Bluenose Ghosts

by Helen Creighton

  We have not had many stories from Liverpool. Here is one now about two brothers who were on the same ship. “A sailor named Big Henry made a great friend of the smaller boy. One day the bigger boy was swept overboard and drowned and that night Big Henry heard a voice saying, ‘Take good care of my little brother.’ He was sure it was the voice of the bigger brother and, to give substance to that belief, a midshipman had seen a form standing in a doorway and had asked who it was. Then the figure disappeared.”

  A story is told of a Tantallon family by the name of Silvers. “Mrs. Silvers was a widow with one son, Willie, who went away on a vessel to sea. One day his mother looked out the window and saw Willie coming up the driveway on a white horse. She said to herself, ‘Willie must be in, but where did he get that white horse?’ She went to open the door, but there was no one there. Fancy Willie’s surprise if anyone had told him that when he died he would appear to his mother riding a white horse!”

  At Port Medway the night was still and not a breath of wind was blowing, a fact that is noticed in a seaport where everybody is conscious of weather during every waking moment. Suddenly there was an awful banging as though every door had opened and slammed. The noise was so loud that it woke up the whole household, and the house itself shook. “Grandfather got up and examined the doors but they were closed and locked, then he went back to bed and thought nothing of it. But grandmother was worried. They found out later that on that same night their son had been washed overboard.” In a story from French River where the son had suffered the same fate his father, at the time of his death struggle, paced the floor gasping for breath without being able to understand why he was being stricken this way.

  A seafaring man has been seen at Myers’ Point near Head Jeddore wearing a blue suit, bib cap, and having brass buttons on his coat. He was of medium height, and was reported by so many different people that some of the boys who took it all as a joke, decided to use him for their own purpose. They went skating on the pond, but it was too dark to see properly, so one of them called out, “Ghost, light up your light so we can put our skates on.” Imagine their astonishment when the ghost obediently complied and lit up the whole pond.

  Some Seabright men had much the same thing happen to them. “A man named Holigan had died. A few days later some of the fishermen were out in a boat and they got to joking among themselves and, just for the fun of it, one of them started to call him. They all heard him answer, but it was from a distance. They hollered again and he came closer. They got frightened then and put for shore, and they’ll never try that trick again.”

  Mr. Sandy Stoddard from Lower Ship Harbour had a strange thing happen to him. “I was out lobster fishing at Wolfe Island, and there was a crowd out gunning at the Crick. They went ahead of me to camp.There was a good trail, but you had to cross a sand beach. I seen this man coming from the camp on the clear open sand beach, and I thought it was someone I knew comin’ for water. I thought he had landed and was going up the trail to the Crick. His face and hands were white and I realized then that I knew him all right, only he’d been dead for two years. I was too surprised to speak, but I intended to if I ever saw him again, but I never did, and neither did anyone else.

  “You don’t expect to see a man on a beach dressed in his best Sunday clothes, but this man was, and that took my attention first. He had on a white full-bosom tucked shirt, a cutaway coat, and cuffs showed below his pants. I stepped to one side, but he was so close to me that my shoulders should have struck him on the breast. As he touched me in passing I felt a hot breath all over me, and then he disappeared. I looked behind and there were no tracks like a human being would leave on the sand. The next day I went to the camp and talked to a fellow who lived there but he had never seen him. Perhaps it happened to me because I knew him so well. At the same camp there used to be a very pretty woman come and look in the window and, a few nights after, an ugly one, who looked as though she had come up out of the water. The man who lived in the camp and saw her would never stay there again. Can’t say I blame him.”

  Clarke’s Harbour has given us many stories, and here is one from a settlement near there called The Hawk. “Years ago a man was drowned at The Hawk inlet. He lived at the wireless station where there were five or six men with a cook and a housekeeper. There was a little hotel there at one time, and people used to come there ducking (duck hunting) and fishing. One operator was a South African, a veteran of the First World War, and he used to have heart spells when he would pass out for a while. He was a man who had travelled a lot and he used to watch for letters from home. In order to come to The Hawk for his mail he had to come by boat and, before he came, he would phone to see if there was anything there for him. Then if there was, he’d row over.

