Many of the 306 bodies recovered — the majority of them unidentified — were brought ashore in Halifax and buried in Fairview Lawn Cemetery. Often strange lights can be seen floating above and around the grave markers, which were arranged close together. Could these lights signify the presence of restless spirits?
Chapter 4
History’s Legacy of Hauntings
The Star-Crossed Lovers of Milledge House
On the night of December 4, 1887, a curiosity seeker, disguised as a peddler, knocked at the door of what was then Milledge House, near Annapolis Royal. The “peddler”, who we’ll call Peter, asked if he could obtain lodging for the night, and the owners conferred over the matter in whispers for several minutes. During their animated discussion, the man overheard the words “to the big front room.” Finally, the owners agreed to let him stay the night and he was shown to his bed.
Peter was excited. He had heard rumours in the town that on the fourth day of every month Milledge House was, and had long been, the site of a fearful supernatural invasion. Being a dyed-in-the wool skeptic, he intended to show the stories up for what they were.
He soon turned the lamp down low, left the door ajar, and scrambled into bed. His hostess had obligingly slipped a warming-pan between the blankets to ward off the freezing night air, and Peter quickly drifted off to sleep, confident that nothing would disturb him. Two hours later he awoke to the sound of a gentle push at the door. In spite of himself he felt a stab of fear. A dreadful feeling pervaded the room.
At first he thought he must have been imagining things as he watched a headless ghost walk into view. With heavy footsteps, the spectre crossed the room to the table where the lamp was placed and blew out the flame, leaving the room in inky darkness. Terrified, the visitor leaped up to rekindle the lamp, then rushed back to the safety of his bed. But he was not alone. During the seemingly endless night a young woman, dressed in old-fashioned clothes, stared silently at him from the foot of the bed. The guest could not see the woman’s face, and as dawn broke she eventually faded away.
As her figure disappeared, a loud clatter broke out at the top of the stairs, followed by what sounded like shots and then a noise as if a heavy body had fallen head over heels down the steps to the hallway below. Horrified, Peter rushed out to the landing, but there was no one to be seen. The household was in deep sleep. He could hear snores coming from the master bedroom, and there was no sign of anything being amiss, so he crept back to bed to face the remaining sleepless hours ahead. Now he was kept company by the spectral figure of a weeping old blind woman, who rocked ceaselessly in a ghostly rocking chair on the opposite side of the room and then she too vanished.
When Peter went down to breakfast the next morning he told his hostess about the terrifying events of the previous night. She explained that no one had been able to sleep in the big front room for many years because it was so haunted. She and her husband had been taken aback when he showed up asking for a night’s lodging, and they had put him into the haunted room on the spur of the moment, to see if the spirits were still active. “Which they clearly are,” he said with droll good humour.
His hostess, feeling that he had earned the right to learn the history behind the haunting, began to recount all she knew about the matter. Some time during the early 1700s, there lived in Honfleur, France, a merchant who owned a bakery combined with a wine business. This businessman had an 18-year-old daughter, an only child called Madeleine, who was very beautiful. She had abundant auburn hair, blue eyes, a complexion like a rose, and a nature as sweet as her looks. She was betrothed to her father’s foreman, Jean L’Ardin.
The merchant’s business was thriving, and many people came to the premises to buy his delicious bread and wine from the hands of the sweet Madeleine. Among them was a dashing young officer in the French army, Etienne Freivever. This man fell madly in love with Madeleine and, although she gave him no reason to hope, Etienne grew passionately jealous of her fiancé, Jean. He pestered the poor girl mercilessly, finding it inconceivable that she would prefer the love of a common workman to that of an officer and a gentleman.
One day the young officer’s regiment was ordered overseas to the French colony of Port Royal, on the Annapolis River. His passionate advances were cut short, and shortly afterwards Madeleine and Jean were married.
