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The Custom House

The most famous Hamilton ghost, and one who is thought to inhabit the Custom House, is likely the Dark Lady, or “The Black Lady,” from an 1873 poem by Alexander Hamilton Wingfield:

A “Peeler,” who met her, turned blue with affright,

And in terror he clung to a post;

His hair (once a carroty red) has turned white,

Since the moment he looked on the ghost.[1]

A Designated National Historic Site, the Hamilton Custom House was built from 1858 to 1860 in a design by Frederick J. Rastrick and F.P. Rubridge. The building is a fine example of Italianate architecture, which was popular in commercial buildings between the 1840s and 1870s in Canada. The rusticated base and smooth upper storey drew inspiration from Renaissance-style palaces in Florence and Rome.[2]

One of the oldest remaining formerly federal buildings in Canada, the Custom House is regularly cited as one of Hamilton’s foremost architectural landmarks. The history of the building is varied, but it began as a location where officials handled the paperwork for all goods leaving and entering the city. The many different uses, owners, and businesses of the building add to the richness of its history — as well as the speculation that more than one spirit haunts the century-and-a-half old building. Apart from the Dark Lady, definitely the most reported ghost of the Custom House, it is rumoured that as many as twenty-five spectres roam the halls of this building.

The Hamilton Custom House is an excellent example of Italianate architecture in Canada.

Courtesy of Peter Rainford.

In 1855 construction of the Custom House was authorized, to handle the trade flowing through the new Great Western Railway and the Port of Hamilton. Upon the building’s completion in 1860, a group of seventeen men worked there as Customs Department staff, dealing with railwaymen, teamsters, and sailors. The caretaker of the Custom House and his family lived on the premises.[3]

In 1887 the Customs Department moved to what was the old post office building — a bigger office — at the corner of King and John Streets in downtown Hamilton. That same year, the Hamilton Board of Education rented the Custom House, setting up classes and a playground. At this time, the janitor of the Murray Street School, located behind the Custom House, was given a place to live in the building. He and his family remained residents there for two decades.[4]

In 1893 the Hamilton YWCA rented the building, offering women classes in sewing, cooking, and housekeeping; this lasted for approximately one year before it relocated to the former Hamilton Street Railway offices.[5]

In 1908 the Associated Charities of Hamilton took over the building, providing accommodations for the homeless and recent immigrants. It wasn’t uncommon for hobos who were riding the rails to spend the night in the basement of the Custom House.[6]

By 1912 the Custom House stood empty, barren, and derelict, with broken windows, torn-out pipes, and a leaking roof. Owners of a nearby vinegar factory temporarily moved their operations into the building when a fire destroyed their own. In 1915 the Woodhouse Invigorator Company and the American Computing Company rented spaces in the building for manufacturing of their products. In 1917 the Ontario Yarn Company (later known as the Empire Wool Stock Company) moved in.[7]

A devastating fire broke out in 1920, destroying the second floor and roof. The ruined upper configuration of the building was rebuilt, and the second floor, which had originally boasted extremely high ceilings, was reconfigured into two floors and an attic.[8]

The Empire Wool Stock Company, which took residence for longer than any of the previous occupants, beginning at a time when Hamilton’s nickname might have easily been “Textile Town” rather than “Steel City,” closed down in the 1950s. This was a period of transition, and many Hamilton textile mills and knitwear plants also closed as the city became increasingly dependent on steel and related industries.[9]

The Naples Macaroni Company, producing macaroni and olives, opened in the building in 1956 and holds the record as the second-longest occupant. It also rented space on the first floor to a manufacturer of doughnuts. It was during this era that bugs and rats began to invade the building, and the owners heavily sprayed it with pesticides. In their haste to rid the building of its uninvited guests, they inadvertently contaminated the food, which eventually resulted in the Health Department closing them down in 1979.[10]

The building again sat empty and decaying, subject to damage from neglect and vandals, until 1988, when the provincial government invested $400,000 into restorations. The renovated structure was then inhabited by a martial arts academy and a computer company until the Ontario Workers’ Art and Heritage Centre (WAHC) bought it in 1995 with the goal of creating a museum celebrating the working-class people of Canada. The WAHC held a one-day pre-renovation opening to celebrate the long history of the building and in 1996 reopened it as an interpretive centre for workers’ history and culture.[11]

Indeed, while the building has a rich history involving workers and their culture, it is also steeped in the richness of spirits that allegedly haunt it.

As mentioned, the most famous is the Dark Lady, who is often described as a pretty woman with dark hair — usually tied back in a bun — and wearing a dark dress. She has been spotted brushing her long black hair in front of a vintage mantelpiece and is known to be very protective of the building when any changes are made to it.

Apparently, a painter who was working there received an eerie message from the Dark Lady. She informed him that if her mantelpiece was moved, as was planned for a renovation, the building and the worker would be “washed away.” The painter relayed the message to management, but the mantle was moved anyway. And the next day, a drain pipe burst, causing some water damage.

