Real Hauntings 4-Book Bundle. Mark Leslie

Hearing a soft whimpering from behind his office door, Lieberman unlocked it and found Nobby inside.

      Confused as to how a dog could have gotten through a locked door in the middle of the night, Lieberman and some employees reviewed the security footage. They watched in shocked fascination as the locked office door opened by itself to let the dog inside, then slammed shut behind Nobby.

      This happened on more than one night, confusing and frustrating Lieberman. Determined to try to solve the mystery, Lieberman and a group of employees lingered in the lobby in the middle of the night, directly across from the locked office. When Lieberman prompted Nobby to go into his office, the dog walked up to the door and put his paw on it. The door suddenly swung open long enough for the dog to walk in, then it abruptly closed again.

      The witnessing group was dumbfounded.

      Lieberman walked up to the door, placed his hand on it, and gave a little push. It didn’t budge. He then threw his entire two hundred pounds against the door, but still it didn’t budge. The door didn’t in fact open until he took out the keys and unlocked it.

      That particular occurrence eventually stopped happening after just a few more confusing and eerie nights, but there was yet more to fear.

Under the statue of Caesar on the south side of the auditorium lurks the distressed spirit of a young boy who is regularly heard but not often seen. Several staff and patrons who heard a faint weeping rushed to the large vent under the statue and tore it off the wall, thinking to rescue the boy they thought was hopelessly trapped within. But there was nobody inside to rescue — except perhaps for a ghost, for whom it is too late to save. One rather curious witness to the crying went so far as to crawl inside the dusty vent, discovering a report card belonging to a local Hamilton boy from Ryerson elementary school’s grade 4.[7]

      In the summer of 2002, the folks at Haunted Hamilton conducted an investigation of the Tivoli Theatre. Their psychics went into the building without being told any of the alleged history of the ghosts. Immediately drawn to the statue and the vent, they placed their hands on the wall and said it housed an important document.

      Shortly after a side wall collapsed in upon itself in 2004, leaving a gaping hole on the south side of the building, city contractors assessed the structure as unstable. The City of Hamilton billed owner Sam Sniderman $300,000 for the cost of the demolition.

      Legends suggest that the distressed spirit of a young boy lurks near the statue of Caesar on the south side of the auditorium.

       Courtesy of Stephanie Lechniak.

      In 2006 the Canadian Ballet Youth Ensemble bought the building from Sniderman for either one or two dollars, depending on which newspaper report you read. And in the summer of 2010, Gina Gintili and Belma Diamante began trying to raise five million dollars in order to restore the theatre building into a dance, arts, and culture centre. Under a campaign called “Toonies for Tivoli,” they hope to build those funds two dollars at a time. They champion the Tivoli as a magic spot, larger than the real estate and a symbol of our city’s soul.

      Those who have experienced the unexplained occurrences at the Tivoli would, of course, also suggest that there is more than magic here — and that if the legendary building known as the Tivoli rises again, so, too, will the ghosts that continue to tread the boards there.

      Chapter Seventeen

      Gus's Ghost Story

      The following is an article that appeared in the August 16, 1902, issue of the Hamilton Herald. Brother’s Robert B. and John M. Harris established the newspaper in August 1889, and it became Hamilton’s first one-cent newspaper, making Hamilton into a three-newspaper town. The Hamilton Spectator, started in 1846, and the Hamilton Times, 1859, were the other two papers at the time — the only remaining daily newspaper today is the Spectator. The Herald lasted until 1936; the Times until 1920.

      Interestingly, parts of the story, namely the pulling of bedclothes, appeared in other accounts of ghostly occurrences reported by both men and women. What I couldn’t determine is if these other tales were related to this original haunting experience that Nelson reports.

      His Weird Experience with Tricky Spook

      The House Is Said to Be Haunted

      Whether or not you believe in the truth of the following story, told by Gus Nelson, of this town, it is certain that the teller of the story is convinced of its truth. As he told it to a small group of friends one evening this week, he had not fully recovered from the nerve-shaking effects of his experience. He said:

      “On the night of Wednesday, August 6, I went to bed in my boarding house on Park Street about half-past ten. Not being tired or sleepy, I lay for some time in deep thought. Suddenly, I was disturbed by a curious, weird sound, as if made by the rattling of chains or someone trying to open the door. This noise increased, and was followed by a louder sound, as of someone hitting the head of an empty barrel with a mallet. Being slightly alarmed, I sat up in bed and called out, ‘Get to the dickens out of this,’ though I could see nothing. Presently, as if by magic, a light appeared in the hallway, which just as suddenly disappeared again. Then I felt something pulling at the bed clothes. Reaching under the bed I seized a slipper and fired it at the apparition. Scarcely had I lain down again before the clothes again moved. I grasped them tightly, but the ghost also pulled. For a time it was difficult to tell which would gain the mastery. Again the light appeared and the pulling ceased. For a long time I lay in a state of bewilderment and great fatigue. I fell asleep. I awoke, with a feeling of nervousness, about 4:30 a.m. I looked, and there was the light again. It came and went at intervals, positively without human agency. Upon recovering myself sufficiently afterwards, I found a pair of old socks on top of my head and the bed clothes lying in the center of the room on the floor.”

      In the group of persons to whom Gus told his story was Night Watchman Jamieson, who is well known to be an authority on ghosts and several other important matters. Mr. Jamieson exhibited no surprise over the story. The house, he said, had been haunted for some time, that condition having been brought about by the fact that a man had hung himself there some seven years ago. Ever since then the apparition of a man had occasionally been seen walking about at midnight sometimes with a small electric light in one hand and sometimes pounding on an empty barrel with a drumstick. One night, says Jamieson, a policeman saw the apparition. He immediately fainted and was restored to consciousness by Jamieson himself. The next night the policeman was not on that beat, and it was reported that he was sick.

Gus Nelson says that a young man who had slept there before he came said the bed actually walked over to the door, and that such things as Gus described were of common occurrence. To say that, Gus, who was [illegible] frightened is but mildly expressing it, and money could not induce him to return to his boarding house, as he is quite positive that it was a ghost he saw. No one can make him believe different. A certain gentleman to whom Gus was relating his experience, says that he had often been visited by ghosts, and that the only way to get rid of them was to stand a bottle of whisky and a glass in front of the bed. They would then take a drink and depart without touching the bed clothes. This is about the best remedy I have ever heard of to banish ghosts, and if any ever bother me I think I shall take this means of disposing them.[1]

      Chapter Eighteen

      The Tombstone Ghost

      On an otherwise typical Sunday night in June 1971, around the time that Ontario Place opened in Toronto, Federal Express was founded in Little Rock, Arkansas, and The Ed Sullivan Show made its last broadcast on CBS-TV, Norm and Sherrie Bilotti encountered something dark and mysterious in their home — a far more memorable event for them.

      Norm Bilotti was startled out of a peaceful midsummer night’s dream by the shrill screams of his wife, Sherrie. When his eyes shot open, he immediately spied what was causing