Sacking of Port Royal
Fate intervened in the lives of this happy couple when the political tension between France and England heightened. Jean was conscripted into the army. He did not want to be a soldier, but there was nothing he could do to avoid his duty to his country. He, too, was sent overseas to Port Royal, and stationed as a common soldier in the garrison where his rival was an officer.
As soon as Etienne clapped eyes on Jean, he recognized him and determined to do him mischief. Jean himself had no idea whom his superior officer Etienne really was. So, when Etienne exercised his power to appoint Jean to sentry duty at an extremely dangerous border post, Jean thought nothing of it.
That very evening, filled with malice, Etienne sneaked up behind the green recruit and chopped off his head with a tomahawk. He placed both the severed head and the distinctive weapon prominently near the body. He hoped by this means to lead the authorities to blame the murder on the local Mi’kmaq tribe, who until that time had been living in peaceful harmony with the French troops.
Jean’s body was discovered when the next sentry came to relieve him from duty. With the evidence of the severed head and tomahawk nearby, there was no question of who was responsible for Jean’s death. He was buried in the fort, and it was Etienne’s duty as an officer at the fort, to write to Jean’s widow, Madeleine, explaining that her husband had been killed at the hands of the Mi’kmaq.
Two years passed and Etienne, now promoted to the rank of colonel, returned to Honfleur on leave. Madeleine had not yet remarried, and the dashing young officer threw himself into the pleasure of wooing her. After some time the lonely widow gave in to his charms and agreed to marry him.
Her new husband was reassigned to duty at Port Royal. When he returned, he took his beautiful bride with him, and the couple settled down to married life in quarters (which later became known as Milledge House) near the fort.
In time, Madeleine became close friends with a Mi’kmaq woman who often came to the fort to sell game. One day the older lady sent for Madeleine to come to her at the Mi’kmaq camp. She was dying, she said, and needed to clear her tribe of an unjust accusation.
When Madeleine arrived at her friend’s bedside she clasped her hand in grief and prepared to listen to her story. Madeleine learned that several years ago, when her Mi’kmaq friend had been gathering herbs in the woods, she saw a figure lurking among the trees in a suspicious manner. It was the French officer whom she now recognized as Etienne, Madeleine’s present husband. She saw him creep up behind a sentry and murder him with a tomahawk. The Mi’kmaq had been wrongly blamed.
Madeleine was extremely upset by her dying friend’s witness, but she believed it to be true. When she arrived home, she found that Etienne was out hunting, and she made preparations to confront him. She patiently waited in the big front room.
At long last Etienne returned from his hunt. It was the fourth day of December, and a very cold night. As soon as he arrived home he ran gaily up the stairs to greet his beloved — but stolen — wife. He was shocked when he saw Madeleine standing by the door of the front room with a cocked pistol in her hand. When he reached her side she screamed, “You murderer!” and promptly shot him. He whirled around at the top of the stairs, where she shot him again. He tumbled down the steps with a great deal of clatter and lay dead at the bottom.
The next morning the horrified servants found Madeleine lying on the bedroom floor with a pistol ball through her head. One of them, a blind elderly woman who loved Madeleine dearly, was so distraught by the tragedy that her spirit continued to mourn
, as Peter could bear witness all too well.
Lost Souls, Shallow Graves and a Solitary Ghost
The year was 2004. Erica and Howard ducked their heads against the near gale force winds that lashed the waves in Halifax Harbour, soaking them with flying spray. As they struggled along the city’s historic waterfront, fighting to keep their balance, they both felt acutely anxious. Neither of them understood why. Part of it had to do with the worry about being blown towards the water, and they had to keep their wits about them. But there was something much more profound than that — something that chilled their blood.
What they did not then know, even though their bodies were intuitively conscious of it, was that they were moving through one of the most densely haunted areas in Atlantic Canada. All around this part of the city there are many haunted buildings. But besides that, the land itself seems to have a unique spectral voice, one that begs to relate its own tragic story. The story dates back to the years before the founding of the town of Halifax, around 1745, when the French and English were fighting for supremacy on the continent of North America.
