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home > articles > The Lift Lock in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
The Lift Lock in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
The Lift Lock in Peterborough Ontario was built mainly for agricultural and logging purposes. The early settlers thought inland water ways would speed up transportation with lumber and agricultural products. Another reason for the Lift Lock was because of the Conservative government, and their fear of their political position was falling as the people were not happy with them, and thinking building one of the world’s biggest hydraulic Lift Lock in the world would keep them in power. However, that did not work because in 1896 the Conservatives fell. The people had voted in the Liberals thinking that they could do a better job for their country. The working conditions were very hard; the workers had to dig until they reached limestone bedrock which would act as the base for the Lift Lock. In 1950 a few of the men were interviewed and asked what they had gotten paid, they commented that salaries were from $1.00 per day or if you were lucky a $1.50 but only if you supplied a team and horses to help the construction go faster. Once the construction was over and the Lift Lock was built, they considered this revolutionary because this was one of the biggest projects that involved a hydraulic lift.
The Local Hauntings
Legend states that before the Lift Lock was built in Peterborough Ontario, there was a local woman who was burned for being a witch in the 1840’s. It’s said that this woman had changed professions of work to a field that the local resistant’s did not understand or mistook as witchcraft. Shortly after the change, the town’s people decided she would be branded as a “witch” and they decided to burn her alive. They say that this lady was burned on Peterborough’s biggest hill known as Armour Hill, just a few thousand feet away from where the Lift Lock stands today. They had burned her at the stake where there was a thick forest with many trees, and lots of wildlife. It is said to be known that when you are around Armour Hill or even around the Lift Lock she is seen roaming. Around sixty to sixty-five years later, the Lift Lock had started to be built at the bottom of Armour Hill. From the start of the construction strange occurrences seemed to be happening, and accidents that people claimed to be the witches handy work from her grave, but the construction went on. A strange occurrence was said that when the Lift Lock was almost three/fourths finished, a worker had died on site. However, the construction workers had claimed it to being a fatal accident. Shortly after the Lift Lock was opened, it yet again made headlines of the local paper as more deaths occurred. Another local legend states that a second ghost who haunts the Lift Lock is not that of the witch, but actually of a person who committed suicide five days after his mother jumped to her death from the same spot. Over the years, many people have claimed to see the same ghostly pair of beings throughout the Lift Lock. These two ghosts have been linked to a couple who committed suicide together because of some tragic love story. The residents of Peterborough Ontario have claimed to see a lot of ghostly sightings all over, and they have claimed to see ghostly figures appearing out of the bars on the windows that face the locks from the tunnel within. Joseph DiFrancesco is a published author ** Photos courtesy of The Archives of Ontario - www.archives.gov.on.ca 
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