Posted on 04/30/2004 7:12:03 PM PDT by CurlyBill
ST. THOMAS -- Somebody calls the newspaper with a tip and I find myself clambering up the steps of the old St. Thomas courthouse, thinking I'm wasting my time on a wild goose chase. Maybe a wild ghost chase.
It's a grand old building, to be sure. First built in 1852, it burned down in 1898 and was rebuilt the following year. Situated atop the hill on Wellington Street, the three-storey structure features five arches out front and a cupola on top.
The building, which is being renovated, holds a Crown attorney's office, a land registry office and provincial and Superior courtrooms.
Maybe the courthouse holds something else, too.
Several people tell me that years ago, a husband and wife team of custodians lived on the top floor. They say the wife died in a tragic accident and she has haunted the building ever since.
I tug on the door leading to the top-floor apartments, but it's locked.
I hear that, for years, there have been strange things happening here. Most of the people who tell me these tales don't want their name in the newspaper. Not in a ghost story, anyway.
One yarn goes like this: A caretaker, spooked by a vacuum cleaner that kept mysteriously turning off, finally lost his patience and spoke aloud. "Now look," he said. "The sooner you let me finish my work, the sooner I'll be out of here."
The vacuum immediately started up.
I'm told nighttime cleaners have found all the trash cans upended. I'm told a worker changed the brand of liquid cleanser she was using; later, she found all the new cleaning bottles on the floor, tops off, spilling into a drain.
I talk to a St. Thomas police officer in one of the courtrooms. He tells me that about 20 years ago, he and his partner responded to a possible B and E -- breaking and entering -- at the old courthouse.
It was a hot summer night. But, he says, as the two men climbed a rickety staircase to the top floor, the temperature suddenly dropped.
"It got so damn cold," he says, "it was like climbing into a fridge."
Then, he says, he felt a pressure on his left side and was shoved aside with such force that he would've tumbled off the steps if his partner hadn't grabbed him.
"That was my last experience being in here at night," says the cop. He laughs, but I don't think he finds it funny.
Then I meet a couple of electricians working on the renovations. Do they know anything about the ghost? One nods.
Dave Eels tells the story matter-of-factly, almost as if I'd asked him how to upgrade a fuse box.
Eels says it happened back in February. It was dark, about 7:30 p.m., and Eels and two other men were working in the courthouse. One of the guys asked if they wanted to go outside for a break.
Later, the man explained why he'd wanted to leave the courthouse: He'd been working alone in the basement when he felt something tug his overalls.
Then the room turned suddenly cold -- so cold, says Eels, the man could see his breath.
While they were standing outside, the three men heard a loud noise -- a sort of banging -- echo from the supposedly empty building. One guy figured a sheet of drywall had fallen. They heard more noises and went back to investigate.
And this is what they found in the small basement room where the one man had been working: They found the man's drill case, where he'd left it. Atop that they found the man's sweater, where he'd left it. And atop that they found a wooden chair, smashed to pieces.
Eels says the chair had been sitting, intact, in another room down the hall.
Eels shows me the broken chair. I ask if he believes in ghosts.
"Something was going on that night," he says.
Later, I re-enter the small basement room, with its curved, brick ceiling and old stone walls. I'm a skeptical guy. It's mid-afternoon. There are at least a dozen people upstairs.
Still, it feels good to get out of there. And I do. Fast.
Bet you never forgot to take out the garbage again...did you ?
It's a funny thing, but I didn't take it out right then and there. I was trying to convince myself that I was not at the mercy of the whims of a ghost.
It knew what was best though. That cabin was plagued by mice and they no doubt were getting into the garbage as we slept.
You're right that I never went to bed from that time on before emptying the can. As to whether or not it was a ghost, I was utterly convinced that it was. I thought about asking the owners of the cabin if there had been any activity like that, but I figured they'd never admit it anyway. That would be bad for business.
It was quite an old log cabin, so there would have been plenty of opportunity for something of a traumatic nature to have occurred there over the years. Or, maybe the ghost just liked the place. It was nice after all, right on the shore of Lake Huron.
While I have my own ghosts stories, this reminded me of a very scary tug on my pant leg once. I had just moved into my first apartment so had gone out to the old family house to get some stuff I'd stored and to "borrow" finds to furnish my new place. No one lived there much except for the occasional weekend so there were 3 locks on the back door. I had loaded up and was trying to get all the padlocks locked and fumbling with the keys all without dropping wire clothes hangers so was getting frustrated because I wanted to get on the road ahead of the rainstorm. The wind blowing like mad wasn't helping as it was flapping the old screen door against me when I felt my pant leg get caught in the screen. Try as I might, kicking the door away didn't release my leg. There I was praying not to drop locks, keys, hangers, the wind blowing hair in my face and fighting the screen that keep tightening on my pant leg. Finally, the last padlock clicked and I reached down to unhook my leg .... I was 30 feet across the yard. I swear, I don't remember running but *pow* I was at the other side of the yard. It wasn't the screen door tugging on my pant leg but a snake, a racer, that had wound itself around almost both legs in a figure eight. The stoop was shy of 6 foot across and he was stretched across it and headed down so he was a big fellow. With all the jingling of keys and hangers, banging doors, and me kicking, I don't know why he didn't bite. I'll tell y'all about his cousin and the toilet one day, lol.
I just hate being woken up in the middle of the night and hear something strange. One night I heard someone playing scales on the piano. I was laying in bed frozen, bug eyed, and terrified some crazy had broken in. I could hear the tv on in the other room so knew Mr. M had fallen asleep watching but I was so scared I couldn't call out to him. After what seemed like forever, probably only a couple minutes, I went from terrified to mad because Mr. M obviously was snoozing through it all. I grabbed the gun and stomped into the living room and hollered at the pianist who answered with a meow! ;)
I wonder if your wife may have had ulterior motives :O)
I think in the ghost stories are good for business, and I'm willing to bet that more than story has been started by the local COC to boost tourism...
Just fooling with you on the garbage can...
There is a story in my family about a ghost in our basement...I was about 3 at the time so I don't remember much but the short version is...We lived in a house built sometime in the 1940's with an unfinished basement, this was about 66' or 67. My sisters had one of those 'sprung' horses you mount and ride and if you got bouncing enough, it would leave the floor and travel around the room, I'm sure that was not a design feature. This made a heck of a racket on the concrete...
While doing this one day...all the sudden from behind the old oil fired furnace came this haunting voice..."Don't ride the hoooorse...". I guess there were some screams and some crying involved...To this day, my mom still will not admit that she was hiding back there...
While I agree that emotions or whatever can be left in a house, I dunno about not really seeing ghosts. I've had and heard about enough experiences where the ghost comes to a person in a place where the ghost didn't live or have any attachment to. It's all spine tingling though.
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