Ghost Tales Goss. David Goss

A11

GossDavid Goss

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This series of ghostly tales will come to an end with this story. The bi-weekly accounts have generated a few new tales to add to the 50 or so I had collected from Saint John locations and which I have shared on ghost walks, cemetery tours, and occasionally bus tours of the city.

Today's story is by far and away the best new one to come my way in some time.

It is also the most documented story of any I have seen to date. In fact, there is so much background, that I can but give a taste of it today. Those who want all the nitty gritty details, though, can drop into the library and look up the story in all four newspapers that were publishing at the time the story occurred in November of 1889.

In this column I can but whet your appetite with what follows, which I gleaned (and shortened) from those four papers, namely the Saint John Globe, the Saint John Sun, the Saint John Daily Telegraph, and weekly Progress.

The story begins with a Mr. John Jackson and his wife Mary, then living in Hantsport, Nova Scotia. John died in the fall of 1887, or perhaps even the fall of 86, and his wife then moved to Saint John. She took up residence in what was described as small, one storey cottage on the east end of Britain Street, which contained three rooms, two bed chambers, separated by a kitchen.

It was in the front chamber, overlooking the street, that Mary began to encounter the spirit of her dead husband. It seems he came to visit with some regularity, but she did not share this with anyone for months and months. Finally, the visits trouble her so much that she moved in with her friend Mrs. Mary Anderson, and they called in a minister of the gospel, a Rev. Wm. Lawson, to the Britain Street house to verify it was indeed being haunted. However, he did not experience a ghost on his subsequent visit.

They then appealed to a Methodist Evangelist, a Rev. H. S. Hartley to make a visit. At first, he declined, but upon being asked a second time, agreed to come to the house after the Sunday evening's prayer service. After offering Mrs. Jackson some advice to the effect that she should lead a righteous life, he read the well known 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd," in English, and another unnamed psalm in Latin.

He then said a few prayers, and entered the house. To that point, the Daily Telegraph noted "he had noticed nothing unusual."

However, the story continues, and went on to say that when the minister entered the front bedroom, "he plainly saw the form of a man lying there." To "examine the mystery," he moved toward the bed. To his surprise, the form moved, and was next observed sitting up in a chair beside the bed. At that point Mr. Hartley "attempted to touch him, (and) the apparition, so it seems, moved off, passed through the kitchen, approached the cupboard, (and) vanished."

Following Hartley's visit, many neighbours came to peek into the windows of the house, including the widow, (who would not return to the house) and many claimed to have seen the form of what his widow was sure was her dead husband lying on the bed. Some visitors said they had seen lights move about within the vacant structure, and others said they noticed a strange smell coming from the abode and spoke of an "oppressive atmosphere," around the house.

Hartley arranged another visit the following night, and to legitimize what he had seen, decided to bring the police along. Out of some 50 spectators gathered at the scene, they selected 20 to go into the house to look for the ghost of Jackson. It seemed there were too many present for the ghost to make an appearance, and though many attempts were made to coax the ghost out through singing of hymns, and offering of prayers, Jackson's spirit did not put in an appearance.

Then, just after one o'clock, when the crowd has thinned, a man alone in the front bedroom had the experience of the bedroom door shutting on him, followed by a rapping on the floor, and the appearance of a figure on what had been a vacant bed. He immediately called the others in the house, but by the time they got there no ghost was to be seen. However the bedclothes had been disturbed where the form had lain.

Sure by then that there was something strange occurring, Rev. Hartley agreed to a "laying of the ghost." To carry it off, he charged the Widow Jackson $2 with a promise he would send her husband, John Jackson, "back to the spirit world." But Mrs. Jackson could not move back into the house, saying her pastor friend had failed to get her dead husband out of the house.

And there the tale ended. What became of the ghost of John Jackson, his wife Mary Jackson, and of the house where they interacted remains a mystery. No further reports of what was termed the "Lower Cove Specter" were found in the papers. Perhaps, just perhaps, someone does know the rest of the story "" someone who lives in a small cottage on Britain Street "" and will come forward with the details.

If they do, then this series, which has been a delight to produce, might be continued come another summer.