Could Thorold be haunted?
Maybe so, says a local historian.
“If communities have their quotient of ghosts, Thorold would reasonably lay claim to their fair share just because of things that have happened in Thorold’s past,” says Randy Barnes, the chair of the Thorold and Beaverdams Historical Society.
Barnes points to a few different spots that could be considered the most haunted in Thorold. Number one on the list is obviously Keefer Mansion.
“It’s certainly the most magnificent heritage building in Thorold and like any other mansion it's got its secret stairways and it has quite a colourful history.”
Keefer Mansion was built in 1885 but the Keefer family only lived in the house for a couple of years before they went bankrupt. After that, the building had a number of different owners and was used as a maternity ward, a hospital and a chronic care facility.
“People have seen young children, they’ve heard babies crying, they see elderly people. The sky is the limit on the number of ghosts the people have seen over the years and it’s of course all attributed to some of the people that have been in there and some of the uses.”
Then there is also the Blue Ghost Tunnel, also known as the Merritton Tunnel, an abandoned train tunnel which runs under the Welland Canal.
“There was a major train accident in there and some people were killed. This is going back into the late 19th century. It wasn’t actually used for all that many years but presumably that is the source of the ghost. ”
The St. Lawrence Seaway has tried to seal up the tunnel but Barnes says, “People have dismantled part of the wall. People going ghost hunting mean serious business, they are not to be deterred.”
Not far from the Blue Ghost Tunnel, right down the hill from Lakeview Cemetery is the oldest grave site in Thorold, St. Peter’s Cemetery, which was flooded almost 100 years ago by the St. Lawrence Seaway to create a reservoir when they expanded the canal.
“Ten years ago they actually drained the reservoir because someone had been out with a metal detector and they started digging and what they came across was remains. I was invited to come down to the site by the archaeologists to try and get a handle on wether anything was there. There were still gravestones sticking up and I know they found some other remains there, other grave sites. The basic understanding was that they couldn’t identify family to take possession of the remains and they couldn’t relocate some to Lakeview Cemetery, so some of them ended up getting flooded over. It’s never been officially established but that’s the stuff of ghost stories.”
Barnes also points to the Chestnut Hall as a place of possible haunting in Thorold because of its varied use throughout history as a jail and a court house.
As to whether Barnes believes in ghosts, at the end of the day he remains more of a sceptic.
“I think some of it you can probably chalk up to a heightened emotion and imagination. People, who I consider very sane and rational, have told me that they’ve seen things. I don’t doubt they have. As to what it is they’ve actually seen, I guess I've got an open mind. I don’t really know.”