by Ian Gibbs
In 1903, a new building was built to house the business; the architect was our friendly neighbourhood haunted building creator, Thomas Hooper. And Rogers’ Chocolates still uses that same store today, more than a century later. Naturally the building is profoundly haunted, and not just by Charles and Leah. Even though Charles and Leah were successful business people, excellent city leaders, and church-going folks, they were not the most attentive parents.
Freddie Rogers was born in 1890 to his very happy parents. Freddie was their only child, but sadly, they were so consumed by their business that they had very little time for Freddie. It wasn’t that Freddie was neglected—they hired various nurses and governesses for him—but none of them stayed long. In today’s terms we would understand that Freddie was simply acting out to gain attention from his absent parents. Back then, Freddie would have simply been known as a rotten child. One of Freddie’s favourite things to do was blow things up. This sounds a bit extreme, and nearly impossible for a small child, but in the late 1800s, it was quite common for parents to send their children to the local hardware store to pick up all kind of things required around the farm or homestead, including dynamite for removing stumps or rocks from the property. Freddie enjoyed purchasing the explosive in sticks and then cutting them up into delightful “fun size” pieces. He would climb on the streetcar that ran along Government Street, pay his nickel, and remain standing near the front of the train. Once people had registered that he wasn’t moving to a seat, he would pull out his mini dynamite stick and light the fuse. Standing there, watching people grow increasingly concerned, Freddie would wait until the very last second to fling it out the door of the moving streetcar, where it would explode mid-flight and cause mayhem both inside and outside the car. In the ensuing hysteria, Freddie would slip from the car and bolt up a side street, undoubtedly to cackle at the mess he had created. Freddie got so famous for doing this that the city actually passed a law prohibiting anyone named Frederick Rogers from using public transportation. Charles and Leah attempted to address this issue with their son, but the business always drew them back. Freddie was inevitably left to his own devices, running amok and causing panic and destruction wherever he happened to end up.
Eventually, when Freddie was fourteen years old, his luck ran out. During one of his many exploding adventures in the woods surrounding the town, he mistimed an experiment and was far too close to an explosion. He ended up permanently damaging his right hand so that it resembled more of a crab claw; he also lost the hearing in his right ear and the vision in his right eye. There is some speculation that he also experienced some brain damage because Freddie never got over these injuries. In January of 1905, Freddie, at the age of fifteen, checked in to the New England Hotel. Using a borrowed revolver, he took his own life. Charles and Leah were devastated and began to withdraw from the life they’d built in the community. They focused all of their attention on the business. They were so attached to their business that they stopped going home to their house in James Bay at the end of the workday. Instead, they brought two wicker chairs from home to the shop and hung them on the back wall of the candy kitchen. When night fell and their work was done for the day, the Rogers would unhook the chairs from the wall and place them on either side of the cooling candy stove. There they would rock quietly and grab a few hours of sleep before getting up and beginning the day’s production. Their only real home was the candy kitchen and the upstairs office of the building on Government Street. Lost in their grief, they rarely left the store. As the years went by, the business did well, but Charles and Leah were never the same.
Things went on this way for the next twenty-two years. Charles died in 1927, and the business was too much for Leah to run on her own, so she sold the shop. She also had an estate of over 300,000 dollars, which Charles had left her, equivalent to more than 1.3 million dollars today. She moved to a small house in James Bay, and gave all of her money to the church and various charities around town. When Leah passed away in 1958 at the age of eighty-eight, she was living in poverty in a house with no electricity. In fact, there wasn’t even money for a grave marker for her grave in the Ross Bay Cemetery. When the hauntings at the shop increased almost immediately after her death, Rogers’ Chocolates purchased a stone for Leah in hopes that she would leave them alone. It didn’t work, but it was still a kind thing for the companyto do.
The hauntings had begun soon after Charles died. He was the candy maker of the couple, and took care of the business side of things. His ghost made himself known by moving tools used for candy making, tying people’s shoes together if they stood still too long, and flinging handfuls of change around the upstairs office, as well as stomping around, and opening and closing doors and drawers. Lights would go on and off, and the radio would turn on when no one was in the office, much to the consternation of the employees downstairs who knew they were alone in the shop. Once Leah was gone, the front of the shop began to be affected, too. Staff would watch in amazement as the lines of Victoria Creams would sort of shuffle side to side, ever so slightly into straighter lines. Employees would slave over a new display window, leave for the day, and when they returned in the morning, they would find the display in a new configuration, apparently one that was more pleasing to Leah. On one occasion, a woman entered the shop and decided to take a sample from a tray. The woman did not like the sample and spat it into a small paper cup. For some reason, she put the cup back on to the tray. As she turned to leave the store, she felt something hit the back of her head. She looked down and saw the sample cup with her chewed up chocolate in it. Someone had thrown it at the back of her head. As she prepared to storm in and demand answers, she noticed that none of the employees had moved. In fact, no one was near the tray. Apparently Leah never could abide rudeness, and the lady’s behaviour did not impress her, nor did she find it acceptable.
Noises, sounds, and little tricks still go on, but there were two instances in particular that caused a bit more trouble than the regular occurrences.
