Bluenose Ghosts (7 page)

For a reason that was never determined, a nun also appeared on the old highway between Chester and East Chester, according to my friend Mr. Earl Morash. Later it was seen at Zinck's Road on the same night. “There would just be time for her to get from one place to the other. She was first seen by a man on horseback, and then by a father and his two boys.” It may be that in both of these cases their burial wishes were not carried out.

Some of the dead go so far as to disapprove of changes in their old homes. A fisherman at Victoria Beach said, “When Mr. Walters bought his house and was making repairs, a carpenter dressed in a pepper-and-salt suit would appear and say, ‘Don't do that. Why are you doing it this way?' He was supposed to be the original builder who wanted his house left as it was.”

At Victoria Beach Mr. Sam McGrath was building a house and was half finished when he would hear a noise like a wall being ripped down. It bothered him so much that he made inquiries about the lot and found that an Indian had been killed and was buried on that site. He knew the old belief that the dead do not like anything built over their resting place and, if I remember rightly, he told me that he moved to another location.

Mr. Archie McMaster is an elderly Scot who lives at Port Hastings. It is a joy to visit his house and to listen while he and his wife sing Gaelic songs together, sitting with their finger tips touching, and their arms moving back and forth with the rhythm of the music. In his younger days he used to go to the lumber woods of Maine and there the men would sit around of an evening spinning yarns and singing songs. A good story-teller and a good singer were great assets in any lumber camp and competition in both of these arts was keen.

The following story which he picked up there, may have originated upon this continent although it has an old sound and may have come over with early settlers who handed it down. It is a good example of the theme we have been following. Much of the charm of the narration is lost in the printed word. I only wish I could bring you his pleasant Scots accent along with this tale. The house he tells about must have been a very desirable dwelling judging by the trouble the son went to after his father's death to make it habitable. Of the happenings that took place after they moved to the paternal roof Mr. McMaster said—

“They didn't get no rest at all, at all.They moved out as quick as they moved in. It was so bad that he twice hired a man to sleep there and see if they could discover what was wrong, for nothing had ever caused a disturbance in his father's day. In both cases when morning came and he went to see what kind of a night they had put in, he found that a man was dead. He offered a large amount of money then to anybody who would sleep in that house and about that time a soldier came along.

“That feller, the soldier, went in and stayed all night. He heard a little noise about eleven o'clock at night from the other side of the house and there was a skeleton come down and he started playing around on the floor. He watched him for a while, but he got tired of looking at him and he walked down to the other end of the house and went to bed, leaving the skeleton rolling around on the floor. The next morning the son who owned the house but couldn't live in it came to see if the soldier was still alive. When he saw that he was living he said, ‘What did you see last night?'

“‘I didn't see nothing or hear nothing that would scare me,' he said. ‘I want to stay here for a couple more nights before I have anything I can tell you.'

“The second night was pretty much the same as the first but, on the third night when the skeleton was dancing and tearing around, the soldier said, ‘What in the name of God kind of man are you?' So the skeleton said, ‘I'm glad you spoke to me like that. I wouldn't touch you. I didn't touch the other fellows who were here but they got frightened. I could tell the first time I seen you that I could get you to speak. (Many people think the ghost can speak only if the human opens the conversation.)

You're not a coward at all.'

“Then he told him that he was the man who had owned the place, and that his son was scared his funeral would cost him money, so he hadn't buried him right. He'd made a cheap funeral. He said, ‘You talk to my son, and tell him to dig into the graveyard and take my remains up and make a wake for me and notify all the neighbours around. Then when he notifies all the neighbours he is to make a good funeral for me and, if he does that, no one will hear nothing from me any more.' So the son did as his father wished, and the family lived peacefully in the house forever after.”

There is no doubt about the locale of the next story, for it happened in the north end of Halifax. One day my furnace was being serviced by a man with the appropriate name of Burns. This included checking the thermostat. I had been working on this book and did not wish my train of thought disturbed and besides, upon this subject, anybody is grist to the mill. He must have been surprised therefore, when he came to my sitting room and, instead of the usual form of conversation I said, “Do you know any good ghost stories?”

“Ghost stories?” He hesitated while he made sure that I was serious, and then said, “You should have been around when my father was living. He was full of them.” Seeing my interest he went on, “He used to tell about a house on Windsor Street where they couldn't keep the doors closed. They even put nails in them and the doors would still open.” In this story he was feeling his way along, getting his mind in order for the following tale, and trying to assemble the facts. He finished his work on the thermostat and then hesitantly continued his story.

“There was one thing happened that my father always thought was queer. My brother could tell you about it better than I can.” He then told the story as he remembered it and later, his brother filled in the missing parts. All, including the brother's wife, had often heard the incident discussed and they assured me their father had always insisted it really happened. It is a different kind of “leave 'em lay,” with a ghost having a proprietary attachment to a bed you would think he would be only too glad to forget.

Many years ago Mr. Burns' great-aunt and uncle kept a boarding-house in the north end of Halifax. Their name was McLaughlin. They bought what appeared to be a very handsome bed at an auction sale, but nobody could sleep in it peacefully. The disturbance took the form of hair-pulling and turning down the bedclothes. One of the boarders who used the bed had heard of such things happening and decided there must be a ghost in the room. He therefore asked the spirit what he wanted. The answer came that the ghost had been murdered in that bed and his body had been thrown in Halifax Harbour at Deep Water; that is, just off of Pier 2. This seems to have been the full conversation, and the Burnses were sure he had made no request.