  “One night he came for his mail and when he left it was after dark. He said he didn’t mind, and he was relieved now that he had his letter. The postmistress had a habit of going to the door when you were going off at night. This night she heard him haul his boat off, so she came in thinking everything was all right. The next day towards noon the officer in charge of the station where he lived, and one of the others, came over for their mail. We said he had taken it. They were surprised and called the station to see if he was in his bed, but his bed hadn’t been slept in. They thought perhaps he had gone to see Lottie, the girl he was engaged to marry, but he was a fussy man and wouldn’t have gone wearing an old sweater. And of course when Lottie was asked, she hadn’t seen him.

  “Three weeks went by and somebody suggested he might have run away rather than marry Lottie who was older than he was. He was a Mason, so the Masons offered a reward for him. In nine days his boat was found partly full of water, but there was no sign of him. They were pretty sure by now that he’d been drowned so they searched and a fortnight or so later Marshall Smith stumbled over him face down on the beach.

  “Well they brought him up and put him on the outhouse (shed) floor. The Masons took the body and he was buried in The Hawk cemetery. They thought he must have had a spell just as he shoved his boat off, and that he’d fallen in the water. But here is what happened. The day after he died there was a steady shrill noise all the time in our pantry like a little screaming away off. We couldn’t find what was causing it, and we couldn’t stop it. It did that until after he was found, and then it stopped and we’ve never heard it again.”

  The eastern shore has a story in which one of their seamen played a leading role, at least according to Mr. Enos Roast of East Chezzetcook. “It must have happened sixty years ago that an iron vessel was found outside Halifax with nobody on board, but with the table set for breakfast. This looked as though it had been abandoned hastily. The vessel belonged to Liverpool, England, but people were suspicious of her and nobody wanted to take her back to her owners. Finally Captain Sprott Balcolm of Salmon River said he would. After they got out of the harbour one of the crew, Jack Donaldson, said to him, ‘We’ve got a good thing here.’ ‘How’s that?’ and he told of finding a long chest. He said, ‘There might be something in that chest.’ The captain was curious then and went with Donaldson to see it. They stood talking about it and wondering what there might be inside and, after a while, they decided to open it. It wasn’t locked, so all they had to do was to lift the cover. They did this and, right on top, was a lady’s watch. The rest of the chest was filled with her beautiful clothes.

  “The captain wrote it all down in his log and nineteen days later when they landed in Liverpool, an investigation was held. The watch and clothing were used as evidence, and it was supposed that the lady had been murdered.” But why had the captain and the crew left the ship, and what had become of them? It must have been something extraordinary that would force them to abandon their ship, and so close to a large seaport. Mr. Roast could not answer that question, but in time the words of some of the old folk songs came to mind, and with them a possible solution. For in these songs it is not uncommon for a person who has been murdered to return and take revenge.

&nb
sp; The story of Jerome has been written up so often that is it well known not only in Nova Scotia, but abroad. Yet the facts of the case as related to me at Sandy Cove are different in some respects from the usual tale and, for that reason, should be related. There is no suggestion of the supernatural here, but it is one of this Province’s greatest mysteries of the sea. For this event we go to Digby Neck, a point of land that juts out from the mainland of Digby County like a long finger. It is one of our beauty spots, especially at the part called Sandy Cove. Here there are gentle hills on whose lush slopes white farmhouses give an atmosphere of peace, home, and plenty, and here too are sand beaches, one on either side of the narrow village.