After Rogers’ Chocolates began producing a milk chocolate line, employees would come into the shop in the mornings to find piles of milk chocolates in heaps on the floor, crushed into mush. In the kitchens, employees would find whole trays tipped off the tables, while the trays of dark chocolates next to them were untouched. Stove burners with milk chocolate tempering on them would turn off. Things got so bad that the shop reached out to local historian and Ghostly Walks proprietor John Adams, who explained that Charles had only ever produced dark chocolate and the change was probably upsetting him. Still perplexed about what to do, the answer came from one of the counter employees. “Just tell him,” she said. “Talk out loud and explain the situation.” So that’s what store managers ended up doing: speaking out loud about the change, telling Charles people enjoyed milk chocolate and that by destroying the trays and disrupting the production, he was actually hurting the business. It must have worked as nothing untoward ever happened to the milk chocolates again.
The second instance happened in December in the early 1980s. Staff noticed a smudged handprint on one of the mirrors that hangs approximately eight feet off the ground at the back of the store. This was unusual, as you would need to get on a ladder or step stool to create the print. When asked, none of the staff had been on any ladders. However, a dutiful staff member climbed onto a small stepladder and cleaned the mirror. The next morning, the print was back, and once again a staff member hauled out the ladder, climbed up, and cleaned the mirror. Unfortunately, every morning the smudged handprint was back. In Victoria, receiving a Rogers’ Cream in the toe of your Christmas stocking is a tradition, so things were getting very busy in the shop. The staff did not appreciate these hijinks and they began to get bit snippy with each other as they attempted to find out who was playing this not-so-very-funny-anymore prank. After a couple of weeks, things reached a boiling point and the managers called everyone together and asked them each to climb the ladder, put their hand next to the hand print, and pro
ve that it wasn’t them creating this disturbance. One by one, the employees did just that, until one of the last people to climb the ladder said to the group, “Wait a minute, this isn’t a smudged print of a perfect hand; this a perfect print of a damaged hand.” They looked closer and realized it was true. The handprint resembled something like a lobster claw—a print that would have perfectly matched Freddie’s disfigured hand if he had been around to compare it with. A bit of a chill went through the group, but it was rather nice to think that perhaps Freddie had come back to spend one last Christmas with his mother and father in the chocolate shop that brought all of them so much distress in the end.
OLD MORRIS TOBACCONISTS
THE OLD MORRIS Tobacconists shop, established in 1892, has been in its current location, designed by Thomas Hooper, since 1910. What is significant about the building is the lushness of the materials with which it was built: marble, onyx, and mahogany. These materials reflect the richness of a gentlemen’s club from that era, a smart choice at the time because the clientele was predominantly male. There is a beautiful and unique glass canopy over the main door. Another feature that makes the store unique is the electrolier that stands in the centre of the shop. Handmade from rare Mexican onyx, it is the last functioning model of its kind in the world and stands ready to light any cigar presented to it (if it were legal to smoke in public spaces in the city of Victoria).
There have been a number of paranormal investigations at this location, including one done by local paranormal investigator Andrea Bailey, who is the founder of Unearthing Shadows Paranormal. According to Andrea, there had been reports of someone moving around upstairs. Employees knew that there was no one on any other floor, and yet they could hear an office chair rolling around, cupboards and drawers opening and closing, and someone clearing their throat every once in a while. There were also sensations of cold spots and unsettlement in the back of the store.
Andrea went in with her team and began using equipment to try to capture electronic voice phenomena (EVPs), and to see if they could get any readings on electromagnetic field (EMF) readers. Andrea confirms they did pick up some interesting things during their investigation.
While the entity who resides upstairs didn’t reveal his identity, he was happy to come forward and communicate. Everyone is quite sure it’s a male, possibly an old employee who died upstairs while at work. However, something downstairs is really what caught Andrea’s attention. At one time in Victoria, there were rumours of a full underground tunnel system. On some side streets, you will see purple, square blocks in the sidewalk. What’s under them now are storerooms, which extend beneath the sidewalks; the blocks are there to provide natural light. When Andrea was downstairs in the tobacconists shop, she found a blocked off passage entrance. Here’s what she had to say about what she found:
There seems to be a man associated with the tunnel. It seems like he may have passed there, maybe not by accident. We had a lot of communication that revolved around a shovel and injury from behind, so we were thinking maybe someone came up behind him and hit him on the head with a shovel. I am not sure he knows what happened to him and it seems like he’s maybe reaching out for help. A few of us felt a hand coming through the tunnel that’s closed up with rock and mortar, so someone is there.
Employees have experienced poltergeist activity, including items flying off shelves into the middle of the store and light bulbs exploding for no reason. Employees have also complained about feeling watched down in the basement, and hearing sounds down there that have no source. All in all, this building is definitely home to some spirits.
MUNRO’S BOOKS
NOW HOME TO one of Canada’s premier bookstores, this building used to house a bank. It was designed in 1909, again by our friend Thomas Hooper (who really should be called Victoria’s haunted building architect). When the bank moved in 1963, Jim Munro opened a bookshop there. Munro’s Books has recently been named the third greatest bookstore in the world. During its years as a bank, however, the building saw a bit of a darker history.