The ghosts from this time period were so insistent that in the late nineteenth century the government of the day initiated a scientific enquiry into the manifestations. A clergyman also tried to bring peace to the restless spirits by conducting a burial service on tiny George’s Island. The island is a tangle of military fortifications in Halifax Harbour, a stone’s throw from the historic waterfront. The preacher’s efforts seem to have made little difference, and many ghosts still haunt the area. Some roam as far away as Birch Cove, miles into the inner harbour of Bedford Basin. Their activities have been talked of for more than 200 years.
One ghost stands out among the many. He begins his lonely walk along the shore of George’s Island, dressed in the distinctive eighteenth-century uniform of a French admiral. When he reaches a certain point opposite the nearby Halifax shore, he steps down on to the rocky beach, wades into the cold ocean water until entirely immersed, and disappears.
That, however, is only the beginning of his long ghostly journey. After a brief time he reappears on the Halifax shore and begins a four-mile trek along the shore until he reaches what is now known as French Landing, near Birch Cove. Once there, he makes a right turn towards the seashore, marches once more into the frigid ocean, continues resolutely forward until his spectral body is submerged, and disappears again — until the next time he repeats his lonely vigil.
Tradition has it that this is the ghost of the Duc d’Anville, but the story is so tragic that a variety of characters might fit the part. It begins with the Jacobite Rising in Britain in 1745 and the attempted bid for the British crown by Bonnie Prince Charlie of Scotland. Although his troops managed to invade England as far south as Derby, the prince’s hopes were decisively ended with the terrible massacre at the battle of Culloden in Scotland in 1746.
Meanwhile, the rebels had been assured of French support in their attack on England. A strong naval and military force was available in the spring of 1746 and might have made a difference to the outcome of the Scottish fortunes following Culloden. A French armada had already been assembled at Brest. The fleet was composed of 37 warships, as well as 34 transports and fire ships, manned by 6,790 officers and sailors. Aboard the transports were several battalions, amounting to 3,150 fighting troops, commanded by General Pommeril.
When the ships left Brest under the command of the Duc d’Anville in May 1746, the Scots felt assured of immediate reinforcements, but they would be disappointed. The French Crown was facing a devastating crisis of its own in Canada. In 1745 the powerful French fortress of Louisbourg was besieged and fell to a force from New England, and it was now imperative for France to re-establish her authority. French forces in Quebec required reinforcements in order to recover Louisbourg, seize Annapolis Royal and continue onward to harass Boston.
The Duc d’Anville’s fleet was now diverted to the New World from the proposed invasion of England. A French squadron of four men-of-war from the French West Indies under Admiral Conflans was to first meet with the Duc d’Anville’s fleet from France at the isolated harbour known to the Mi’kmaq as Jipugtug Bay (later anglicized to Chebucto Bay — now Halifax Harbour). They were also to be met by a force of several hundred French rangers and native peoples who would march overland from Quebec. An advance guard carried in two frigates, L’Aurore and Castor, left Brest for Jipugtug Bay before the main fleet, to secure the isolated area against enemy ships.
The fleet left Brest, ostensibly for Britain. Not until the ships were well out to sea did the Duc d’Anville reveal their true destination. When the troops heard where they were going there was a near mutiny. They dreaded a long Atlantic voyage under crowded conditions, with good reason. In fact the voyage took three months and hundreds of the men fell ill or died from scurvy and typhoid. The crews were further weakened by dreadful Atlantic storms, which worsened as the fleet reached Sable Island. Many ships were sunk, and about half the fleet decided to return immediately to France or limp to the French West Indies. The depleted and weary remainder continued towards the agreed-on rendezvous at Jipugtug Bay.