  Many years ago a man named Martin Albright lived close to the west sand beach. His house had only one window and it looked out over the beach. At that time otter were thick and he often used to watch them playing on the beach. One day he got up at daylight and, as usual, started the fire. Then he wandered over to the window and looked out, as he always did first thing in the morning. His eye was attracted at once by a moving object which he supposed at first to be a large otter. He went back to his fire then and cooked his breakfast and, when he was through, he looked out again. He was surprised to observe that the object had not moved, so he decided to go out and investigate. As he drew near it, he was amazed to see that this was a man. Upon closer examination he was horrified to find that he was helpless, for both legs had been amputated and he had been left upon the beach with a bottle of water and some bread within his reach. Mr. Albright spoke to him, but the stranger made no reply, nor did he ever speak in all the years he lived in Nova Scotia. All anybody could ever get out of him were the words that might have been “Colombo” and “Jerome” and he became known by the latter name. The amputation was half-way between the knees and the thighs, and had been very well done for those days.

  Mr. Albright hastened to his friend Mr. Eldridge and told of his incredible discovery. Together they mustered up some men and carried him to the Albright home where he lived for some years. Different people cared for him after that, but not always too happily. He is remembered as a man who could become very moody. When that happened he would refuse to eat or to do anything that was asked of him. The only person for whom he ever showed any sign of affection was Mr. Albright’s ten-year-old daughter. It seemed to please him when she came near him. He never nodded his head or smiled when people went by, but he would show signs of gratitude for kindness. He could feed himself and, by his eating and other habits, showed signs of good breeding. He had a beautifully shaped head and an aristocratic appearance, and hands which the people of Sandy Cove believed showed him as a man of good birth: People came from far and near to converse with him in many languages, but he would never talk. The only clues they ever got to his past was in his reaction to the rattling of a chain. He could not endure the sound and it made him very angry. It was then he made the sound that might have been “Jerome.”

  To this day there are speculations about Jerome. Where had he come from, and why was he left upon the beach? From the quality of his clothes and his general appearance the people of Sandy Cove thought he might be of royal blood, one whom it might be convenient for political reasons to put out of reach. He was a big man, and looked like a central European, either Spanish or Greek. Shortly after his arrival they recalled a strange full-rigged ship that had been seen the day before he was found. It sailed up and down and back and forth on the Bay of Fundy. It was a low-lying vessel, shaped differently from ours and of a superior quality, as far as they could tell from a distance and, from her lines, they knew her to be foreign. They also pondered upon another fact which may or may not have any bearing upon the case. This was that until then parties used to come to Ellsworth Island from Boston but, after Jerome was left on the beach, they stopped coming.

  Jerome lived for many years, spending half of his life with the people of Sandy Cove and at the almshouse at Marshalltown. The last part was spent with the Roman Catholics of Clare who cared for him until he died. This account given here was taken down at Sandy Cove in 1947 from residents of that village and of Bear River who knew him well.

  Mysteries are all very well to talk about, but captains do not like them on their ships. Granville Ferry told about a ship’s steward who had a power that nobody could explain. He discovered it one evening when he was playing billiards and noticed when he set the cue in an upright position that it stayed that way with nothing to hold it. He began to experiment then and at one time had as many as five cues standing on the table doing gymnastics for him. His friends were so puzzled by this that they took him before a famous hypnotist who was unable to determine where his strange power came from. The ship’s crew felt proud of him and thought the captain should be told what a prize he had on board. The captain listened with interest and said he would like very much to witness a demonstration. The steward therefore went through his performance and never with better results. The effect upon the captain, however, was not what they expected.

  “I’m going to pay that man off,” he said. “If he’s got animal magnetism or anything like that over a billiard cue or a broom there’s no telling what he might do to the ship’s instruments.” Then, even though he was the best steward they had ever had, he let him go.

  With all the people I have talked to, I have only two reports of sea serpents. One, being in an inland lake, seems doubtful, so let us look at it first. Cranberry Lake lies roughly in the Sydney area. It is about a mile in length, and is always full of water. One evening about thirty years ago a man was standing by the lake, looking for cows that had strayed away, when he was astonished to see something move on the surface that looked like a horse’s head. Then the neck appeared. In a moment the animal or sea serpent went under water, turning itself over so that the last he saw of it was its tail. He judged it to be twelve feet in length and it seemed to be looking for something on the shore. It all happened so quickly that he could not recall any other details. Others have also told of seeing it, and stories have been current for one hundred years.

