Читать книгу Haunted Ontario 4 - Terry Boyle - Страница 11

~ Burlington ~

A mysterious woman appears in the corridor dressed in a white-satin Victorian gown, a veil covers part of her hair. She searches for the door that will lead her to freedom and the person who has the key to that door. Her appearance is captivating but, nevertheless, chilling. Very few people have seen her. One person to whom she has spoken has never fully recovered from the experience. The “Lady in White” is waiting …

This strange presence walks the halls and grounds of the Joseph Brant Museum in Burlington, Ontario. Most people sense nothing out of the ordinary here. In fact, neither staff nor director admit to the existence of a spirit. Is it denial — or disbelief? A museum is, after all, a storehouse of historical artifacts to educate people about the past, to broaden and expand one’s sense of identity in time. Just how much of the “invisible” past can be housed along with it? Just ask the one visitor who has willingly shared an unforgettable, unexplainable encounter that took place twelve years ago in this museum. The experience was so intense that she never returned until this year when she was asked to reveal her story about the Victorian lady in white. What connection does this have to Joseph Brant’s home or to the hotel that once stood on this site?

The Joseph Brant Museum in Burlington.

Our story begins with Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea), a Mohawk leader who, in 1798, was granted 3,450 acres on Burlington Bay by King George III for service to the Crown during the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolutionary War. Brant built a home on his property just a few hundred yards to the southwest of the present-day museum. His dwelling was a two-storey house built of timber brought from Kingston by water in 1800. He chose a site at the Head of the Lake overlooking the bay and beyond. He and his wife, Catherine, and their family resided here. In 1807 Joseph Brant died in his home at the age of sixty.

Brant’s son, John, was thirteen when his father passed away and he and his younger sister, Elizabeth, continued to live there with their mother. Little is known of their lives over the years that followed. W.L. Stone, biographer of Joseph Brant, believes that Elizabeth and her husband, William Johnson Kerr, were residing in the old mansion in 1837. Apparently, Elizabeth inherited the home when John died in 1832.

In 1845 the Kerrs died, leaving behind four children. One son, W.J. Simcoe Kerr, followed in his father’s footsteps and graduated from Osgoode Hall in 1862 as a lawyer. It was during this time that the Kerrs, for reasons unknown, resided elsewhere and rented the estate and the farm to a Mr. Henry.

On December 17, 1869, Simcoe Kerr moved back to the homestead. A year later he married Kate Hunter. The couple had no children. Simcoe Kerr died on February 18, 1875. A year later his sister also passed away. It was during this period that the estate was sold and the homestead was incorporated as the Brant House, a luxurious summer resort. The house had a verandah that swept two sides and many gables. The interior, according to Clair Emery and Barbara Ford in their book From Pathway to Skyway, was turned into a series of individual motel-like apartments and became a popular spot for vacationers. The Halton Atlas of 1877 featured the Brant estate, which at that time sported twenty acres of gardens, croquet lawns, a bowling green, bathing “machines,” ice cream parlours, and a dance hall. The proprietor of the establishment was J. Morris.

A.B. Coleman eventually purchased the property and in 1899 began the promotion of a second hotel structure adjacent to the Brant House. On July 2, 1902, the new hotel, named the Hotel Brant, opened its doors to the public. Erected at a cost of $100,000, the Hotel Brant was described as “a spacious building with accommodation for 250 guests.”

The hotel was very modern and popular. It had elevators, electric lights, sanitary plumbing, and hot-water heating. This new tourist centre, surrounded by lawns and numerous shade trees, was situated on a high bluff overlooking both Lake Ontario and Hamilton Bay. The hotel’s dining room was a massive 900 metres (8,000 square feet) and live music played at mealtimes. Hotel rates started at $2.50 a day. A special feature of the establishment was a roof garden. An early brochure of the hotel advertised golf, tennis, croquet, bowling on the green, bathing, boating, fishing, cycling, driving, pin bowling, billiards, pool, bagatelle, and ping pong. The manager of these many fine amusements was Thomas Hood. The Brant House complex was renamed The Hotel Brant and Annex.

The Hotel Brant was unable to serve alcohol due to its location in the dry part of town. Male guests found this situation quite inconvenient. Mr. Coleman was sensitive to the needs of his guests and thereby resolved to purchase a piece of land across the way and open a country club in the wet section of town to satisfy his thirsty patrons. This building was later remodelled and became known as the Brant Inn. It was destroyed by fire in 1925 and then reconstructed. Famous entertainers such as Sophie Tucker, Ella Fitzgerald, Liberace, Lena Horne, and Benny Goodman were frequent entertainers at the Brant Inn.

