 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
home > articles > Hamilton ghosts waiting to say boo
Hamilton
ghosts waiting to say boo By
Mary K. Nolan
Rocco Perri and John Dick, Ethel Kinrade and Sophia MacNab, the Walking Wraith of Waterdown and the Woman in Black at the Customs House ... they're all out there floating around somewhere, along with Russell who haunts the halls of Dundas District Public School, John Heslop murdered at Woodend, and Mary Gage who went home to Battlefield House after being roused from eternal slumber by a fire at the church where she was buried.
Apparently -- or apparitionly, if you will -- three more ghosts inhabit the premises at 158 James St. S. where nurses' uniforms and supplies were sold for six decades until last fall. There's Myrtle, an elderly lady in a black dress with her white hair knotted into a bun, a nameless little boy of indeterminate age, and Elizabeth, the busiest of the trio. Their presence doesn't seem to trouble Stephanie Lechniak and Daniel Cumerlato, partners in life and business and, it would seem, the afterlife as proprietors of Haunted Hamilton. It imparts a rather spirited atmosphere to the place they have transformed into a paranormal parlour. Indeed, it could have been Elizabeth who doused the lights one day last week upon the arrival of a first-time visitor, plunging the eggplant coloured parlour into stormy-day darkness for several minutes. Maybe it was Myrtle who slammed the heavy steel door that opens to the back alley, and the little fellow making mischief by repeatedly blowing out the candles and opening the front door. Then again, maybe it was the wind. Either way, it doesn't faze Stephanie and Daniel who established Haunted Hamilton online in 1999, launched their popular ghost walks in the fall of 2002 and opened the parlour earlier this month. Hamilton, they say, has an impressive number of ghosts, thanks to its age, old buildings and a colourful history that includes rum-runners, rebels, mobsters and murderers. "Anywhere you look in Hamilton, there's a historic building," says 24-year-old Stephanie, "and historic buildings have ghosts." Some are well-documented, as at Whitehern, where passersby hear music playing or a woman singing, and around "the hotbed of activity" that is Dundurn Castle, Hamilton Cemetery and the site of the gallows where eight men were hanged after the Bloody Assizes of 1813. Others are lesser known, like the ghosts of the old Tivoli Theatre, the James Street armouries and the Pheasant Plucker pub, which scared the bejeebers out of Suzanne Mann, Haunted Hamilton's resident psychic. "Just because I'm a psychic doesn't mean I like surprises," says Suzanne. "And I'm a complete chicken," admits Stephanie.She and Daniel won two awards from Tourism Hamilton last year for their innovative attraction. They are committed to outing the city's often fickle phantoms, or at least telling their ghostly tales and letting mortals decide on their veracity. Full of stories, they had problems limiting the length of their ghost walks. "When we did them, the walks would last three hours," says Stephanie. Hired actors now conduct the walks. "There's so much cool stuff to show, but people were dropping off like flies." A favourite is the downtown walk, taking in Gore Park, the old Royal Connaught Hotel, Whitehern, the Pigott Building, St. Paul's Church and the Tivoli -- where bones found in a steamer trunk mysteriously disappeared before they could be identified as the remains of theatre magnate Ambrose Small, who vanished in 1919. No nook or cranny is left unexplored in the Customs House tour, which covers everything from the attic to the infamous vault. The Hermitage tour, conducted by lantern light after dark, is spectacularly spooky. Also planned are Ghosts of the Great Lakes sessions aboard the destroyer Haida, which no doubt boasts a few ghosts of her own. With the opening of the parlour and shop, Stephanie and Daniel are excited about inviting the public in for ghostly storytelling sessions and introducing their selection of ghost story books, aromatic incenses, spirit stones, pendulums, and paranormal products like divining rods and Ouija boards, many of which Stephanie makes herself. It will be open six days a week. While decorating, they uncovered the original brick fireplace. It contained an unidentified bone and a charred, crumpled-up Spectator from 1946 -- the same year, incidentally, or perhaps just coincidentally, in which the Evelyn Dick trial began. Make what you will of that. By Mary K. Nolan Contents copyright 1996-2004, The Hamilton Spectator. All rights reserved.
*
Homepage Photograph taken by Steve Lechniak |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
It's
in the top 10 of Canada's largest cities, but Hamilton is as surely
a ghost town as any dusty crossroads in the Wild West.