my editor and friend, who after working on eleven books with me is only now beginning to feel a little less afraid of ghosts.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Introduction

  The Legend of the Ghost Pirate

  The Art of Death

  Parlour Phantoms

  One Final Song

  Phantom of the Opera House

  History Comes Alive

  The Man from the Mist

  Afterlife Lights

  The Haunted Mansion

  The Haunting of Cherry Hill House

  Terror on the Third Floor

  Bessie’s Missing Body

  The Asp

  Spirit Club

  I’m Innocent

  Ghost Town

  Down in the Depths

  And the Ghosts Played On

  The Dead Man’s Bed

  The Cellar

  Forever and Ever Home

  They Feed on Fear

  The Other Side

  Also Available

  About the Author

  Photo Credits

  Copyright

  INTRODUCTION

  This book is haunted.

  It’s haunted by ghosts who have walked the earth for many years and those who have been among us a short time. It’s haunted by ghosts from coast to coast, in small towns and large cities. It’s even haunted by the ghost of a parrot — yes, you read that right.

  But what makes this book so special to me is that it’s haunted by ghosts that I’ve wanted to write about for years. Sometimes when I uncover a particularly spooky tale I start writing it immediately, and the words flow out of me like spectres from another dimension flying through a portal. Other times I hang onto the tale for a while, not quite ready to share it with the world, waiting for the right time. For many of the ghosts in Haunted Canada 9, that time is now.

  I’ve wanted to write about the ghost of Tom Thomson, a famous Canadian artist who died on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park under mysterious circumstances — some believe murderous circumstances — for years. The same goes for the haunting of Cherry Hill House in Mississauga, Ontario.

  But the story I’ve been looking forward to writing most is “The Legend of the Ghost Pirate,” the tale of Captain Kidd and the search for his buried treasure along the coast of Prince Edward Island. My love for pirates is second only to my love for ghosts, so when I finally sat down to write that chapter I was as excited as a kid who got to ride Disney World’s Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion at the same time.

  Maybe you’re obsessed with pirates too. Or maybe you’re more into theatre or music or canoeing or cars. All of these interests and more are covered in this book. But a word to the wise: each chapter is as scary — if not scarier — than the last. You just might find your obsession is actually your worst nightmare.

  Like I said: this book is haunted. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

  Frightfully yours,

  THE LEGEND OF THE GHOST PIRATE

  Montague & Bay Fortune, Prince Edward Island

  Benton Woods, who lived near the town of Montague in the early 1700s, was walking near the Brudenell River when he came across an unusual sight. Captain Kidd, the infamous pirate, had disembarked and come ashore. With long dark hair, a thick moustache and clad in red and black clothing that swirled around him in the wind, Captain Kidd was an imposing and frightening figure. The pistols, swords and daggers strapped to his body increased the dread Benton felt. He hid behind the largest tree he could find and tried his best not to make a sound.

  As Benton watched from his hiding place, Captain Kidd and twenty of his crew removed a couple of large chests from their ship and dug a deep hole on the beach at the edge of the woods. It was hard work, but the crew were strong, and soon the pit was deep enough. Kidd ordered his men to place the chests inside it, then the men quickly filled it back up with sand. Content that the job was done, Captain Kidd and his crew boarded their ship and sailed off into the night.

  Benton returned to his home already plotting how to steal the treasure. The chests looked incredibly heavy, and Benton knew he wouldn’t be able to drag them back to his house by himself. But he didn’t want to tell anyone about the treasure; he wanted to keep every single gold coin to himself. Instead he would build a small boat, sail it to the beach where the treasure was buried, dig up the chests, and drag them to his vessel and home. He set to work nearly immediately.

  Working alone and in secrecy, it was a task that took Benton a considerable amount of time to complete. During that time news from England crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Captain Kidd had been captured, found guilty of one count of murder and five counts of piracy, and hanged in London on May 23, 1701.

  Finally, Benton’s boat was ready. He made his way back to the beach under the cover of darkness. He was careful not to be observed. Gripping his shovel, Benton leapt from his boat and strode quickly to the spot where the treasure had been buried.

  But as Benton approached, he was startled and upset to find that someone else was already digging up the treasure. Benton assumed it was one of his neighbours who’d stumbled upon the secret burial location and was in the act of robbing Benton of his loot. But as he crept closer, Benton realized it wasn’t one of his neighbours. Nor was it anyone living. Digging up the treasure was the ghost of Captain Kidd.

  The ghost pirate spotted Benton and eyed him up and down with a look of utter contempt.

  “So ye came fer me gold,” Captain Kidd said. “And don’t deny it, for I can see the look of disappointment in yer eyes even from where I stand. Well, yer too late, you snivelling son of a landlubber. It’s gone.”

  Benton stood petrified, mouth wide open, silently staring at the apparition before him. The treasure was not as valuable as his life; he had already lost the one and was perilously close to losing the other.

  Fortunately for Benton, Captain Kidd turned his attention back to the empty pit and quickly filled it in. Once that was done he muttered a terrible pirate oath, threw his shovel to the sand, and disappeared before Benton’s eyes.