In those days beds were often made of the finest wood, and the McLaughlins wondered if this might be mahogany. If it were, they could not understand why it had been painted over, so they decided to scrape the paint off and see for themselves. I would have thought this had happened before the ghost disturbed the sleepers, and that this might have accounted for his activity, but the elder Mr. Burns was sure it came later. At all events the mystery was soon solved for, upon one side of the wooden frame, they discovered human bloodstains. Try as they would by rubbing and scraping they could not get those stains off and they decided then they were better off without the bed.They therefore consigned it to the flames and were glad to be rid of it.The incident has never been forgotten, however, and the story has come down through the family. The owners died about twenty-five years ago, and we presume the ghost rests peacefully, now that the bed that saw his death and retained his blood stains can no longer be used by others.

Chapter THREE

GHOSTS GUARD BURIED TREASURE

When Nova Scotians
tell their stories of buried treasure they assume you know the legend of the ghost that guards it. Treasure is a favourite topic, especially in rural districts. As you know, we are almost an island here and all along our shore line there are sheltered coves, bays, and beaches, with woodland growth coming close to the water's edge. These would all make excellent hiding places for pirates of the early days or others who may have wanted to dispose of their booty for a time. So, too, would the islands within the bays. A sea captain with a quantity of gold and silver in his possession may well have favoured hiding it until some future date, rather than risk being robbed of it upon the high seas. Or pirates may have preferred to commit it to the ground for a while and come back for it later on, marking the spot with great care by map and chart. Then again there were the Acadians who left their homes hastily. Some had time to confine their possessions to the good earth until they could return. There were others later who mistrusted banks and hid money on their property secretly, intending to reveal its whereabouts before death, but being stricken suddenly without having done so. This was said to have happened at Port Mouton, but the son was fortunate in finding the $2,700 his father had buried. It was in a three-legged iron pot and lay two feet under ground.

The greatest inspiration however stems from the fact of Captain Kidd's fabulous treasure, and many people think that it lies in Nova Scotia. Some say it is buried in a bay that has three hundred and sixty-five islands and that both Mahone and Argyle Bays answer to these requirements. Rocks have been found bearing the name of the famous pirate. At Glen Margaret in St. Margaret's Bay there is a rock bearing the words “Kapt Kit.” Oak Island in Mahone Bay, made internationally famous by the many unsuccessful attempts to find treasure there, has another. It bears the letters “200” and the word “Kidd.” When first discovered it was in a field but was later dragged by ox team to the shore. Another lies at Marion Bridge. It is shaped like a tombstone but is not so large. It is not near any highway or waterway, and is set upright in the woods. It gives the year and date of his death chiselled in the rock, and these words, “Captain Kidd died without mercy.” It was discovered by a man who was hunting and trapping and it was covered with moss, showing that it has been there for a great many years. A rock on White Island on the eastern shore has letters and a hand pointing to the tip of the island. Just why this name appears with its different spellings in such widely separated parts of the Province we will never know, for there is little likelihood that Captain Kidd was ever here.

We may speculate upon the source of treasure, but there is no doubt that money and other wealth have been extricated from the ground and washed up on our shores. People known to be poor have suddenly grown rich like a couple at Clarke's Harbour who were seen through a window drying bills on the oven door. Another man there found a bag on the shore in the eel grass, kicked it, then opened it, and hastened to get his wheelbarrow to take it home. He and his family have prospered ever since. At Clam Harbour a woman dreamed of buried treasure and a man went with her and found it with a mineral rod. They unearthed a copper bake pan full of English sovereigns. It must have been a sizable amount for they divided it and the man was able to buy horses and also to send his sons to college. A transport struck off Egg Island loaded with soldiers for Halifax, and the payroll was on board. The captain and mate got the money chest and made off with it but nobody knew where they went. Fifty years later a small steamer went into a cove at Laybold Island. In the morning fishermen went out and saw the skids where an iron box had been taken from the ground. They have wondered ever since if this was the missing payroll or some other treasure.

At Indian Cove a man and woman went to get treasure revealed in a dream, but a ship's boat with ten men, each rowing a single oar, arrived at the same time. When these had left, there was nothing there but the hole and the skids. In a similar case at East Chezzetcook a man and his wife were just starting to dig and had actually got as far as striking the chest with their pick when they heard a boat coming. They did not want to shed blood to get their treasure, nor were they prepared to risk their own lives by claiming it for themselves. They hid in the woods and, when this boatload of men went away, there was nothing left but the imprint in the ground where the chest had rested and an empty three-legged iron kettle which they had left behind.

A man at Sambro picked up a gold statue from the ground; another at Ball Rock who never did anything but dig suddenly became prosperous with no rich relation to account for his changed circumstances.

This also happened at Blandford. Just a few years ago two powder horns full of gold coins were found by two children playing in a quarry at Yarmouth. A chest filled with coins was taken from a stone wall when the Imperial Oil Refinery at Dartmouth was about to be built, and the owners of that property have prospered ever since. A Mochelle field is supposed to have given its pot of gold, and three silver spoons hidden by the Acadians, were dug up at East Pubnico. Men came to Victoria Beach and asked permission to dig on a certain property. They left before daylight, but not before placing two twenty dollar gold pieces on the owner's gatepost. How much had they taken away that they could afford to be so generous? At Berwick a story is told of a family who came to the eastern end of the Province soon after the Acadians left. They hired a yoke of oxen and a French plough from a neighbour. They were brought up with a jerk as the plough caught in the bail of a huge iron pot.The farmer suddenly realized what it was and sat on the ground to hide it. He said to the boy working with him, “Unhook the oxen and take them home.You can leave the plough where it is. I have a violent cramp in my stomach and when I recover I'll let you know.” As soon as the boy left he unearthed the pot and with its contents, he and his wife bought a fine house. When they died they left a property worth $12,000. The pot was about two feet across and was kept in the family for many years. The story was told me by the descendants. Other French money was supposed to have been found on Goat Island by men named Delap and Holliday.