Meanwhile the two frigates L’Aurore and Castor had arrived safely in advance of the main party. Their troops spent a successful summer attacking numerous British ships, capturing prisoners, taking over supplies of fresh food and securing the remote coastline. Du Vignan lingered until late summer, but when the Duc d’Anville’s fleet had not arrived by August 12, 1746, he decided to return to France before the onset of winter.
When Admiral Conflans arrived shortly after from the French West Indies, he learned from the Mi’kmaq encamped in the area that Du Vignan had sailed for home and that there had been no sign of the expected fleet from Brest. After cruising the area for a few days, he too left for France ahead of winter.
Duc d’Anville
The Duc d’Anville arrived at Jipugtug with the scattered remains of his fleet on September 10, 1746, after three horrendous months at sea. He in turn learned that the rendezvous had been fouled up. The ships he had expected to join up with had already been and gone. His own ships were now largely disabled. They were anchored off a lonely, densely forested coast. His men were dying by the hundreds of a typhoid epidemic, and those that survived faced starvation and thirst. During the week, three more of his transports arrived, but they only added to the misery with their cargoes of sick and dying men.
Within six days, on September 16, 1746, the charming but inept 37-year-old Duc d’Anville suddenly fell ill himself and died on board his flagship. Rumours spread among the troops that he had been poisoned.
That same night Vice-Admiral d’Estournel arrived with the fleet. He quickly took control of the panic and confusion. By the next evening he had the Duc d’Anville’s body buried on George’s Island. His officers denied the rumours that the Duc had been poisoned, and officially announced that he had died of apoplexy.
Meanwhile, the beaches were everywhere cluttered with the sick and dying. In some places bodies lay in heaps. The officers in command gathered to decide whether to abandon the expedition and return to France or to pursue the mission. There followed an extremely heated difference of opinion, which D’Estournel (who wanted the troops to return to France) took personally. He retired immediately to his cabin where he committed suicide by falling on his sword, expiring just as his worried officers battered down his door.
The Marquis de la Jonquiere immediately took command and moved the entire fleet into the sheltered inner harbour now known as Bedford Basin. The sick and dying were carried ashore to small clearings near the present Birch Cove, where rough shelters of canvas and brushwood were constructed. Fresh food was commandeered from some nearby Acadian settlements, and this went some way towards alleviating the scurvy, but the typhoid epidemic ran its full course. At least 1,135 men died on the shores of the Basin and on the beaches of Jipugtug and George’s Isla
nd. A few were buried in shallow graves, but the ground was so rocky, and the survivors so weak, that most of the bodies were left littering the shoreline.
On October 13, 1746, the surviving French sick were taken off in five ships designated as hospital ships. After that the crippled fleet of 42 vessels set sail. The death toll was still mounting, however, and all along the western shore of Nova Scotia body after body was flung overboard into the waves.
The tragic story was still unfolding. When the fleet reached Sable Island it ran into another terrible storm and many more ships sank. All but two of the surviving vessels limped back towards France. These two courageously ventured on towards Annapolis Royal to complete their mission, but were forced to flee when they encountered two English men-of-war anchored there.
The terrible French armada was now undeniably defeated — not by man, but by the hand of God. The people of Boston, who had been anxiously preparing for an attack, rejoiced at what they interpreted as the Divine working on their “just” behalf.
When Halifax was founded three years later, in 1749, the new settlers were horrified by the discovery of the remains of French troops and sailors lying abandoned in full sight. The ghastly evidence of mass death stretched from Jipugtug to Birch Cove, four miles away. The Mi’kmaq who lived in the area had removed and carried away some of the clothing. The most appalling tragedy of all was that, in this way, the disease was unknowingly transferred to the Mi’kmaq camps where hundreds more people died.
Before the French fleet left Jipugtug, the sailors burned the most disabled and infested ships of their fleet. The remains of these ships lay unsuspected underwater until the late twentieth century, when they were discovered by chance opposite French Landing, near Birch Cove — exactly where the lonely ghost, dressed in the full regalia of an eighteenth-century French admiral, completes his trek from George’s Island and enters the water.
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