The Great Inundation of 1861
The City of Montreal has long been a victim of floods, particularly because of the ice that regularly stops up the St. Lawrence River. But the “Great Inundation of 1861” was a particularly significant one, as can be seen in this excerpt from Alfred Sandham’s 1870 book Ville-Marie, Or, Sketches of Montreal: Past and Present:
The inhabitants of the lower parts of the city were accustomed to floods, but they were not prepared for such an extensive inundation as that which visited them in the spring of this year. About 7 o’clock on Sunday evening, April 14th, the water rose so rapidly that the inhabitants were unable to remove articles of furniture to a place of safety, and the congregations of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Chapel, on Dalhousie-street, and the Ottawa-street Wesleyan Chapel found their places of worship surrounded by four to six feet of water, and no means at hand whereby they might reach their homes. The water rushed so violently down the streets that it was almost impossible to maintain a footing while endeavoring to wade through it. In order to obtain assistance for his congregation, Rev. Mr. Ellegood, of St. Stephen’s Church, waded in the dark through about four feet of water until he reached St. Antoine-street. He then procured the assistance of some policemen, and a boat was obtained by which, at about 1 o’clock A.M., the congregation were taken away from the church, with a few exceptions, who stayed all night. The trains from the west and from Lachine were unable to enter the city, and passengers had to find their way to the city by Sherbrooke-street. The principal loss to the inhabitants was in livestock. About 3 o’clock on Monday the pot ash inspection stores took fire from the heating of a quantity of lime. While endeavoring to quench the flames the firemen were standing or wading waist-deep in water. The efforts of the brigade were unavailing, and the building was entirely consumed.
The extend of the inundation may be conceived from the fact that the river rose about twenty-four feet above its average level. The whole of St. Paul-street and up McGill-street to St. Maurice-street, and from thence to the limits of the city, was entirely submerged, and boats ascended McGill-street as far as St. Paul-street. To add to the sufferings of the people the thermometer sank rapidly, and a violent and bitter snow-storm set in on Tuesday, and continued to rage with great fury all night. Owing to the fact that in most cases the fuel was entirely under water much extreme suffering was caused. Considering the rapidity with which the waters rose, it is strange that no more than three lives were lost. These were drowned by the upsetting of a boat, in which they were endeavoring to reach the city. The flood extended over one-fourth part of the city.
Just a few paragraphs later, the text describes the effect of a hurricane that passed over the city in July of that year, creating havoc, tearing down fences and trees, and completely destroying the roofs of the Grand Trunk Railway sheds at Point St. Charles. As with the earthquakes described earlier, all of this seemingly occurred without casualties. In another eerie echo of the earthquakes, July also saw two additional earth-tremor shocks that only lasted a few seconds, but were severe enough to shake buildings and send people rushing out in a panic to the streets.
The “Red Death” Smallpox Epidemic of 1885
In March 1885 a train arrived from Chicago that introduced a plague of smallpox upon Montreal. The disease was transmitted via conductor George Longley, who arrived with an intense fever and a disturbing mass of welts on his face, upper body, and hands.
By the following month, it became evident that smallpox had taken hold of the Montreal General Hospital. A little more than a year later, the disease had infected as many as nine thousand Montrealers, killing more than three thousand and seriously disfiguring countless others.
The real tragedy is that all of this could have been avoided with a simple vaccination, which had been developed in 1796 and was readily available. A good majority of French Canadians, however, were suspicious of the vaccination due to confusing propaganda from the Catholic Church, which included calling those promoting the vaccination “charlatans” and insisting that vaccination was a ploy to poison their children.
The “Saddest Fire” at Laurier Palace
On Sunday January 9, 1927, a horrific and tragic fire broke out in the Laurier Palace Theatre on Saint Catherine Street. The theatre was filled with eight hundred children attending a comedy show. Seventy eight children died in the fire: sixty-four from asphyxiation, twelve who were trampled to death in the ensuing panic, and two from the actual fire itself. It is believed that a hastily discarded cigarette that fell between the theatre’s wooden floorboards was the cause of this tragic fire.
Following this tragedy, the public demanded that children be forbidden from attending the cinema, citing the obvious dangers. Judge Louis Boyer recommended that nobody under the age of sixteen should be allowed access to the cinema. That law remained in effect until 1961. In 1967 the cinema law was adapted into a motion picture rating system that divided audiences into age groups — an interesting by-product of that early theatre tragedy.
Trans-Canada Airlines Flight 831
In what was, at the time, the deadliest airline crash in Canadian history (and currently stands as the third-deadliest behind Swissair Flight 111 and Arrow Air Flight 1285), a Douglas DC-8 crashed about four minutes and twenty miles after take-off, near Ste-Thérèse-de-Blainville. The November 29, 1963, flight, which was bound for Toronto from Montreal, crashed, killing all one hundred and eighteen people on board; one hundred and eleven passengers, and seven crew members.
The only somewhat positive aspect of this story is that traffic congestion on Montreal highways that day led to eight additional passengers failing to arrive at the airport in time to catch that flight.
The actual cause of the crash was difficult to determine, since, at that point, Canadian aircraft were not required to carry voice cockpit recorders. Investigation suggested such possibilities as the jet’s pitch trim system, icing, and failure of the vertical gyro.
Conclusion
Why Share Macabre Tales?
I am someone who believes in ghosts.
Heck, I not only believe in ghosts, but I’m afraid of the dark. So why would I be interested in writing books that include ghost stories and other ghastly tales? I have thought about it and been regularly asked the question, but I honestly can’t tell you. I can tell you that I have always been fascinated with eerie things that linger, hidden in the thick darkness of night, with the awe-inducing and overwhelming fear of the unknown.
A common logical next question from people, upon hearing this, is usually: Have you ever seen a ghost yourself?
I truly can’t say.
And that is perhaps because that while I believe in ghosts, I haven’t decided for myself what I believe they are. Is a ghost the manifestation of a spirit trapped on earth, a lost soul unable to completely shuck off their mortal coil? Or is a ghost more like the remnants of an intense traumatic moment, filled with the most powerful intensity of human emotion; enough intensity to leave a lasting echo in the fabric of space and time, so that what people are seeing when they see a ghost is more like some sort of video loop of that significant event? Or are ghosts things that are created via particular environmental triggers that stimulate particular elements of the electricity or chemistry that make up our brains and our consciousness?
Perhaps. Perhaps ghosts are sometimes one, sometimes another.
Why do some people see or witness paranormal phenomenon while others do not? I believe that, in the same way that some people have particularly refined or heightened senses, perhaps there are those who are more in tune with a type of sense that can detect either an earth-bound spirit or the ripple of energy bound to a “haunted” location. Think about a sommelier — a trained wine professional who can taste a wine and come up with such complex and detailed tasting notes as “cranberry, birch, cloves and just a back-palate hint of rich