Real Hauntings 4-Book Bundle. Mark Leslie

frame Georgian-style home, built with symmetrically balanced windows, a steep roof, a huge veranda, and large chimneys.[9]

In 1813 the house was taken over by American soldiers who used it for their headquarters, imprisoning Mrs. Gage and her children in the basement. After the battle, the Gage family eventually returned to their normal lives and James went into business. In 1830 the house was renovated to include a full two storeys. In 1835, Mary Gage moved to Hamilton with her family, selling the farm.[10]

      The building exchanged hands many times in the following years, and, like so many historically significant buildings in the Hamilton area, was in a terrible state of repair and in danger of being torn down.

Sara Calder, granddaughter of James and Mary Gage and president of the ladies committee of the Wentworth Historical Society, had the foresight to recognize the historical value of the property. She purchased the house and adjacent four-and-a-half-acre property surrounding it; this property was eventually transferred to the Wentworth Historical Society.[11]

The Wentworth Historical Society restored and refurnished the house to open it as a museum (one of the first museums in Canada), then purchased additional land, built the monument, and opened Battlefield Park.[12]

In 1962, when the Society was unable to keep up the grounds and the house, the Niagara Parks Commission took it over. In the 1970s, the house was restored to its 1835 state.[13]

In 1988 the City of Stoney Creek assumed responsibility for the property, [14] and a group of dedicated volunteers continue to assist staff members with the park and museum’s operation. For thirty years now, each June the Battlefield House Museum and Park presents the annual re-enactment of the Battle of Stoney Creek. In 2011 this re-enactment was declared one of the top one hundred events in Ontario by Festivals and Events Ontario. This historic event allows families to experience first-hand the thrill and pageantry of a battle that represented a significant turning point in the War of 1812.[15]

Annually, thousands of people virtually step back in time to visit the encampment, mingle with early nineteenth-century soldiers, and witness historical demonstrations of cooking, blacksmithing, dancing, games, and musical entertainment.[16] But as they move among the white tents, strewn across the field like ghostly reminders of the hundreds of soldiers whose lives were lost on these grounds, they perhaps feel the presence of something else.

      Haunted Hamilton has received multiple reports of people witnessing misty soldiers moving silently across the historic battlefield, sometimes with the ghostly echoes of cannons firing in the air.

      But, to date, the most fascinating and consistent reports of supernatural activity involve one particular ghost who is said to reside in Battlefield House. Though there are not many claims

      Battlefield House was originally the homestead of the widow Mary Jones Gage and her children.

       Courtesy of Stephanie Lechniak.

      of sighting of a physical apparition, many stories are told about the playful and mischievous spirit, thought to be that of Mrs. Gage herself, the home’s original owner.

The location of the bodily remains of Mrs. Gage, who died in 1841, remains a mystery, though they were reportedly interred in a lead-lined casket in the First United Church (which burned down in 1969). After this devastating fire, the remains of Mary and other early settlers of the time are said to have been relocated to the Woodland Cemetery in Burlington, where a plaque was erected in their honour.[17] It is further posited that Mary Gage’s headstone and body disappeared in the move — and that her restless spirit has found its way back to Battlefield House.

Reports include antique pieces, particularly ones that Mrs. Gage Sr. would have used, disappearing from a room, only to be found in a completely different part of the house several days later. The spirit of Mary is said to be responsible for the occasional electrical malfunction of vacuum cleaners and computers.[18] Additionally, a clairvoyant who toured the house was disturbed by a pervasive aura of violence in one of the front bedrooms. She also experienced what she described as a benevolent spirit with a strong personality.[19]

      Over the years, amateurs and seasoned supernatural investigators alike have compiled various audio, video, and photographic materials. The findings range from spectral orbs and eerie shadows appearing in photographs to unexplainable sounds and voices.

      One thing that is certain, though, is that any place in which so many lives were lost suddenly and violently is certain to be a hotspot for paranormal activity.

      Chapter Five

      The Devil's Punchbowl

Sometimes referred to as Horseshoe Falls for the distinctive shape of its cliff-face (and somewhat resembling its larger, more well-known cousin in Niagara), the Devil’s Punchbowl consists of two separate falls: Upper and Lower Punchbowl Falls. The Upper Falls is a 5.5-metre classic waterfall and the main Lower Falls is a 33.8-metre ribbon waterfall, resulting in one of the Niagara Escarpment’s most amazing sights.[1]

The waterfall is part of one of the many “passive areas” maintained by the Hamilton Conservation Authority (HCA). The term passive is one that the Conservation Authority itself recognizes the irony in, since there is nothing passive about the more than three thousand hectares of regional passive areas that play a major role in the ecology and health of the region. The term doesn’t refer to the landscape itself, but rather to the fact that, though the combined areas annually cost about $1,800 per hectare to maintain, the HCA doesn’t charge an admission fee.[2]

The Dofasco 2000 Trail — an 11.5-kilometre trail through upper Stoney Creek that features a long boardwalk section through Vinemount Swamp Forest — begins here, as do several escarpment access trails with connections to the eight-hundred-kilometre-long Bruce Trail.[3]

Although the falls dry up often, rainstorms and melting snow will cause the water to flow, and though flow is typically a thin trickle, it is still an impressive sight, with the water cascading down almost forty metres of free fall.[4]

Widely hailed as one of the region’s most impressive sights, the backdrop or horseshoe shape to the waterfall consists of multi-coloured stratified rock layers of the Niagara Escarpment, best visible from the bottom of the falls. The Hamilton Conservation Authority explains that “the Punch Bowl is the only area where one can view such a large vertical display of Ordovician and Silurian stratified rock. Some of the layers include Queenston Formation red shale, Cabot Head grey shale, limestone, and shale dolomite.”[5]

The history of the Devil’s Punchbowl dates back more than 450 million years, when materials that form the Niagara Escarpment were originally deposited in a large inland sea, which most likely originated from the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United