  As recently as six years ago a man went to the lake to wash his car and, as he was working, it appeared again. He was so fright–ened that he gathered his things together and fled. Shortly after this a company was formed to go to the lake and find and kill the animal. It was winter and they had to work through the ice, but they were unable to find it. Some say it is all a myth; others insist they too have seen it.

  The other sea serpent was reported at Victoria Beach and was seen about forty years ago by a vessel sailing up the Bay of Fundy. The crew said it stood up forty or eighty feet in the air, that it had a head like a horse and eyes like saucers, and they described it as a wonderful (awesome) sight. They put on full sail and it followed them for sixty miles, all the way to Point Prim. Later, when it was blowing a gale of wind, it was seen by another vessel going to the West Indies. Then a third vessel sighted it. This all happened about the same time, but they have never heard of it being seen since.

  In closing this chapter two ships should be mentioned, although I have little to add to what has already been written about them. One was the Mary Celeste which had been abandoned for no reason that has ever been determined. The other is the phantom ship that appears in the Northumberland Strait before a northeast wind. It starts as a ball of flame and develops before the onlookers’ eyes into a three-masted ship. She has been seen as early as 1780 and is observed on the same night over a large area. Three years ago at the time of the harvest moon she was seen near Pictou Lodge.

  Chapter SEVEN

  GHOSTS HELPFUL, HARMFUL, AND HEADLESS

  HELPFUL GHOSTS

  Of all the ghost stories I have heard, I know of none so comforting and touching as this from a man in Dartmouth. I had called him on the telephone to ask about a house he had once lived in and, when he had given that information, he rather shyly told me this story. He had cherished it quietly in his heart for many years, and it is with much pleasure that I share it now w
ith you. He is one of our most successful business men, a pillar of his church, and is thoroughly liked and respected by all. I think of him as a matter-of-fact rather than an imaginative man, which characteristic gives added weight to his story.

  “When I was a young man I was out courting and I had to come home over a lonely road that had very few houses. It was a bright moonlight night. Before long I heard footsteps and noticed a shadow behind me. I walked a little faster, and so did the person following me. Then I slowed down, and so did he. When I got to within about two hundred yards from the house I turned around to see who it was and there, standing in the road was my father who had been dead for nearly three years. I saw him clearly, even to the gold watch chain that he always wore, and that I always connected with him in my thoughts. I was too frightened to speak, but ran in the house and got into bed and under the clothes where I lay shaking for the rest of the night.

  “In the morning I got up and went to my work, and there I was told a very strange thing. There were three men who thought I had done something that I hadn’t, and they had been hiding in the bushes as I walked home, planning to attack me. When they saw another man walking along behind me they didn’t dare, and so I suppose my life was saved. It is many years since this happened, but it is as vivid today as it was the night it occurred.”

  I told this to an elderly clergyman who was much impressed and wondered if it offered an explanation to an incident of his younger days that he had never been able to understand. He was about to walk over a path across Citadel Hill in Halifax and was passing a place where there was a high board fence. It was a lonely spot, and the night was dark and gloomy. He began to feel frightened and, at the same moment, he heard footsteps behind him. He thought, “This man is walking faster than I am, I might as well let him pass me.” So the man passed and he saw as well as heard him. That placed him between our young man and the high fence. By this time the road was better lighted and as he watched the man he was amazed to see him turn right instead of proceeding ahead towards the open path. But where had he gone? There was nothing on the right at that point but the fence, and this he could not have scaled without being seen. Nor was there a break in the fence through which he could have slipped from sight. He had just vanished. He went back the next day and examined the fence to see if there might be a hole or exit of any kind that he had missed, but there was nothing. He had puzzled about it ever since but now, in the light of the foregoing tale, he wondered if he too had been in danger and had been given a protector. Why not?