Indeed, while the building has a rich history involving workers and their culture, it is also steeped in the richness of spirits that allegedly haunt it.
As mentioned, the most famous is the Dark Lady, who is often described as a pretty woman with dark hair — usually tied back in a bun — and wearing a dark dress. She has been spotted brushing her long black hair in front of a vintage mantelpiece and is known to be very protective of the building when any changes are made to it.
Apparently, a painter who was working there received an eerie message from the Dark Lady. She informed him that if her mantelpiece was moved, as was planned for a renovation, the building and the worker would be “washed away.” The painter relayed the message to management, but the mantle was moved anyway. And the next day, a drain pipe burst, causing some water damage.
There is another legend of a different painter working in the front hallway. He was startled to see the word MURDER appear in the freshly rolled paint, as if written with someone’s finger — only the words were backwards, as though being written from the other side of the wall.
Stephanie Lechniak, co-founder of Haunted Hamilton Ghost Walks & Events, has expressed a particular affinity with the Custom House building. When she was a child, her father used to bring her to look at the beautiful architecture of the building, and these days the Custom House is a big part of the ghost walks and costume ball put on by Haunted Hamilton.
Stephanie tells the tale of a Halloween in 2005 when she may have personally witnessed the Dark Lady. Sitting at the front of the main gallery, scraping a bit of wax from one of the tables, Stephanie heard a quiet creaking emanating from the old wood floors. Familiar with the building’s history and the spirits, particularly the Dark Lady, she steeled her nerves before looking up.
She saw a young woman sitting in a chair directly in front of her. The woman was there for just a moment before disappearing.
“The Dark Lady,” Lechniak notes, “is said to be the spirit of an unfortunate young Englishwoman who had gotten herself pregnant and was subsequently shunned in her home country and sent by ship to Canada to start a new life with her baby.”[12]
On the overseas voyage, the woman apparently had an affair with the ship’s captain. The captain, who had intended for the encounter to be a mere fling, was repulsed by the neediness of this woman. Her desire for them to stay together and for him to be the father of her child horrified him in terms of what it would mean for his reputation.
It is rumoured that, during a heated argument on the ship’s deck, the captain killed her in a fit of rage, snuck her body into the Custom House, and bricked it up behind a basement wall.
The Custom House does have a superfluous wall in the basement, but the historic designation has prevented any investigators from breaking it down to see if there is indeed evidence of a body and a crime. For most people, though, the brick wall’s existence and the tales that permeate the building are evidence enough.
Other ghosts haunting the building include those of two little boys, who have been heard running on the second floor by employees of the main floor’s gift shop. Another is that of a young woman, raped and killed in the building, who is said to be buried out back. Her spirit is believed to haunt the stairs inside and has been seen sitting forlornly on the stairway.
Additional lost souls include those of the fifteen men who were buried alive when the tunnel between the house and the railway tracks collapsed on them. Because they were transients, nobody knew who they were or even if there were families to be notified. The tunnel was simply sealed up, and everyone pretended that nothing had happened. As Daniel Cumerlato of Haunted Hamilton put it, “If you look in the basement, you can plainly see where the tunnel has been sealed, forever trapping those inside. With no proper burial or funerary rites, who could be surprised that these souls remain trapped in the world of the living?”[13] With so many dead buried in and around the Custom House, it’s no wonder there are ongoing tales of people witnessing the supernatural.
A fitting end to this chapter on the Custom House might very well be the origin to the legends set in this historic building — a poem written by the Custom House employee Alexander Hamilton Wingfield, published in 1873.
The Woman in Black
The ghosts — long ago — used to dress in pure white,
Now they’re got on a different track, —
For the Hamilton Ghost seems to take a delight
To stroll ’round the city in black.
Pat Duffy, who saw her in Corktown last night,
Has been heard to-day telling his friend
That she stood seven feet and nine inches in height,
And wore a large Grecian Bend.
A “Peeler,”[1] who met her, turned blue with affright,
And in terror he clung to a post;
His hair (once a carroty red) has turned white,
Since the moment he looked on the ghost.
Her appearance was frightful to gaze on, he said, —
It filled him with horror complete;
For she looked unlike anything, living or dead,
That ever he’d seen on his beat.
Her breath seemed as hot as a furnace; besides, —
It smelt strongly of sulphur and gin,
Two horns (a yard long) stuck straight out of her head,
And her hoofs made great clatter and din.
Her air was majestic, and terribly grand,
As she passed, muffled up in her veil;
A bottle of “ruin” she held in each hand,
And she uttered a low, plaintive wail;
“‘There is rest for the weary,’” but no rest for me;
I cannot find rest if I try, —
Three months and three days I have been on the spree
(Mr. Mueller, ‘How’s that for high?’)
“I have mixed in the world, both with ‘spirits’ and men, —
Once more with the spirits I’ll go.”
She stopped, took a sniff of the “ruin,” and then
She popped into a cellar below.
He could hear her again, crying out from her den —
“To-night you will see me no more;
But I’ll meet with you Saturday evening at ten,
By the fountain that stands in the Gore.”
Some people that passed there this morning at two
Found the “Peeler” still glued to his post;
He told them this yarn I have been telling you —
And that’s the last news from the Ghost![14]
[1] Peeler is a historic term that means “police officer.” It comes from Sir Robert Peel, who helped create the modern concept of the police force. The term Bobbies was also derived from his name.[15]