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]
Chapter Two
The Ghosts of Dundurn Castle
A renowned and much-discussed figure of Canadian history, Sir Allan MacNab was a confident and charismatic man. Even at the age of twenty-eight, he was said to be a man to follow and watch.[1] With societal eyes cast upon him from such an early age through the height of his career in politics and as an important entrepreneurial figure in Hamilton’s history, it is no wonder people are fascinated with his home.
The building and estate MacNab left behind, as was the intention from their inception, inspire awe. Set atop a gorgeous series of fields, gardens, forests, and rolling grassy hills, against a stunning backdrop of Lake Ontario, the Dundurn Castle estate is as fascinating as it is beautiful. The grounds and adjacent Dundurn Park are home to receptions, weddings, and corporate events; it has even hosted royal visits, such as that of Charles, the Prince of Wales, and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, in 2009.
But when the sun goes down, the shadows creep and spread, giving the Regency-style villa an entirely different look and feel. With the grounds lit by a full moon hanging low in the sky, just to the side of the pillars of the castle, one begins to ponder the many mysteries and tales surrounding Dundurn Castle.
T. Melville Bailey, a local historian, wrote in 1943 that the tales of secret tunnels extending from Dundurn Castle across the grounds were as old as the castle itself. “But,” he notes, “like the ghosts that sit in the castle when the moon is high — we have no positive proof of their existence.”[2]
A lack of physical proof, however, doesn’t stop the mind from racing or the heart from skipping a beat when experiencing something at Dundurn Castle that defies explanation.
Looking back upon the history of the building, its occupants, and the many alleged occurrences on the grounds and adjacent to the property over the past two centuries helps to cast a light into those dark corners, but perhaps doesn’t fully satisfy the mind. The rich history of Dundurn Castle leads to more speculation, further enigmas, and even more possibilities that it is indeed haunted and by more than one ghost.
Dundurn Castle is one of Hamilton’s most easily recognized landmarks. A National Historic Site, it was designed by Robert Wetherall, an English architect, and built around the brick shell of Colonel Richard Beasley’s colonial home. Often considered Wetherall’s masterpiece, it was constructed over a three-year period and completed in 1835.[3]
Dundurn Castle is a historic neoclassical mansion that was completed in 1835. It is 18,000 square feet (1,700 square metres) and took three years and $175,000 to build.
Courtesy of Peter Rainford.
The gardens, grounds, and many unique and unusual buildings made Dundurn one of the finest estates in the province at that time. Dundurn is Gaelic for “strong fort” and the residents of Hamilton immediately nicknamed it “castle.”[4]
Sitting high over Burlington Bay, and seen as people enter or exit Hamilton via York Road, Robert Wetherell meant for this stunning Italianate building to be viewed from the water. The goal was to design and build a house that would not only demonstrate Sir Allan MacNab’s wealth and importance but also to make a mark on the colonial society, both in his day and in the years that followed.[5]
MacNab’s house was “a statement of an age that was already passing”[6] — one in which eighteenth-century aristocrats designed, constructed, landscaped, and furnished homes that conveyed their families’ prestige to the community. Similar to the newest homes in Britain at the time, Dundurn was designed to be looked upon as well as to look outward (particularly across the bay). The ground-floor windows could be swung open and stepped through for easy access to the manicured lawns.
The home itself was relatively narrow, considering that the building was constructed on top of Richard Beasley’s earlier home (he was a fur trader and one of Hamilton’s first residents). This was an intentional statement by MacNab, implying that the future was firmest when built upon the past, and it affected the layout of the interior of the home — something that is not evident when looking upon the building from outside.[7]
Today, Dundurn has been restored to the year 1855, when Sir Allan Napier MacNab (1798–1862) was at the height of his career as a lawyer, land owner, railway magnate, and premier of the “United Canadas.” More than forty rooms of the seventy-two-room castle have been furnished, and costumed staff guide visitors through the home, richly illustrating the life of a prominent Victorian family and contrasting it with that of their servants.[8]
MacNab was born in Niagara-on-the-Lake and arrived in Hamilton from York in 1826, beginning his career as a lawyer. That same year he lost his first wife, Elizabeth Brookes, and raised his two children, Robert and Anne Jane, as a widower. In 1831 he married Mary Stuart and had two more children, Sophia and Minnie. During the construction of Dundurn, in 1934, MacNab’s son Robert fatally shot himself in a hunting accident on the grounds of Dundurn.[9] Later, in 1846, Mary died of consumption. Outside of her deathbed room, a cool chill and mysterious breeze that blows out candles continues to mystify visitors and staff.
According to the tour guides at Haunted Hamilton, an employee of the castle who was performing a last-minute check before locking up one night encountered an eerie sensation in Mary’s bedroom. Alone in the room, she was surprised to hear something: “I was putting out a candle when I heard the sound of a singing voice. At first I thought: Oh, doesn’t that sound nice.” But then she wondered what it was and where she could be hearing singing from. After all, there was no radio playing, nobody around, and the sound definitely wasn’t coming from outside. “It wasn’t frightening,” she said, “but it was not explainable. It was just a couple of phrases of singing and it took me by surprise.”[10]
In 2000, Hamilton Spectator reporter Paul Wilson wrote about the 1999 wedding of Carol and Jim Forrest. Shortly after their ceremony, Carol, Jim, and the wedding party went to the grounds of Dundurn Castle to have their wedding pictures — hundreds — taken professionally. When the photos were delivered a couple of weeks later, Carol and Jim