Due to the huge amount of debt that MacNab died with, the property was mortgaged to pay off his creditors, and the castle sat empty for several years before becoming an institution for the deaf in 1866. It was then purchased in 1872 by Donald McInnes, who moved his family in after making some minor revisions and repairs to the estate.[14]
In 1899 McInnes sold the castle to the City of Hamilton and it became a museum. In 1967, for the Canadian Centennial year, three million dollars was spent restoring the castle to the state it was in when Sir Allan MacNab inhabited it.[15]
Constructed of stone, a “mystery building,” with a small pagoda-like upper level and topped with a circular cap and column, exists at Dundurn Park, just east of the castle. Nobody knows the actual purpose for which it was built, but historians feel that it might have been a boathouse, an office, a theatre, a laundry, a summer pavilion, or a chapel. Urban legends posit that many underground tunnels lead from the castle to other buildings on the estate, one of them coming through this mystery building.[16] , [17]
The site itself, even prior to the castle being constructed, is not immune to the possibility of ghosts. Many Hamilton residents stricken with cholera during their passage overseas were housed in — and died in — plague sheds across the street from where the castle now stands. And in 1812, eleven men (American sympathizers during the war) were publicly gutted and hung for treason.
All of this aside — staff and visitors alike feeling cold chills, witnessing apparitions gliding through rooms of the castle and in the moonlight yard, reporting various objects being moved around — the castle and its grounds continue to exude a sense of enigma and mystery.
And if you visit Dundurn today, you’ll see that it stands, like its original owner, not just as a beacon of a significant time in Hamilton history but also as an acknowledgement that some of our most interesting pieces of history remain unsolved puzzles.
Chapter Three
Bellevue Mansion
When I first moved to Hamilton in 1997, my wife took me down a street on the edge of the Niagara Escarpment, pointing out an old house that had been abandoned since she was a child. She talked about that common childhood experience regarding old, creepy abandoned houses: almost every town or neighbourhood has one. One that children regularly cast leery glances at and step a bit more quickly when passing the sidewalk in front, particularly when the sun begins to set and the shadows grow long.
The neighbourhood and lot were actually desirable, and as the years passed and the old abandoned building was torn down, Francine and I speculated that it would be a great property to purchase and build a house on. It is a decent-sized lot on a lovely street, close to the amenities we’re used to and near the school our son attends. And the view of the city was spectacular.
We made some basic inquiries regarding the property, but nobody ever got back to us. I thought it was strange that a salesperson wouldn’t respond to a call from a serious customer. It was only later that I discovered some of the history of that lot and its “haunted house” — and was glad that a salesperson never returned my calls.
Francine and I now merely need to mention that abandoned lot and a shared chill runs up our spines.
The stories we have heard cause the imagination to run wild, conjuring haunting visions of a deranged man, a domestic predator, slowly lumbering through the halls in search of his family. In these thoughts, the house, the very grounds themselves, are possessed of some evil spirits that could drive a man to commit unspeakable acts.
But I have gotten ahead of myself here. Let’s go back to look at the house in question and learn a bit about its history.
The Bellevue Mansion stood atop the mountain brow for over 150 years[1] with a commanding view out over the city and bay. It ranked among Hamilton’s finest examples of historic residential architecture. Built by John Bradley between 1848 and 1850 of local quarried limestone, the Bellevue Mansion (bellevue being a French term for “beautiful view”) closely resembled the McQuesten homestead of Whitehern, both in style and construction.[2] Of particular significance are the north, east, and west facades, the stone chimneys, and belvedere of the building.[3]
The symmetrical and compact Classical Revival design of Bellevue displayed the finest sense of scale and proportion from the beginning, a testament to the competence of builders Melville, Herald, and White. Later embellished with a belvedere (after which the street is named), the Bellevue was one of the first in Hamilton’s tradition of beautiful escarpment estates.[4]
In the nineteenth century, Bellevue — along with other contemporary limestone mansions such as Inglewood, Rock Castle, and Whitehern — marked an important initial step in Hamilton’s rapid transition from a pioneer settlement to a cosmopolitan centre.[5]
The original owner of Bellevue, John Bradley, contributed to the Hamilton region not only through his commercial success (he owned a tavern, two downtown hotels, and land in the Hamilton area) but also through his political leadership in the growth of the community. Mr. Bradley, who had Bellevue built to accommodate him in his retirement, was a lieutenant, a major in the militia, and was appointed to the Board of Police. He is also often known as the man responsible for bringing the Roman Catholic Church to Hamilton. He retired a wealthy man and lived a good life until he died in the home in 1864.[6]
In the 1860s and 1870s George Gillespie, a later resident of 14 Belvidere, was a successful merchant and industrialist who did many things to promote Hamilton financial institutions.[7]
In the years since then, many other people lived in the residence, often home to distinguished citizens such as the Innes family, who took it over in the 1930s. Conversely, just as it was known to be the home of upstanding citizens, it was also rumoured to be the setting for some lurid and horrific occurrences.
It is said that a loving family — happy, comfortable, and content — once lived in the house, until one night, under the light of a full moon, the father stalked quietly up and down the hallways, wordlessly sinking an axe into the flesh of his two children and his wife. Upon completion of this gruesome task, legend has it that he climbed upstairs to the widow’s walk, where he hung himself from the main wooden beam of the belvedere.
The next morning, the police found the family butchered in their beds and the father’s body swaying in the attic. As evidenced by the tale of another family that lived there, the deceased may have been victims of some evil spirit that possessed the father.
This second story involves a son who, like the previous tenant, found an axe — perhaps the very same axe used in the first murders — and, again under a full moon, killed his family before taking his own life with that worn out beam on the widow’s walk.
Of course, frightening rumours like this spread like wildfire in the midst of a dry summer, passed not only from child to child but adult to adult. In the presence of such shameless decay, it’s no wonder that people cling to bizarre tales without any evidence. It’s as if believing something supernatural is taking place provides justification for the building going unlived-in for so long.
The lot at 14 Belvdere Avenue now stands empty. The house, as captured in this 1999 photo, is but a memory that will haunt Hamilton forever.
Courtesy of Stephanie Lechniak.
Initial searches into whether or not murders actually occurred in this neighbourhood in that time period were inconclusive: no immediate evidence could be found. Claire Sellens purchased the home in 1971, but he never moved in. Instead, he rented it out. As time passed, and the building continued to deteriorate, it was eventually abandoned.[8] It became the house at the end of the street, the one that children, such as my wife and her friends, feared; it became that haunted house, the building with eyes, the one that gave you the creepiest feeling when you walked past it.
Daniel and Stephanie