In August of 1917 the Hotel Brant and Annex was expropriated by the federal government and remodelled for use as a soldier’s hospital. The expansive verandahs were boarded up and remodelled to create wards. Many of the other hotel rooms became operating theatres. The hospital staff resided in the annex. There are no reports to indicate how many soldiers were treated or died there.

In the 1930s the remaining veterans were transferred to Toronto. A short time later the hotel and annex were vandalized and parts of the building destroyed by fire. Eventually the buildings had to be demolished.

Ontario minister of highways T.B. McQuesten was instrumental in the erection of Joseph Brant House. McQuesten recalled visiting the original Brant Annex with his mother as a little boy. He was so impressed with the history of the area that he felt obligated to ensure that a piece of that history be honoured. On May 23, 1942, the Joseph Brant Museum, a replica of Joseph Brant’s home, was officially opened. The museum was situated a few hundred yards from the original site. The loading docks of the Joseph Brant Hospital, located to the west, are said to be on the actual site of the hotel and annex.

The first reports of a haunting of Joseph Brant’s home were recorded as early as 1873 in the American Historical Record and later recounted in the Hamilton Spectator. One visitor shared his experiences within the building during Brant’s ownership.

This venerable structure presents nearly the same appearance as it did … when Captain Brant, with a retinue of 30 servants and surrounded by soldiers, cavaliers in powdered wigs and scarlet coats and all the motley assemblage of that picturesque era, held his barbaric court within its walls. The rumour was reported to me in good faith by a neighbouring farmer that the Brant House is haunted.

According to Michael Bennett’s report in the Hamilton Spectator, “Visiting psychics have said the supernatural ‘heart’ of the building lies in the small third-floor room.”

Mr. Bennett also refers to an article that appeared in the Hamilton Spectator in 1891. “Grisly find on the Brant property. Investigators digging in a mound discovered the skeleton of a large, male Native. Two ivory rings still pierced his nose and alongside him in the grave lay a tomahawk, pipe and knife.”

Who was the person and why was he buried here? Certainly the disturbance and removal of a body from its sacred burial place is often enough to begin a spirit haunting.

Who really haunts the Joseph Brant Museum?

For years the nursing staff on the second and third floors of the Joseph Brant Hospital have witnessed unusual activity in the museum across the way. The nurses have a very clear view and have reported lights going off and on in the rooms on the second floor and in the attic space on the third floor; some have seen an apparition walk by a second-storey window in the middle of the night. Could it be the “Lady in White”?

People have seen lights going off and on in this room at night.

In 1987 a group of Burlington Jaycettes met at the Joseph Brant Museum in the evening. Their meeting was to begin at 8:00 p.m. sharp in the room located to the right on the second floor. The upstairs of the museum is comprised of a short corridor at the top of the stairs with a bookcase on the left. Adjacent to the corridor on the right is a large room that faces the hospital and a smaller exhibition room with a glass case on the left. Past this display room is a small hallway leading to an office and a narrow staircase leading to the attic on the third floor.

Mary (not her real name) arrived on time and took a seat just inside the doorway. A male friend was seated beside her. Sometime between 8:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Mary had an unexpected terror of a visitation.

Mary is a middle-aged woman of slight build. She knows more than most people will ever realize. She is a sensitive, a person who attracts the spirits of the deceased. It is this gift of sight that terrifies her when she senses evil. Recently, on a warm spring day, Mary, accompanied by a friend, nervously approached the museum. She did not want to enter the building. She felt fear. Her need to tell her story, to be heard and believed, gave her the courage that she needed. With trembling hands she began her story of what happened that night. She has not stepped foot in the building in all these years since her experience.

On that evening, Mary had been seated facing north, which meant the doorway leading to the corridor was on her right. For some reason her attention was drawn to the doorway. “I looked out the door and there she was, standing in the hallway, looking right at me. She made eye contact with me. She was wearing a white dress with long sleeves. Her dark-brown hair was partially covered by a veil. It almost looked like a wedding dress, but not quite.

“She was just standing there. I heard her plain as plain can be. She was talking to me. I asked a man seated beside me to look. He couldn’t see her. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties, not beautiful, but not unattractive either. She was very thin.

“She said ‘My name is Eliza. I was born in England in 1847. Don’t let my appearance fool you because things are not as they seem.’ Then she was gone.”

Mary was so frightened that she fled the building.

What has kept Eliza there and what “things are not as they seem?”

Mary saw a female spirit, wearing a white dress, standing outside this door in the hallway.

The museum volunteer co-ordinator at the time, Ann Urquhart, was determined to get to the bottom of the haunting. She left a tape recorder running after the museum closed for the night in order to catch the spirit on tape. In his newspaper article, Michael Bennett explains, “On at least one occasion Ann Urquhart caught sounds she describes as ‘the rustling of papers and a cupboard door closing.’”

