Bluenose Ghosts

by Helen Creighton

  “The strangest things happened on that vessel. One time we got into a little river and it was blowing hard and a-raining bad. All those vessels have two anchors and, if you let one go, you have the next one ready. Well, we had the big anchor in, and when it goes out the iron windlass with the chain going over it makes an awful noise, and there’s no mistaking it. Croquinole had just come in then and everybody was crazy about it. I wanted to play but I had a sore finger, so I said, ‘If I can play the same as checkers I’ll play,’ and I did. We was settin’ there playing when away went the anchor and it made an awful noise. My brother says, ‘That anchor should have been made fast. The only thing we can do now is to heave it up again.’ He was pretty cross but, when we went to look, the anchor had never moved.

  “Later we were told the reason for it all. It seems that when the company was building this vessel they didn’t know which of two fellows to give it to and, after they finally made up their minds, the fellow who lost went as mate. He was steering the wheel when the captain went over. He was probably working on the deck when the wheelsman gave it a sudden turn and sent the captain over the side. It was always thought he done It a-purpose.”

  One day I left the two old friends at Victoria Beach and went in to Granville Ferry. There I met a man who was vacationing along this peaceful shore, but who had a tale to tell that was the antithesis of peace. He gave it to me because he had heard of my interests in ghosts and thought I might like to add it to my collection. Actually it has nothing to do with Nova Scotia beyond the fact that I collected it here. I am not sure whether the ship sailed from Boston or New York, but it was one of those cities. This is what he said.

  The City of Rome was a passenger ship that sailed until about sixty years ago. As it was leaving on one of its trips a passenger came aboard at the last minute and wanted a berth. The purser said it was impossible as everything was taken. The man insisted that his business was urgent, and he cared little where he slept. He was so anxious to go that the purser consulted the captain with the result that he was told one cabin was available. But, the purser took pains to explain that the stateroom had not been occupied for some years because the last three persons who had slept there had gone over the side. This man brushed off any such suggestion as nonsense and said he had no fear of anything supernatural. So, since he had been told the facts and knew what he was facing, he was finally permitted to use the stateroom, but only on condition that the ship would be absolved of any responsibility if anything happened. To this he readily agreed.

  In the morning the purser asked him how he had slept. He said he had slept very well, but he thought he was to have had that room to himself.

  “Well,” the purser said, “you did.”

  “No,” he said, “the upper berth was slept in. It’s a strange thing, though, because before I went to sleep I bolted the door and fastened the porthole down. In the morning the porthole was open and the bed had been used.”

  The captain was told about this strange occurrence and his curiosity was aroused. He said he would go with the passenger that night and see what happened. So the passenger slept again in the lower berth and the captain took the settee. This left the upper berth empty as before.

  Whether the passenger stayed awake to see what occurred my informant did not say, but the captain kept his vigil and, sure enough, after a while the porthole opened. A man came through it all covered with slime and seaweed and prepared to occupy it as before. Hoping to lay the ghost for all time, the captain grabbed him and they had a terrible tussle, and all he got out of it was a broken arm. As for the passenger, like the previous occupants he went over the side before anyone realized what he was doing. After that the door was locked and bolted and as long as the ship sailed it was never opened again.

  Whether the man in our next story came up out of the sea or appeared as the more usual ghosts do, I do not know, but a Seabright man told of a boat called the Sonora from whose deck a man had been drowned. Afterwards he used to be heard jumping on the deck. Nothing more was reported, just the jumping which was so characteristic of him that it could not be mistaken for anything or anybody else.

  It is an old belief that a ghost cannot cross water, as we have mentioned before.You will also recall that a house built of wood from a wreck is likely to be haunted. A house at Cooper’s Head was a case in point. I heard about it at Salmon River.

  “My mother lived there and one time she was in bed and she heard four men talking and she couldn’t understand them. They all took a turn speaking different languages. An old Mr. Dolby was there and he heard it too, and somebody said to him, ‘Are you afraid?’ and he said, ‘No, but I’m very uncomfortable.’ Various sounds were heard and they became so bad that it was decided to bring the house across the water to Oyster Pond.” (I have seen the house and it seemed like a sizable structure to be floated over the water.) “It was the right thing to do, because from that time the sounds were never heard again.”

  Ragged Islands and Lockeport tell about a British troop ship, the Billow, that was lost with all hands. There was a snowstorm about 1830 when she struck off Ram Island and was lost. Residents at Little Harbour could hear the band playing as the ship went down. They claim that when the wind is in a certain direction in a storm you can still hear the band playing the same selection. It was “The Gay Cockade.”

  If we go now to The Pond past Mr. Charlie Taylor’s store at Victoria Beach we may see a place where a ship is heard landing, but nothing has ever been seen of it. One morning, however, at an early hour a man was walking down that road to go fishing when he met a sailor and remarked to himself that his coat was of a particularly good piece of serge. He looked at the stranger more closely then and realized that he was not a living man at all. By this time he had seen more than enough, and left with all the speed he could muster.