  After he regained his senses, Woods walked over to Captain Kidd’s shovel and picked it up. It was old and rusty. Benton turned the shovel over and discovered the Jolly Roger, the infamous skull and crossbones symbol flown by pirates before an attack, painted on the back of the blade.

  What happened to the treasure — whether someone beat him and the ghost of Captain Kidd to it or Kidd himself did something to make it disappear — Benton never could say. But he didn’t keep silent when it came to his encounters with the pirate. For years Benton regaled audiences, both large and small, with the tale of how he’d been confronted by the ghost of Captain Kidd. And to add an air of authority to his tale, Benton always produced the ghost pirate’s shovel when he reached the climax of his story.

  Thanks in part to stories like Benton Woods’s, the legend of Captain Kidd’s treasure being buried somewhere off the coast of Prince Edward Island has — like the pirate himself — refused to die. Every year treasure hunters journey to the island in search of gold. And many locals will admit to having dug a hole or two of their own in their youth. Few have found anything of significant value, but like Benton Woods, others have been stopped by the ghost pirate before getting very far. One of the eeriest of these accounts happened thirty kilometres northeast of Montague, in the aptly named Bay Fortune.

  Around the turn of the twentieth century, Abimelech “Bim” Burke, a Bay Fortune local, met two young men who had travelled to Prince Edward Island from Boston. The men asked Bim if he knew the area well. When Bim said that he did, they revealed their plan to dig for Captain Kidd’s treasure. They offered t
o pay Bim to serve as their guide. Bim agreed, but first he offered a piece of advice.

  “It ain’t no use diggin’ for treasure ’ceptin at midnight,” the old man said in a gravelly voice. “Anyone’ll tell ya that.”

  The men from Boston took Bim’s advice and prepared for the dig as they waited for nightfall, then made their way out shortly before midnight. They had a map of the area, tools for digging up treasure and a lantern that proved to be far more important than they could have anticipated, for that night felt darker than most. Not even a faint glimmer of moonlight managed to crack through the thick layer of clouds that blotted out the sky.

  The three men tried to find the exact location of the buried treasure, but it was nearly impossible to match the map to their surroundings in the dark. But then the clouds parted and the moon lit the land in a cool blue light.

  The men froze. Out on the water, now visible in the light, sailed a large pirate ship.

  A small rowboat from the ship cut a path toward shore. The sulphurous smell of brimstone wafted toward land as if carried on the backs of the waves. On the rowboat were the scariest-looking men Bim had ever seen in his life. They wore handkerchiefs tied on their heads and their belts were packed with pistols and knives. Commanding the small band of pirates was Captain Kidd himself.

  Without waiting for the ghost pirate and his undead crew to reach land, Bim and the other two men turned and ran back to Bim’s house as fast as they could. And the two young men with dreams of striking it rich on the coast of P.E.I. headed back to Boston as soon as the sun rose the following day. They fled in such a hurry that they left behind their gear. Like many before and since, they found the risks associated with digging for Captain Kidd’s treasure far too great and terrifying to be worth the potential rewards.

  THE ART OF DEATH

  Kentville, Nova Scotia

  Walter Irving, a salesman travelling from England in the 1870s, had been told that the town of Kentville would be bustling. But he hadn’t anticipated that accommodations would be so hard to come by that he’d have to sleep with the dead.

  It was autumn and Walter had just travelled by train from Halifax. During the trip the conductor had informed him that a horse-racing tournament was taking place over the coming days in Kentville and that it would be difficult to find an available hotel room. As soon as Irving disembarked from the train, he saw that the streets were packed with people who had come from far and wide to attend the races. Walter had a difficult time making his way through the crowds to Wade House, the hotel he wished to stay at. His spirits fell when he entered the lobby. It was also overcrowded with people, all excitedly discussing the races they had watched that day.

  Walter elbowed his way through the crowd and found the owner behind the bar. He introduced himself and asked, without very much hope, if there was a vacant room.

  “I don’t like to turn an Englishman away,” the owner said. “And I only have one room to offer, which I would rather not put you in. However, as I said, I cannot turn an Englishman away. Have you had supper?”

  Walter thought that was strange. Why should the owner hesitate to put him in a room? But he kept that question to himself and replied that he was quite hungry.

  The other men in the dining room weren’t interested in talking about anything but horses, so Walter ate quickly and then asked to be taken to his room. When he got there he couldn’t believe his eyes. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it. In fact, it was large, beautifully furnished and had a window with a splendid view of the tree-lined street outside. Why in the world did the owner hesitate to rent it to guests?

  There was a knock at the door. It was the owner, who had a request. A friend of his was visiting from Shelburne, a town on the southern coast of Nova Scotia, and he was wondering if Walter would mind sharing the room. He didn’t. In fact, Irving hoped the owner’s friend wouldn’t be a horse race enthusiast so he’d have someone to talk with that evening. He told the owner to send the friend up when he arrived.

  It was still early, so Walter went for a walk around town and enjoyed a drink or two in the hotel pub, then made his way back upstairs.

