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The Hermitage

About three kilometres west of Ancaster and located in the Dundas Valley is a once-large residence that now stands in ruins. Called the Hermitage or the Hermitage Ruins, they are part of the Hermitage and Gatehouse Museum maintained by the Hamilton Conservation Authority. The location is quite popular with hikers and those interested in the paranormal.[1]

I went on a ghost walk run by Haunted Hamilton as part of their Ghost Walks and Historical Tours[2] under a new moon in July of 2011. Of the phases of the moon, a new moon, the time when the moon is not at all visible to the naked eye, is as significant in terms of ritual as a full moon. And for those who are not interested in the effects of lunar phases on supernatural energy and ritual, walking through a forest at night without a radiant orb in the sky can be that much more unsettling.

Just driving out to the location where the tour began, alone in my car and heading down the long and winding Sulphur Springs Road, I began to feel trepidation set in. It felt as if the forests on either side of the road were closing in on me, that beyond the range of my headlights were eyes following my every movement.

When I arrived at the site, a dark and faceless figure in long, flowing black robes, holding a single white candle, stood by the entrance and greeted me, waving me into the parking lot. It was only after I parked the car and walked out near the gathering crowd awaiting the 10:00 p.m. tour that I started to take comfort in the presence of others around me.

Of course, once the tour began, and Ghost Guide George led our group down the path into the rich blackness of the night and relayed the history of the Hermitage to our group, I again felt the eyes of the forest upon me as I delightedly stepped down the path and into a spooky historical journey.

The first building to appear on the now legendary spot was a small and humble home built in 1830 by Reverend George Sheed, Ancaster’s first Presbyterian minister, who had a dream of building and ministering his own church. Unfortunately, Sheed died before fully realizing this dream and his funeral took place in the very church he had been building (the 1st St. Andrew’s Church on Mineral Springs Road in Ancaster).[3]

Not long after, the property was sold to Colonel Otto Ives, an English officer who had fought in the Greek War of Independence and emigrated to Ancaster in 1833 with his wife and their beautiful young niece.[4]

A servant of Ives, William Black, fell in love with his master’s niece. Some accounts of the tale indicate that Black was a coachman as well as a tutor who was asked to assist the niece with speaking and writing English. The niece apparently felt the same way about Black, and thus began a secret and unfulfilled courtship between the two. When Black finally gathered the courage to meet with his boss, and in the gentlemanly and respectful way of the time ask for his niece’s hand in marriage, Ives was outraged. The sheer idea of a servant marrying a woman of station was preposterous, and Ives instantly and vehemently rejected the proposal.

The Hermitage, originally built in 1830 by the Reverend George Sheed, now exists as ruins, inspiring visitors with echoes from times long past.

Courtesy of Stephanie Lechniak.

Stunned and an instantly broken man, Black stumbled out of the house. Unable to bear a life without the woman he loved, Black hung himself.

Conflicting reports reveal Black hanging himself either in a stable or by the branches of a nearby willow tree. But as the legend goes, the next morning, Black was founding hanging by Ives, who proceeded to cut the body down. Because, in those days, the body of a person who committed suicide could not be buried on consecrated ground, Ives took Black’s body on a cart and buried him at a nearby crossroads of Sulphur Springs Road and what later became known as Lover’s Lane (after this very incident).[5]

The ghost of William Black is said to be heard during the night of a full moon, still crying for his lost love. Others have reported seeing his ghost walking the stretch of road near where his body and the cart were buried, wandering aimlessly in his distress and angst, or moving slowly along the grounds of the Hermitage, seeking, in vain, the woman he could not have.

Daniel Cumerlato tells a tale of one eerie moonlit night. At the end of that particular night’s tour, he headed back to the ruins to explain to the people still walking around that the security guard would soon be locking the gate to the parking lot. As he moved around the side wall of the Hermitage building, he spotted two people walking toward him. Daniel called out to them to hurry back to the parking lot, but they paid him no heed.

