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Duggan House is haunted.

Located on McTavish Street, the gothic mansion was built in 1861 as a family home for Orrin S. Wood, one of the pioneers of the telegraph industry in Canada and president of the Montreal Telegraph Company. The home passed through the hands of many prominent families over the years, owned at one time by Matthew Hamilton Gault, MP and founder of Sun Life Financial, as well as George Herrick Duggan, a prominent engineer who gave the property to McGill University after his death in 1946. It is still owned by McGill to this day.

The paranormal phenomena experienced in Duggan House is well-known to faculty and students. There’s the story of the graduate student who saw a female ghost in nineteenth-century dress coming down the stairs while she was in a meeting with her professor in the foyer, an experience that horrified her so much that she hyperventilated. Others have heard footsteps echoing through the halls, and found objects mysteriously moved or missing. It’s rumoured that the Faculty of Commerce vacated the building in 1977 because students were uncomfortable with the paranormal activity going on in the place.

So, who exactly is haunting Duggan House?

If you’ve already read the chapter “The Tobogganing Ghost of Simon McTavish,” you might be surprised to learn that anyone would be silly enough to build on the land where McTavish’s castle once stood, but that’s exactly what happened. Duggan House sits on that land, and was actually built with stones from the demolished castle, leading some to suggest that it might be McTavish himself who is haunting the building. But then, McTavish isn’t a woman.…

Duggan House, built in 1861, is now owned by McGill University.

Another creepy theory has to do with Purvis Hall, another McGill campus building. Apparently, in the 1940s, when students were either lazier or more sensitive to the cold, a tunnel was built to connect the Purvis and Duggan buildings so students could travel easily between the two. In itself, this fact is alarming enough. That tunnel, if it’s still accessible, could be letting all kinds of riff-raff into Duggan House, and seems like a pretty serious security issue. But it gets better. Purvis Hall is also believed to be haunted — by its namesake, Arthur B. Purvis. So, possible murderers and thieves aside, the tunnel may also be in use by the ghost of Arthur B. Purvis, intent on haunting any building he can get into.

But the Purvis Hall ghost isn’t female either, is he?

There is one woman who lived in Duggan House who is a likely candidate for the female ghost spotted by the graduate student. Elizabeth Joanna Bourne, wife of Matthew Hamilton Gault, birthed a total of sixteen children, five of whom died in infancy. When the last baby perished it’s said the poor lady went somewhat mad. She passed away in 1908. Does she haunt the building still? Could be, but it’s difficult to be sure. When you’re on haunted grounds, there are just too many ghosts to choose from.