A young woman who worked at the bank had been slowly and steadily embezzling from the bank. Unfortunately for her, she was caught. The bank did not let on that it knew and simply called the police. When the police walked into the bank, the young woman knew right away why they were there and ran to the back room. A gun was stored in the back in case it was needed to protect the money. She barricaded herself in the room and, despite the police entreating her to come out, took her own life.
That back room is accessible by a door in the rear of the building, where there is a covered parking garage. On rainy, late-night ghost tours, we will often go into the garage to tell stories rather than stand out in the rain. One night, a good friend of mine, Aaron, was on the tour and was listening to the story. The shop had been closed for hours and no one was in the building. He quietly knocked on the door three times. To his great shock, three knocks answered back. Aaron looked at his mom, who had accompanied him on the tour, and asked, “Did you hear that?” His mom said she had. Aaron knocked twice, and the entity responded by duplicating his knock. At that point the tour moved on, but ever since, Aaron has been a believer.
There have also been reports of books coming off shelves; sometimes it seems in response to what people are looking for. One woman with whom I spoke, Cecilia, had been searching for a particular cookbook that her mother wanted, and she couldn’t find it anywhere. Cecilia went to Munro’s with her friend. As they headed for the cookbook section, she mentioned to her friend that if she could just find this particular book, she would be so happy as she’d been looking for so long. They arrived in the cookbook section, and looked on in amazement as a book seemed to gently ease itself off a lower shelf and fall to the floor. It was the exact cookbook Cecilia had been searching for.
There have been other reports of books coming off shelves, but from what I hear they were more random, or to get attention. There may be other reports of ghostly customer service happening, but Cecilia’s is certainly the most compelling to date.
MURCHIE’S TEA & COFFEE
THIS VICTORIA STAPLE is actually an import from New Westminster in the Lower Mainland. John Murchie was a Scottish immigrant who started his life in tea by delivering tea to Queen Victoria while working for a tea company in England. John started his own company in Canada in 1894, and the company has never looked back. The building in which they conduct business in Victoria has had some ghostly activity over the years. The front part of the building seems to be unaffected, but the back of Murchie’s is a different story. There have been persistent reports by the after-hours security staff as well as a member of the Murchie’s staff of footsteps up and down the stairs; even when the store is closed and the building is relatively empty, the elevator is called by an unseen presence and travels between floors in what appears to be a random pattern. In the shop on the left-hand side of the establishment, things have come off shelves and broken, and not only at the hands of clumsy tourists. Sometimes they fall completely on their own. People have also reported hearing doors slam heavily in the lower level when everything is locked up and no one is supposed to be down there.
I have been in Murchie’s more than once but I have never felt comfortable there. In the back room of the café, on the right-hand side of the building, you will often see people enjoying the various baked goods, sandwiches, cakes, and of course the varied and famous tea. However, I never see anyone relaxed in there, just lingering on their own. It’s mostly tourists and family groups in that section of the café, and no one seems to go in there to unwind. After spending some time in there, I can understand why. I couldn’t tell you who is in the back part of the building and enjoys making noise, but there is definitely someone there who doesn’t want to let go of their small haunted area of Murchie’s café.
THE GUILD
THE BUILDING ON Wharf Street that houses this restaurant has been a number of things in its past. It was originally a warehouse in the late 1800s serving th
e wharf. It is known for having a huge whale mural on one side of it, but it is also known for having more than one ghost story emerge from within its walls.
Even before I knew this building had a history, I remember going there in 2007 when it was another restaurant. My wife and I shared a meal and I went downstairs to use the restroom. The lower I got, the more uncomfortable I felt. I went into the bathroom and had to keep turning around because I was genuinely convinced someone was in there with me. I couldn’t wait to get out. I practically backed out of the bathroom and then bolted up the stairs, feeling a little foolish. Now that I have heard some of the other stories and talked to some of the people who currently work there, I don’t feel as foolish.
The story of an experience a young woman had while attending a Chinese medicine school that was located in the basement level of the building has stuck around. The young lady was heading to the school for a class. As there are some colourful characters who hang around the park beside the building, the school had a protocol: each student was given a key to enter the building through the creepy steel door at the side. Once through the door, they were instructed to lock it behind them, and then open the second door to go down the long dark hallway toward the classroom at the end of the hall. As this student went in the first door, she turned to lock it behind her. Once this was accomplished, she opened the second door, but as she did, she felt a large bulky male presence push past her and hurry down the hall. She could see him framed in the light from the classroom at the end of the hall. The lights in the hallway were off and the switch was halfway down the long hall. As she moved toward the switch, she could see the man going down the hall and began calling out to him. “Excuse me, I’m sorry, what are you doing? You’re not supposed to be here.” She finally reached the switch, but when she turned on the light, the outline of the man disappeared. At this point, she was very upset and made her way to the classroom, where she quickly relayed what had just happened. As she did, she saw that other students were nodding their heads as if they had had the same experience. The instructors took it seriously and one of the Feng Shui masters created a large poster-sized set of gold characters that were believed to ward off evil. It didn’t do everything they had hoped for, and the school soon moved.