Mary later said, “I figured out what she meant when she said ‘things are not as they seem.’ I listened to one tape made by Ann that picked up the sound of coins being dropped on the table. Eliza was a woman of the night.”

Michael Bennett surmised, “Speculation is that Eliza was banished from the respectful ground-floor rooms of the old Hotel Brant but greeted her visitors on the second-floor landing where the encounter took place. The attic room where her presence is most felt by those sensitive to such things corresponds to the room where Eliza did her entertaining.”

Mary believes the white dress Eliza was wearing was deceiving. She wasn’t as pure as the colour white represents. At the time of the sighting the glass display cabinets situated in the room to the right of the corridor housed a collection of Victorian dresses. Mary said, “I could not walk past the cabinets.”

Barbara Teatero, the museum director, adds, “One day while I was working at my desk I looked down the hallway and saw two women standing in front of the display case with their hands on the glass. I asked them if I could help them. They replied, ‘You have friendly ghosts here.’”

Perhaps Eliza’s white dress is in the museum’s extensive Victorian collection that is now in storage on the third floor. Perhaps Eliza’s world has remained. She is still working in the hotel! Mary certainly wouldn’t disagree that Eliza lives in the building. Her experience was real and terrifying. But why terrifying?

“She frightened me. It was how she spoke to me.” Eliza’s tone of voice carried a menacing force that still remains with Mary today.

Mary remained tense and I felt there was more to her story. “Mary, this isn’t the first ghost you have seen, is it?” I asked her.

She hung her head and remained silent. Tears formed in her eyes and streamed down her face. Her friend reached for a tissue. She felt safe enough in the moment to reveal herself. “In 1978 we thought of moving and looked at a house in Burlington. This fairly modern home had been on the market for a long time. For some reason it wouldn’t sell. We wondered why but we bought it.

“One day I was in the kitchen preparing lunch when someone touched me. I was the only person in the house.

“We then discovered that the builder of the home had died constructing the home.

“On another occasion I entered the house and there he was, standing in the room. He had reddish-blonde, curly hair and a beard. He was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans, as if dressed for work. I had a picture of Jesus Christ hanging on the wall. I glanced over at the picture and caught him doing the same. We looked at each other and then I knew that it was okay. I called him by his name, Kevin.

“My son never saw him, but did hear his footsteps.

“We lived with this spirit for fifteen years. When we moved from the house I cried.”

Still dabbing her eyes, Mary glanced down. In this moment I knew her stories were true. She could judge the intent of the two separate spirits. Kevin was kind and unobtrusive. Eliza generated quite a different atmosphere.

I felt it was time for me to seek out Eliza in the museum. I travelled from room to room taking photographs of every nook and cranny. I snapped several shots of the display case, hoping to catch an image of Eliza in the glass. Then I wandered up the narrow staircase to the attic. I knew she was there. I pondered the story that the museum director shared of an experience she and her sister had in the attic. “My sister and I were up on the third floor putting away costumes in boxes. Suddenly one of the boxes flew up and hit my sister on the shoulder.”

Yet when I asked if she believes in ghosts she responded with a hesitant, “No.”

As I walked around the attic I tried to imagine what this building was like as a hotel. What other spirits haunted this place? What haunting was the writer referring to back in 1873? Who was the male spirit one psychic spoke about on the first floor? I shot some pictures without incident. Little did I realize what would happen next!

I walked into the corridor on the second floor where Eliza had been seen. A floor-to-ceiling bookcase was situated to the right of me. I decided to check the book collection for historical information about Brant’s house and the hotel. An elderly gentlemen was seated in a chair about one metre (three feet) away, working at a desk. His job was to catalogue the library. Gazing up to the third shelf I spotted a book I had written back in 1979. Thinking that I might take a look at it again, I reached up and placed my hand on the book. It suddenly flew off the shelf, along with three others. Two of the other books landed on the floor, while the book I had written, called Under This Roof, managed to strike the gentlemen by the desk on the side of the head, knocking his glasses across the hall. What on earth had happened? My attention went immediately to the man, hoping he wasn’t hurt. I found his glasses and returned them to him. In his mind, I had caused the accident. I apologized but I knew full well that I had not done the deed. Eliza had shown her hand. There was no way those books could have fallen off the shelf. I had a strong grip on the one book and had not yet pulled on it at all. It happened fast, with great force. I knew she was there and that Mary was right. Eliza is not a kind spirit. I thanked her for making an appearance.

The Joseph Brant Museum is visited by thousands of tourists each year. Most visitors would never know or sense anything out of the norm. They might miss the truly historical exhibit of Joseph Brant’s real home and the Hotel Brant that still stands on the property. Obviously some of the characters from those days live on as if nothing has changed. Occasionally someone like Mary discovers them again.