  The owner’s friend had already been shown into the room. Walter found the young man examining some papers when he entered, so he introduced himself and asked what his name was.

  “George Cushman,” the man replied. He was very thin and his face was terribly pale — so pale, in fact, that it was nearly translucent.

  “Artist?” Walter asked, pointing at the drawings and sketches George was poring over.

  “Only an amateur,” George said with a bashful smile. “Would you like to see some of my work?”

  Walter was happy for the diversion and spent the better part of an hour going through the artwork. George was really quite talented, and Walter particularly enjoyed his depictions of the Cornwallis River and the small community of Nictaux.

  George told Walter to take his time if he wanted to examine them further. “Keep them all if you wish,” he said, “for I’m leaving tomorrow and will probably not take them with me.” He then said good night and went to bed.

  Walter stayed up a little longer. He finally came to the bottom of the pile of sketches where he found one of a beautiful woman. He felt an immediate sense of déjà vu. He was fairly certain he’d seen her before but he couldn’t think where. Compelled to keep the sketch of the woman, he took George up on his offer and placed the sketch in one of his cases, then returned the others to the artist’s portfolio. Happy with the way the night had taken shape, he blew out the candle and went to sleep.

  George disappeared sometime during the night.

  When Walter awoke early the next morning and saw that the artist was gone, he began to suspect that perhaps George had robbed him. But all of his possessions were exactly where he had left them the night before, including the sketch of the beautiful woman in his case. Oddly, the door was bolted from the inside and all of the windows were locked. Walter had no idea how George had left the room.

  He went downstairs for breakfast and immediately sought out the owner, telling him that his friend had departed in the middle of the night and left nothing but a single sketch as proof that he had been there at all.

  The owner asked to see the sketch. They went up to the room and Walter handed it over. Upon looking at the woman, the owner fainted. Walter kneeled beside the unconscious man and splashed water on his face to revive him.

  “You’ve been sleeping with a ghost,” the owner said once he’d come to his senses. The owner’s friend had not arrived as expected. George was a different soul altogether.

  “George Cushman hung himself in this room,” the owner said solemnly. “A young woman was the cause of it. She is now in Dartmouth, insane and in a hopeless condition.”

  That was it! That was where Walter knew the woman from. He had passed through Dartmouth three weeks earlier and had had some business at a mental hospital. She had sat with her hands clasped in her lap, staring at a blank wall the entire time Walter was there. He asked an attendant about her and was told that she had been in a catatonic state since her fiancé had committed suicide.

  The hotel owner filled Walter in on the rest of the sad story. George Cushman was the son of a wealthy New York businessman and had travelled north to sketch scenes of the Canadian wilderness. He settled in a room — Walter’s room — in Wade House and had been especially fond of paddling a canoe out on the Cornwallis River and drawing the shoreline. But one day his canoe tipped and he swam to shore. Soaked and shivering, George was fortunate enough to be found by a fisherman named Frank Goodwin, who invited him back to his home. There George met and fell in love with Frank’s sister, Alice, and the couple eventually got engaged to be married. But one night during a party, George and Alice had a terrible fight and something inside George snapped. He returned to his room alone and hanged himself that evening. The hotel owner was the unfortunate soul who had made the grim discovery the following morning.

  When Alic
e was informed of what had happened, she screamed and ran to her room. Later, she was found sitting and staring at her wall. Hours passed, then days, then months, and she never spoke another word.

  Although there was nothing to indicate that anything out of the ordinary had ever happened in the hotel room, no one ever wanted to stay there again, even those who weren’t aware of what had happened there. People reported hearing strange and terrible sounds in the middle of the night: bangs and shuffling feet, moans and cries in the dark.

  Not wanting to turn the Englishman away, the owner had taken a chance by placing Walter Irving there. Walter wished he hadn’t. It would be a long time before he would be able to get a decent night’s sleep again.

  PARLOUR PHANTOMS

  Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

  A young man who had been recently hired at Hopkins Dining Parlour was assigned the task of taking supplies to the basement of the building that was constructed in 1905. Although the building was old, the man had no reason to believe he had anything to fear. No one had told him the stories — not yet. Perhaps that was for the best. Then again, perhaps it was not. If he had known what was hiding in the shadows he would have been able to prepare himself.

  As he was stocking the shelves with cans and jars, someone confronted him. A woman. A pale woman with no face. Terrified, the man went as white as the woman before him.

  The spectre turned without a word — not surprising since she didn’t have a mouth — and floated up the stairs.

  He’s not the only person who has seen this ghost in the basement. Others have felt someone push them from behind on the stairs and have caught sight of the woman ducking around corners and hiding behind furniture. Some employees, like Brenda Wilson, refuse to go down to the basement unless they absolutely have to. If only the ghosts would stay down there.

  Brenda is one of many people — staff and customers alike — who have had terrifying experiences in the women’s bathroom on the main floor of the restaurant. One night in 1993, Brenda was alone in the bathroom washing her hands, when all of a sudden, she felt like someone was standing directly behind her. She looked up at the mirror and saw an old woman staring at her. The woman slowly faded away and Brenda ran out of the bathroom.