  Clarke’s Harbour has a strange story about a wrecked ship and the use that was made of it. “There was a ship wrecked here many years ago. In the cabin there were knives lying around and things upset which showed signs of a fight. A man who lived near the wreck took timber from it and anything he could lay his hands on, and he built a house with that timber. From the first there was a knocking that he couldn’t find any reason for. He looked everywhere but it never did any good. No good at all, and the funny part of it was that it always came at a certain time of the night when the house was still. It was more of a tapping than a knocking. People would move in and then move out very soon afterwards and he found it impossible to get a family to stay there. Well now I tell you it got pretty bad. So the old timers got together to ‘get’ the ghost. They all congregated there together and had prayers, but it wasn’t any use. They said among other things, ‘In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost,’ the three highest words in the Bible. That’s always supposed to lay them but the tapping still persisted and it does to this day.

  “You want to know what a ghost sounds like? It sounds like somethin’ soft knockin’ on nawthin’. That’s what it sounds like!”

  At Port Hastings the old people used to help one another with their haymaking and then, in the pleasant hours that followed a well earned meal, they would tell one another stories. One of these was about cattle being shipped to Newfoundland. The man in charge of the cattle was called the supercargo. In one vessel that went from here the only person saved when she was wrecked was the supercargo and for some years after that a schooner used to be seen in the swamp. It had never been seen before, so it became quite a subject of speculation, with the final conclusion that it was this cattle boat.

  One day when I was talking to a fisherman at Moser’s River he told me an amazing experience that had come to his friends Albert Mosher and Will Lowe. They had gone to Toby Island in the lobster fishing season and had, as they thought, taken ample provisions for two weeks. Before the time elapsed they ran short of food, so Mr. Mosher said he would go ashore and get a fresh supply. He would then return in the morning. Mr. Lowe was therefore left alo
ne and, after a while, he fell asleep. Some time later he was wakened by the sound of the door rattling. He supposed Mr. Mosher must have changed his mind and come back that night but, although the door was open, there was no one there. He settled down, thinking he must have imagined it, having first made sure that the door was securely shut. Again the rattling of the latch wakened him and again there was no one there. He went outside then, and there he saw a man all covered with eel grass. He laughed heartily, supposing Mr. Mosher had fixed himself up to frighten him, and thinking it a very smart trick he said, “You can’t fool me Albert.” Then the incredible happened and he stood dazed and terrified as the figure dissolved before his eyes, and in a moment there was nothing left of his visitor but a pool of water and some eel grass.

  Another story along these lines came to me atVictoria Beach, where they told of a house along the Bay of Fundy shore where the son who was lost at sea used to come back at night and stand beside the mantel. In the morning a pool of sea water and seaweed would be there. This ghost apparently resented other people using his bed, for one guest reported his bedclothes had been pulled off in the night and he also said there were matches in his bed and on his pillows which certainly were not there when he retired.

  The town of Lunenburg is noted for its seafaring men and many a rousing yarn has died with the old-timers. However there are still those who have adventures to recall and a reminiscent mood has a result like this: “Dad was in a four-master going to Quebec and at that time he was sailing as first mate. When they reached Quebec the crew were paid off and then they started to drink. The second mate was coming back to the ship for his clothes after being ashore awhile, and also to get money for the cook who had told him where to find it. He was too drunk to see where he was going and he fell between the boat and the water. He was seen, but even so they were several hours finding him. At last they got him out of the water and by this time everybody was sober enough. They gave him decent burial and informed his family and we supposed that was the end of it. It wasn’t.

  “That winter the ship was laid up in Quebec and dad stayed on it all alone. One night he was sitting reading when he saw a seaman come down the after-companionway, and then he came through the cabin. He went right on from there to the cook’s room. Dad looked at him pretty hard, and it struck him that he was dressed exactly as the second mate had been the last time he’d been seen alive. He sat quietly and waited but nothing else happened so he left the ship and went ashore to see the captain.

  “‘I saw the second mate last night,’ he said.

  “‘Don’t be foolish mister,’ the captain said. Mister was always the name used for mate. The captain wouldn’t believe him so he went back, but several nights later the same thing happened again, so dad went ashore a second time. My dad was a reliable man or he wouldn’t have been left in charge, so the captain began to think he’d better look into the matter. He went back to the ship and prepared to stay there a few days. Then sure enough, the figure came the third time, always dressed as he had been when he fell overboard. He didn’t look to the right or left but proceeded directly to the cook’s cabin. Nobody spoke, and nobody ever knew what brought him back. But they both saw him, and from that time he was never seen again.”

  Looking back to the days of sailing ships, names of foreign ports like Buenos Aires and Hong Kong were often more familiar in our coastal towns than that of our own capital city of Halifax. This meant that there were long separations and, because life was dangerous, many sudden deaths. Bonds seemed to have been established between loved ones which were in no way dependent upon distance. An old man at Port Medway wished to drive this point home. As he prepared to tell his tale he straightened his rheumaticky back and sat up straight in his chair, his great hands clutching the arms as he spoke.

