Real Hauntings 5-Book Bundle. Mark Leslie

continent to get a liquor license, the auberge is located in the Old Port, a historic area of Montreal, full of narrow cobbled streets, gas lighting, and old stone buildings that are full of whispers of the past. Come along with me on a trip into Montreal’s past to meet Joseph Frobisher, a nineteenth-century fur trader who is a little down on his luck.

      In 1809 Mr. Frobisher lives in the building on Saint-Gabriel Street that will one day become Auberge Saint-Gabriel, and he’s in need of money. He’s made some risky investments, and the bank is knocking on his door looking for payment on his loans. What Mr. Frobisher needs is to make a lot of money, and fast. Lucky for him, when spring arrives and the St. Lawrence thaws, there will be plenty of European buyers looking for furs. The problem is that Mr. Frobisher will be just one seller among many. What he needs is some good luck, or, if luck isn’t being handed out, he needs to make some of his own. So plucky Mr. Frobisher does what anyone else would do: he hires the friendly neighbourhood arsonist to help him out.

      “Go to the storehouse of my main rival in the fur trade and burn it down,” says Mr. Frobisher.

      “I’m on it,” says the friendly arsonist.

      “But make sure nobody is in the building!” Mr. Frobisher adds, hoping the arsonist hears him.

      He gets no reply.

      The friendly neighbourhood arsonist does as he’s told. The building burns and all the furs burn along with it. Though the arsonist burns down the building at night, there are twelve workers in the building at the time and they burn, too.

      “What have you done?” Mr. Frobisher cries upon hearing the news. “I told you to make sure no one was harmed! I won’t pay you for murder.”

      The arsonist, still covered in soot from his efforts, is not amused. “You’ll pay me and then some,” he warns. “A burned building is one thing, I might go to jail. But the murder of twelve people is quite another thing. They’ll execute me if I’m caught. I need money to leave town. And I mean right now!”

      Seeing he means business, Mr. Frobisher agrees. Rushing over to his desk, he opens the top drawer to take out his money box but instead pulls out a knife. The two men engage in a violent struggle, but in the end Mr. Frobisher manages to stab the arsonist and get away. His escape comes not a moment too soon. While neither man was looking, the arsonist’s satchel, which holds explosives, falls a little too close to the fire, and moments after his own death the whole building is up in flames.

       Auberge Saint-Gabriel, present day. Take note of the infamous window on the right.

      The explosion rocks the neighbourhood, and everyone comes running. Mr. Frobisher watches in horror as his house is engulfed in flames, not the least because his six-year-old daughter is on the top floor getting a piano lesson from her grandfather. Unable to help them, Mr. Frobisher watches through the windows as his father runs toward the stairs with the girl, but they are already in flames. Desperate to save the child, the old man comes at last to the right-hand window. He opens it and lifts the child up, but the sudden introduction of oxygen into the space creates an instant backdraft. Down on the street, Mr. Frobisher watches as the flames engulf them both.

      * * *

      Fast-forward 180 years to the late 1980s. The old building on Saint-Gabriel Street has been a private home, a storage unit, a general store, an inn, and now a restaurant and bar. But all is not at peace in this historic building. There’s a small storage room in the basement that routinely finds itself on fire. These mysterious fires occur once or twice a month, when nobody is downstairs. When questioned about these fires, a waiter claims that they are somehow starting by themselves. Is this the arsonist, forever trapped in fires he can’t escape?

      A decade later, more odd happenings. A man is hired to fix the chimney and work on the roof. It’s important to note that this man suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. He always does his work in the same manner and uses his equipment in the same order. On his first day of work, the man puts down his toolbox and sets up his ladder to the left of it. When he comes back down from the roof, he finds that his toolbox is sitting in a different place, with the ladder to the right of it. He finds this very strange because he always puts his toolbox in the same place while working. Puzzled, he brushes off the strange occurrence, moves the toolbox back to its original spot, and continues with his work. Throughout the day, whenever he comes down his ladder, he finds the toolbox has been moved. Suspecting that he’s being pranked, the man goes inside and asks the bartender if someone is playing tricks on him. The bartender doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but he does mention that the building is said to be haunted. Entirely spooked, the worker never comes back and doesn’t ask to be paid.

      If you’re thinking all this paranormal activity is well in the past, think again. In 2008 a local ghost-tracking group reported a piano on the second floor in the auberge playing by itself. Photos have been taken of floating orbs on the stairs. The ghost of a gentleman in nineteenth-century clothing has been spotted in one of the dining rooms. And then there is the painting in the dining room, which from time to time is known to display the image of a little girl … where there shouldn’t be one.

      * * *

      As for Mr. Joseph Frobisher, he doesn’t seem to have suffered too terribly from the loss of his daughter. In addition to becoming a successful fur baron, he was elected to Parliament, served in the militia, was a seigneur with 57,000 acres of estates, was a founding member of the North West Company, and also founded the Beaver Club. He died in 1810 at his country home of Beaver Hall, a long way away from Saint-Gabriel Street and the ghosts he left behind.

      Books, Blood, and a Ghostly Prankster: The Ghost of McLennan Library

      McGill University

      One would expect to find rare books among the special collections at the McLennan Library at McGill University. But you might be surprised to learn that the collection also houses artifacts of a more macabre nature, such as a bloody cloth … and at least one spectre sneaking around the stacks.

      The fourth floor of the McLennan Library houses the Rare Books Collection as well as Lincoln North, the Joseph N. Nathanson collection of Lincolniana. This collection of more than four thousand items relating to Abraham Lincoln is the largest in the world outside of the United States. Dr. Joseph Nathanson (1895–1989), an alumnus of McGill, amassed items for almost fifty years and donated his unique collection to the university in 1986.

      Among the many fascinating items that brilliantly document the life and times of the sixteenth president of the United States, two stand out for their spookiness.

      The first is surgeon Charles Sabin Taft’s diary. Though this special collection contains thousands of documents, prints, medals, sculptures, and other Lincoln memorabilia that might be found elsewhere, its prized possession is the surgeon’s original diary. Taft recorded, in this small notebook, his personal account of the assassination of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth at the Ford Theatre on April 14, 1865. It recounts the events in the theatre and the efforts, stretching into the wee hours of the next day, of medical staff as they tried to save Lincoln. Finally, it describes the sad moment when President Lincoln succumbed to his injuries.

       Taft recorded, in this small notebook, his personal account of Lincoln’s mortal gunshot wound from John Wilkes Booth at the Ford Theatre.

      Taft, who was twenty-three at the time, was the surgeon in charge of the Signal Corps Camp of Instruction at Red Hill in Washington’s Georgetown neighbourhood. Though Taft’s recollections have been published in many different places and on multiple occurrences, this diary seems to be the only version of Taft’s unabridged notes concerning that fateful night and morning.

      The fascinating eyewitness account of the shooting and its aftermath appears in a book titled Abraham Lincoln’s Last Hour; From the Note-Book