According to Robert, “There have been times when film crews have arrived with expensive and elaborate video cameras and within a few minutes of taping, the battery pack has lost its power and the videographer is at a loss to explain the drain in voltage. This has occurred several times on the Donnelly homestead and is not just a coincidence. The technician often exclaims that he just put in a freshly-charged battery. It has been necessary to run an extension cord out from the house to keep the camera rolling.”
Robert described what happened once to a family that decided to tour the barn on the property. “While at the barn at the end of a tour, a father and mother and myself stepped out onto the gangway and I told them to check the reaction as I slammed the barn door shut while their 15-year-old daughter and her best friend were on the inside taking pictures. In an instant the door flew open and out rushed the two girls. The daughter was stunned to find her father on the outside for she believed he had pushed her out ahead of him. Her eyes grew wider as we all assured her that her father had not been behind her. The girl became very agitated and frightened and wanted to know who had pushed her out the door. There were four distinct marks on her arm as if someone had gripped her firmly above the elbow. I had no idea my attempt at startling the teens would have such dramatic results. The young girl was truly scared and cried and clung to her mother all the way back to the car.”
The Catholic Church on the Roman Line where the Donnellys are buried.
Roberts continued, “On a number of occasions when tourists have entered the barn, someone will ask while looking up, ‘who hanged himself here on one of those beams?’”
During one tour a participant saw something. Robert described what happened, “While seated at the site of the massacre, a gentleman distracted me during the presentation by staring at some object behind me over near our garden by the barn.
“‘Who is that man over there through the trees?’ he questioned.
“We looked in the direction he was pointing but saw no one.
“Where did you see him and what does he looked like,” Robert asked.
Everyone wanted to know who this stranger was.
“The tourist in the group was adamant he had seen a man’s face in the bushes next to the garden,” stated Robert.
“‘I distinctly saw a man looking at me through the foilage over there,’ blurted the tourist. ‘There was just the face, I didn’t see a body.’”
According to Robert, “We all looked again at where he was pointing but to no avail. The face was gone. An eerie feeling came over all of us as we silently looked at one another for a moment. I continued with the storytelling but the feeling lingered for a short while.”
When a tour is over it is not unusual for people to tell Robert that something touched them when no one was standing near them. One tourist, a man named Bill Burns, actually sent Terry Boyle a letter a few years describing just that.
“My wife and I have long enjoyed your ‘Discover Ontario’ radio program and yesterday we bought your first book, Haunted Ontario. To be perfectly frank, I’m a bit of a skeptic when it comes to the paranormal but the index entry of six pages on the Donnellys caught my attention. I have had a 30-year fascination with the Donnelly story during which time I had many talks with Ray Fazakas, the author of The Donnelly Album, and corresponded for a while with Nora Lord who was William Donnelly’s daughter and who died in Sudbury on September 22, 1975, at age 88.
“In June 1997 we paid a visit to Rob and Linda Salts’ place on the Roman Line. We did the tour of the property, something I had wanted to do for years but the previous owner was hostile to the idea of visits from strangers and kept the property posted.
“Rob, who claims to be a psychic, certainly has no doubts about the presence of spirits in his home and barn. And something happened while we were there to shake my skepticism, at least somewhat.
“You relate that people touring the site often mention that something touched them on the shoulder while no one was standing near them. I had a similar experience. While Rob was leading us from the house to the murder scene, I felt something brush across the top of my head. My first thought was that a flying insect, a very large flying insect, had gotten into my hair. I patted the top of my head very gingerly so as to dislodge it without getting stung, but there was nothing there. Then the same thing happened again. This time I ran the fingers of both hands through my hair but came up with nothing. I didn’t mention this to anyone at the time but a week or two later I wrote to Rob telling him about it.”
In fall 2001 Robert described an unusual event that happened in the house. “Our son Charlie, then a teenager in high school, was preparing to go up to bed. He bade his mother and I goodnight and opened the door to ascend the stairs. With the door partly ajar, the sound of music could be faintly heard in the air. I quickly asked Charlie if his computer or stereo was on but he shook his head. The melody stopped suddenly. The music was not modern but was typical of a much earlier time. The sounds seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere in particular. Charlie and I looked at each other in astonishment. His mother in the next room should have been able to hear the music but denied hearing anything.”
In May 2007 I returned to the Donnelly homestead to meet Robert and Linda again. It was great to see them and exchange greetings. I was curious to find out if the public were still drawn to the Donnelly story and to this property. Robert shared this, “There is not a day that goes by without people driving by and stopping in front of the house. People are so curious. I have a chain across the driveway when we’re closed and people still climb over the chain and knock on our door.”
According to Robert, “People come from all over the world. We have even had visitors from as far away as Japan.”
The Salts still require their privacy and ask everyone to phone ahead to book a tour. According to Linda their busiest time is during the months of July and August.
Robert and I strolled the property as I took some new pictures. We ended up at the barn. Robert reminded me about the number of visitors that had sensed or physically experienced the spirit activity in this area. He added, “We had this young man who walked into the barn and then became quite ill. He fled the structure and was sick to his stomach outside.” Obviously his system was unable to handle the energy that is ever-present here.
The Donnelly story continues to haunt many of us. Perhaps it is because we really don’t understand that time in history. Was it really so violent, so lawless? It seems that it was. The Donnellys were representative of the unruliness of the times and the community may have needed scapegoats, outlets for their anger. The Donnellys became a target.
Perhaps the Donnellys were not finished with life or perhaps they still need revenge or is it justice they require? They certainly haven’t left the Roman Line. The places themselves, both the town of Lucan and the Roman Line, are haunted by the entire history of the place. Nothing lets the story die and so it lives, on and on — there’s more than one way to haunt a place, it seems.
The Canadian Museum of Nature
~ Ottawa ~
The traditional sacred knowledge of Native peoples honours the existence of unseen powers. These powers are often personified or accentuated by the Great Mystery. Native peoples, in fact, see life itself as power, a mysterious mix of non-material energy, energy which manifests in different densities for each manifestation. Energy then can be found in objects such as thunderstones, charred wood, volcanic stone, feathers, rattles, masks, bones, and medicine bundles. Each plant has a special power and personality, and medicine people learn to communicate with these things for healing and ceremony.
A Teton Sioux man once stated, “It is hard to explain what we believe about this. It is the general belief of the Native peoples that after a man