He called out again, and the two moved into the forest.

Concerned for their safety, Daniel ran after them into the woods with his flashlight, mere seconds behind their own entry. But they were nowhere to be found.

Of even more curiosity, Stephanie, who was a few yards back, saw him addressing the people, then chasing after them, but saw nobody other than Daniel on the grounds ... as if they were visible only to him.

One of the tales told regarding the ruins and Black’s ghost involves a new park employee, who, upon approaching the ruins, was disturbed to see a body hanging from a tree. Horrified that someone had committed suicide, he stood there, stunned, unable to do anything except watch the body swaying back and forth in the wind. When the figure suddenly vanished, the terrified employee ran as fast as he could off the grounds. It was only later that he learned of the story of William Black.

In a piece of fiction based upon some real experiences, Rob Howard wrote “The Second Ghost,” which ran in the Hamilton Spectator on Halloween of 2000. In the piece, he shared a fanciful story that he’d been mulling over in his mind for more than two decades.

Howard was hanging out at the site of the ruins with a group of friends after dark on a moonlit night, telling ghost stories, drinking some beers, and engaging in the kind of playful mischief that teenagers are apt to be up to in the days leading up to Halloween. One of the friends, Kenny, who had been planning on playing a prank on the others, decided to leave the group at a certain point, with the excuse of going to get more beer, but would then hide near the gatehouse, making ghostly noises in order to frighten one of their more jumpy friends.

Shortly after Kenny took off on his own, a ghostly moaning noise could be heard from the gatehouse. Laughing and figuring it for a joke, the friends headed over to greet their friend. The moaning transformed suddenly into the distinct words: “Come to me!” When they got to the gatehouse, they saw the padlock had been broken, and, annoyed their friend had engaged in vandalism, yelled out for him to knock it off and that the joke was over.

When they opened the door, they were shocked to find Kenny, barely lit by the dim light of the moon hanging in a noose, his face purple. The friends immediately rushed over and lifted his dangling legs, got him out of the noose and onto the ground.

He was gasping and barely able to speak, and they partially carried him from the grounds and took off in their car. Not much was spoken about that night or what really happened. The friends all went their separate ways, but Kenny and Mickey, who had been going together since Grade 10, ended up getting married.

It wasn’t until more than twenty years later, upon bumping into Mickey, that Howard learned the details of what Kenny had really been up to that night and how he’d found himself almost strangled in the noose.

Kenny had apparently forced the gatehouse door open and hid inside, making the noises to scare his friends. When he spotted the noose hanging there, he thought it would be more frightening, a better effect, if his friends saw him standing on a box with his head in the noose.

Pleased with his prank, and hearing the friends calling out for him to knock it off, Kenny stood with his head in the noose and prepared for their frightened arrival.

That’s when he saw a dark figure step out of the shadows, heard a voice say that if Kenny took his place in the noose, he could finally rest, and the box was kicked out from under him.

Seconds later, his friends appeared. It was Mickey who felt something nudge her in the dark and heard a loud, sweet female voice say “Go to him!” That’s when she rushed forward, the first to assist with getting Kenny down.

Mickey explained to Howard how she understood the ghost who pushed her forward was that of Mary Kathleen, the young woman William Black could not have. Like Black, she too was heartbroken for the rest of her days over the love she would never have.[6]

Howard explained to me that this published tale was just a story that came from “the Muse that floats above us all, occasionally dumping inspiration on our heads,” but that it was built upon true teenage experiences, particularly a girlfriend who refused to go any farther than the fence.

Rob’s wonderful tale reminds us of something the folks at Haunted Hamilton often express, particularly during their historic tours: most tales are creative and imaginary elements layered on top of a kernel of truth. The theatrical nature of sharing ghost stories brings with it this wonderful sense of combined curiosity, speculation, and fact.

But the spirits haunting this land belong not only to William Black.

