The first reports of a haunting of Joseph Brant’s home were recorded as early as 1873 in the American Historical Record and later recounted in the Hamilton Spectator. One visitor shared his experiences within the building during Brant’s ownership.
This venerable structure presents nearly the same appearance as it did … when Captain Brant, with a retinue of 30 servants and surrounded by soldiers, cavaliers in powdered wigs and scarlet coats and all the motley assemblage of that picturesque era, held his barbaric court within its walls. The rumour was reported to me in good faith by a neighbouring farmer that the Brant House is haunted.
According to Michael Bennett’s report in the Hamilton Spectator, “Visiting psychics have said the supernatural ‘heart’ of the building lies in the small third-floor room.”
Mr. Bennett also refers to an article that appeared in the Hamilton Spectator in 1891. “Grisly find on the Brant property. Investigators digging in a mound discovered the skeleton of a large, male Native. Two ivory rings still pierced his nose and alongside him in the grave lay a tomahawk, pipe and knife.”
Who was the person and why was he buried here? Certainly the disturbance and removal of a body from its sacred burial place is often enough to begin a spirit haunting.
Who really haunts the Joseph Brant Museum?
For years the nursing staff on the second and third floors of the Joseph Brant Hospital have witnessed unusual activity in the museum across the way. The nurses have a very clear view and have reported lights going off and on in the rooms on the second floor and in the attic space on the third floor; some have seen an apparition walk by a second-storey window in the middle of the night. Could it be the “Lady in White”?
People have seen lights going off and on in this room at night.
In 1987 a group of Burlington Jaycettes met at the Joseph Brant Museum in the evening. Their meeting was to begin at 8:00 p.m. sharp in the room located to the right on the second floor. The upstairs of the museum is comprised of a short corridor at the top of the stairs with a bookcase on the left. Adjacent to the corridor on the right is a large room that faces the hospital and a smaller exhibition room with a glass case on the left. Past this display room is a small hallway leading to an office and a narrow staircase leading to the attic on the third floor.
Mary (not her real name) arrived on time and took a seat just inside the doorway. A male friend was seated beside her. Sometime between 8:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Mary had an unexpected terror of a visitation.
Mary is a middle-aged woman of slight build. She knows more than most people will ever realize. She is a sensitive, a person who attracts the spirits of the deceased. It is this gift of sight that terrifies her when she senses evil. Recently, on a warm spring day, Mary, accompanied by a friend, nervously approached the museum. She did not want to enter the building. She felt fear. Her need to tell her story, to be heard and believed, gave her the courage that she needed. With trembling hands she began her story of what happened that night. She has not stepped foot in the building in all these years since her experience.
On that evening, Mary had been seated facing north, which meant the doorway leading to the corridor was on her right. For some reason her attention was drawn to the doorway. “I looked out the door and there she was, standing in the hallway, looking right at me. She made eye contact with me. She was wearing a white dress with long sleeves. Her dark-brown hair was partially covered by a veil. It almost looked like a wedding dress, but not quite.
“She was just standing there. I heard her plain as plain can be. She was talking to me. I asked a man seated beside me to look. He couldn’t see her. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties, not beautiful, but not unattractive either. She was very thin.
“She said ‘My name is Eliza. I was born in England in 1847. Don’t let my appearance fool you because things are not as they seem.’ Then she was gone.”
Mary was so frightened that she fled the building.
What has kept Eliza there and what “things are not as they seem?”
Mary saw a female spirit, wearing a white dress, standing outside this door in the hallway.
The museum volunteer co-ordinator at the time, Ann Urquhart, was determined to get to the bottom of the haunting. She left a tape recorder running after the museum closed for the night in order to catch the spirit on tape. In his newspaper article, Michael Bennett explains, “On at least one occasion Ann Urquhart caught sounds she describes as ‘the rustling of papers and a cupboard door closing.’”
Mary later said, “I figured out what she meant when she said ‘things are not as they seem.’ I listened to one tape made by Ann that picked up the sound of coins being dropped on the table. Eliza was a woman of the night.”
Michael Bennett surmised, “Speculation is that Eliza was banished from the respectful ground-floor rooms of the old Hotel Brant but greeted her visitors on the second-floor landing where the encounter took place. The attic room where her presence is most felt by those sensitive to such things corresponds to the room where Eliza did her entertaining.”
Mary believes the white dress Eliza was wearing was deceiving. She wasn’t as pure as the colour white represents. At the time of the sighting the glass display cabinets situated in the room to the right of the corridor housed a collection of Victorian dresses. Mary said, “I could not walk past the cabinets.”
Barbara Teatero, the museum director, adds, “One day while I was working at my desk I looked down the hallway and saw two women standing in front of the display case with their hands on the glass. I asked them if I could help them. They replied, ‘You have friendly ghosts here.’”
Perhaps Eliza’s white dress is in the museum’s extensive Victorian collection that is now in storage on the third floor. Perhaps Eliza’s world has remained. She is still working in the hotel! Mary certainly wouldn’t disagree that Eliza lives in the building. Her experience was real and terrifying. But why terrifying?
“She frightened me. It was how she spoke to me.” Eliza’s tone of voice carried a menacing force that still remains with Mary today.
Mary remained tense and I felt there was more to her story. “Mary, this isn’t the first ghost you have seen, is it?” I asked her.
She hung her head and remained silent. Tears formed in her eyes and streamed down her face. Her friend reached for a tissue. She felt safe enough in the moment to reveal herself. “In 1978 we thought of moving and looked at a house in Burlington. This fairly modern home had been on the market for a long time. For some reason it wouldn’t sell. We wondered why but we bought it.
“One day I was in the kitchen preparing lunch when someone touched me. I was the only person in the house.
“We then discovered that the builder of the home had died constructing the home.
“On another occasion I entered the house and there he was, standing in the room. He had reddish-blonde, curly hair and a beard. He was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans, as if dressed for work. I had a picture of Jesus Christ hanging on the wall. I glanced over at the picture and caught him doing the same. We looked at each other and then I knew that it was okay. I called him by his name, Kevin.
“My son never saw him, but did hear his footsteps.
“We lived with this spirit for fifteen years. When we moved from the house I cried.”
Still dabbing her eyes, Mary glanced