  “My aunt was in a house and all at once an awful squash came against it as though a great wave had come across the window and against the pane. There’s no sound in all the world that’s like it. Her husband was away at sea at the time. When it stopped she lifted her apron to her eyes and the tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “‘Judson’s gone,’ she moaned. ‘My man has gone.’ And she was right. He was lost at sea at that very time, and the sound of the wave had come to tell her so.”

  Going now to Cape Breton Island we come to Louisburg and Glace Bay. Many men went to sea from these ports and some brought home incredible stories. I am indebted to Mrs. Ruth Metcalfe, for this one which is her father’s personal story. That being the case, it should be her privilege to tell it.

  “This story goes back to 1862 when my father, Dan McPhee, was a prentice to John Hamilton, a shoemaker in North Sydney. He was only fourteen, but he was a big, sturdy lad. Sailing with him, but not so sturdy, was his cousin, Alex McKinnon. Together they shipped aboard a Norwegian. Some time later in Gloucester, Mass. they met a man prominent in shipping circles in Sydney, Sol Jacobs by name, and they were shipmates with him for many years.

  “After a while my father had a chance to go with the Black Ball Line and Alex stayed with the fishermen, sailing from the home port. Father was with the Black Ball Line seventeen years during which time he married and had two children. When they were aged five and three he was on a trip returning from South America when they were becalmed off Port of Spain, Trinidad. It was a very close and humid night, and father was lying in his hammock on deck. He said he saw Alex come up the deck. He was easily recognized, if for no other reason than by a characteristic pose, for he had a habit of holding the belaying pin on his shoulders with each hand, and moving it up and down. He came straight to father’s hammock and said,

  “‘Dan, I have Flora with me.’ Flora was father’s wife’s name. Father claims he sat up on his elbow and Alex disappeared. He thought he must have dreamed it. But he appeared to him again the same night in the same attitude and said the same words. This time they were more forceful.

  “‘Did you hear what I said Dan? I have Flora with me.’ With that father put his feet on deck, for he realized now that Alex could not possibly be on his ship. He was greatly disturbed and couldn’t sleep all the way home.

  “When they arrived in Boston he found news waiting for him at the shipping office, just as he feared. His wife had died at the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax on March twenty-eighth, and that was the night Alex had appeared to him. Father went down to Gloucester then to see if any of the Cape Breton boys were there who could give him a passage home. He met Sol Jacobs and, during their conversation, told him about his wife’s death. Then he asked Sol if he knew where Alex was, and Sol said Alex had been lost off Sable Island that same spring. Father wondered what the date was, but Sol didn’t remember. They looked it up in the shipping news and it was the same day that Flora had died, and could have been the same hour.”

  One such story was enough for one sitting. I found that it kept coming back to me long after she had told it. I was grateful there–fore that she let me think about it for a few days before bringing up the subject of ghosts again. We had been recording songs she had heard in Cape Breton from her father and his friends, and one day as we put the microphone down she told the following story.

  “On father’s side they are highland folk, and one young man used to go fishing in the evening after working in the mine. He and another miner had an in-shore fishing boat and one night they went out in the boat and never came back. There were all kinds of stories made up about them. Some said they went on the Norwegian freighter that was in at the time, but none of the family believed that because there was no reason for their going. They were both happily married men. A few months after their disappearance my father and mother went to visit a sister of one of the men (father had married a second time, and I was of that family) and she told this story. On that night when they had disappeared, she had been lying on the bed with the baby. Her husband was on night shift at the mine, and she thought she heard someone call her name. Thinking it was her husband, she went downstairs, but there was no one th
ere. It was some time later that she realized the noise had come from the skylight and not downstairs, and she always believed it was her brother who had called her. They were never heard of although the over–turned boat came ashore. There was no storm, so something else must have upset them. They were wearing rubber boots which might have weighed them down, but we never really knew and it remains a mystery to this day.”

  Returning to the subject of knowledge being conveyed by strange means, we have a case from Shelburne.

  Leander was a boy who wanted to go to sea, but his grandfather was opposed to it.The old man may have had a premonition of disaster, although it is more likely he wanted a better life for the lad than his had been. However Leander got his way but, before he sailed the grandfather said to the captain, “Now don’t be too easy on him. I want him to get tired of it.”

  One morning the grandfather came downstairs and said, “Leander’s gone.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He came to me in the night and I saw the shipwreck.” It was quite right, for Leander’s ship was lost that night, and he with it.

  Such strange things happen sometimes. To the sceptical they are no more than coincidence. Perhaps that is the true explanation for the incident that follows. We will never know. A man from Victoria Beach was lost on a vessel and a pillow was washed ashore from the wreck. It had been made by his wife, and it was conveyed twenty miles against the tide to the shore beside his home and when it arrived she felt impelled to go down to the water. The pillow was the only thing washed ashore and it came all the way from Parker’s Cove to Port Wade. How puzzled Mr. John Casey looked as he told me about it, and I could imagine people all along the shore trying to figure it out.