In 1853 the property was purchased by George Browne Leith, and in 1855 he built the stately home — which included a large library, drawing room, dining room, and children’s room — as a summer villa. Several smaller attendant buildings, such as a carriage house and servants’ quarters, were also constructed on the property.[7]

Constructed of Gasport dolomite and limestone, the villa had a hip roof and French windows opening onto a large veranda.[8] Apart from the large, detailed diorama that stands as the centrepiece to the Hermitage and Gatehouse Museum and hints at the sheer magnitude of what once was, the ruins are all that are left of this once magnificent mansion.

That and perhaps yet another soul who could not bear to leave even after her death.

The youngest child of George Leith and his wife Eleanor Ferrier, Alma Dick-Lauder (1854–1942) purchased the property after her mother’s death. Alma was a bit of a loner, a writer with a penchant for the preservation of history with a focus on regional landmarks. She wrote articles for the Hamilton Spectator, which, ironically, focused on “delving among the ruins,” describing graveyards, mills, and churches that had been abandoned by time.[9]

In October 1934, a devastating fire destroyed most of her home. At the age of seventy-nine, she was not about to leave her home, even though very little of the building still stood. She erected a tent to live in the shadow of the standing stone structure. Eventually, a small home was built on that spot, and she remained there until she died in 1942 at the age of eighty-seven.

She had apparently wanted to be buried on the very grounds of the place she so loved, but she was buried in the St. John’s Anglican Church cemetery in Ancaster.[10] But that doesn’t seem to stop her from returning to the land and building she so cherished in life.

In Alma’s book Pen and Pencil Sketches of Wentworth Landmarks, published by The Spectator Printing Company, Ltd. in 1897, she writes that one “feels for houses that have known good days and handsome furniture, almost as if they felt their degradation themselves and shivered o’ nights in the cold and darkness.”[11]

Several times in the book she talks about waking the ghosts of old (of both people and animals), of being in old houses and having “ghosts seem to flit noiselessly”[12] before her, or, more poetically, describing a house as past the stage when even a friendly mouse would run over its old floor — and a ghost there might be, “perhaps in the winter dusk, coming from the radiant fire-lit drawing-room suddenly, a black, shadowless Pompey might be met climbing the stairs with noiseless feet, bearing an impalpable jug of hot water to a massa dead this fifty years and more!”[13]

One legend tells of an engineer, eager to study the remains of the building’s foundation, approaching the Hermitage in the middle of a bright day. However, instead of the ruins, he beheld a stately stone mansion drifting in and out of focus like some sort of mirage. As he approached even closer, the image faded, leaving the ruins, a mere shadow of the splendour that once stood there. Still unable to believe his eyes, he heard a sound behind him and turned. A few yards behind him stood an elderly woman, silently staring at him until she, too, vanished.

Given Alma’s affinity for old buildings and “delving among the ruins,” it is no wonder she couldn’t leave her residence when it burned down. Perhaps she chooses to stay there and offer a glimpse of it to strangers who might appreciate what she so loved.

I had been to the Hermitage before that moonless night I partook in the Ghost Walk — but in full light of day. Even in the heat of the afternoon sun, I could feel something special, something powerful about the place. Standing in the presence of what remains of a large and spectacular building can do that to a person.

But in the thick of night, listening to Ghost Guide George stand in what was once the summer kitchen of the home, recounting eerie tales, much colder shivers ran down my spine. Forget about the ghosts themselves. Just thinking about how the site has, over the years, attracted cultists, Satanists, and other practitioners of the dark arts — drawn by its sheer power, by the legend of ghosts that haunt it, to perform black magic sacrifices and rituals under the light of a full moon — gave me the creeps.

As the tour continued on a trail around the Hermitage and back down the path to where we began, the high, quavering cry of a coyote echoed through the night, punctuating the primitive fear already well in play.

Of course, part of my mind still wonders if it really was a coyote. After all, it might just as well have been the mournful wail of William Black, forever lamenting his unrequited love, or of Alma, who will never again see her regent mansion and estate in its former glory.