There is another legend of a different painter working in the front hallway. He was startled to see the word MURDER appear in the freshly rolled paint, as if written with someone’s finger — only the words were backwards, as though being written from the other side of the wall.

Stephanie Lechniak, co-founder of Haunted Hamilton Ghost Walks & Events, has expressed a particular affinity with the Custom House building. When she was a child, her father used to bring her to look at the beautiful architecture of the building, and these days the Custom House is a big part of the ghost walks and costume ball put on by Haunted Hamilton.

Stephanie tells the tale of a Halloween in 2005 when she may have personally witnessed the Dark Lady. Sitting at the front of the main gallery, scraping a bit of wax from one of the tables, Stephanie heard a quiet creaking emanating from the old wood floors. Familiar with the building’s history and the spirits, particularly the Dark Lady, she steeled her nerves before looking up.

She saw a young woman sitting in a chair directly in front of her. The woman was there for just a moment before disappearing.

“The Dark Lady,” Lechniak notes, “is said to be the spirit of an unfortunate young Englishwoman who had gotten herself pregnant and was subsequently shunned in her home country and sent by ship to Canada to start a new life with her baby.”[12]

On the overseas voyage, the woman apparently had an affair with the ship’s captain. The captain, who had intended for the encounter to be a mere fling, was repulsed by the neediness of this woman. Her desire for them to stay together and for him to be the father of her child horrified him in terms of what it would mean for his reputation.

It is rumoured that, during a heated argument on the ship’s deck, the captain killed her in a fit of rage, snuck her body into the Custom House, and bricked it up behind a basement wall.

The Custom House does have a superfluous wall in the basement, but the historic designation has prevented any investigators from breaking it down to see if there is indeed evidence of a body and a crime. For most people, though, the brick wall’s existence and the tales that permeate the building are evidence enough.

Other ghosts haunting the building include those of two little boys, who have been heard running on the second floor by employees of the main floor’s gift shop. Another is that of a young woman, raped and killed in the building, who is said to be buried out back. Her spirit is believed to haunt the stairs inside and has been seen sitting forlornly on the stairway.

Additional lost souls include those of the fifteen men who were buried alive when the tunnel between the house and the railway tracks collapsed on them. Because they were transients, nobody knew who they were or even if there were families to be notified. The tunnel was simply sealed up, and everyone pretended that nothing had happened. As Daniel Cumerlato of Haunted Hamilton put it, “If you look in the basement, you can plainly see where the tunnel has been sealed, forever trapping those inside. With no proper burial or funerary rites, who could be surprised that these souls remain trapped in the world of the living?”[13] With so many dead buried in and around the Custom House, it’s no wonder there are ongoing tales of people witnessing the supernatural.

A fitting end to this chapter on the Custom House might very well be the origin to the legends set in this historic building — a poem written by the Custom House employee Alexander Hamilton Wingfield, published in 1873.

The Woman in Black

The ghosts — long ago — used to dress in pure white,

Now they’re got on a different track, —

For the Hamilton Ghost seems to take a delight

To stroll ’round the city in black.

Pat Duffy, who saw her in Corktown last night,

Has been heard to-day telling his friend

That she stood seven feet and nine inches in height,

And wore a large Grecian Bend.

A “Peeler,”[1] who met her, turned blue with affright,

And in terror he clung to a post;

His hair (once a carroty red) has turned white,

Since the moment he looked on the ghost.

Her appearance was frightful to gaze on, he said, —

It filled him with horror complete;

For she looked unlike anything, living or dead,

That ever he’d seen on his beat.

Her breath seemed as hot as a furnace; besides, —

It smelt strongly of sulphur and gin,

Two horns (a yard long) stuck straight out of her head,

And her hoofs made great clatter and din.

Her air was majestic, and terribly grand,

As she passed, muffled up in her veil;

A bottle of “ruin” she held in each hand,

And she uttered a low, plaintive wail;

“‘There is rest for the weary,’” but no rest for me;

I cannot find rest if I try, —

Three months and three days I have been on the spree

(Mr. Mueller, ‘How’s that for high?’)

“I have mixed in the world, both with ‘spirits’ and men, —

Once more with the spirits I’ll go.”

She stopped, took a sniff of the “ruin,” and then

She popped into a cellar below.

He could hear her again, crying out from her den —

“To-night you will see me no more;

But I’ll meet with you Saturday evening at ten,

By the fountain that stands in the Gore.”

Some people that passed there this morning at two

Found the “Peeler” still glued to his post;

He told them this yarn I have been telling you —

And that’s the last news from the Ghost![14]

[1] Peeler is a historic term that means “police officer.” It comes from Sir Robert Peel, who helped create the modern concept of the police force. The term Bobbies was also derived from his name.[15]