Real Hauntings — 3-Book Bundle. Mark Leslie

      University Hall at McMaster boasts a Collegiate Gothic design with unique carved mouldings in the entranceways.

       Courtesy of Peter Rainford.

      As time passed, Mary became rather fond of Anthony. She found herself slowly and inevitably falling in love with him. This love mutated rather quickly into an obsession. As their moments of spending long segments of time started to fade away, and Anthony would engage in activities with other people, Mary found herself seeking him out. No matter where he went on campus, she was often not far behind, attempting to keep him in her sights. She was even occasionally spotted outside his room at night, quietly standing and simply looking in his window at him while he studied.

      Anthony, however, was oblivious to Mary’s feelings for him. To him, she was a friend, someone whom he enjoyed spending time with. And unbeknownst to Mary, Anthony’s heart had already begun the process of belonging completely to another woman. It thus came as quite the shock to Mary when she found out that the love of her life had become engaged to another woman.

      Shortly after she found this out, Mary requested a meeting with him in the Wallingford Tea Room, the place where they’d spend so many lovely and contented afternoons together, and where Mary had slowly fallen in love with this man of her dreams, this man who had betrayed her and broken her heart.

      When Anthony arrived, Mary confessed her true feelings to him as well as her anger at his betrayal. Their conversation devolved rather quickly into a heated argument. The argument apparently ended with the sound of a loud thud coming from the tea room. A few minutes later, by the time someone entered the room to investigate the noise and the abruptly ended argument, the room was empty.

      Anthony’s body was found stuffed in the dumbwaiter, and Mary was nowhere to be found.[8] To this day, the whereabouts of Mary Baxter is a complete mystery; however, if you ask certain people who have stayed in Wallingford Hall, they might tell you they know exactly where Anthony B. Percy is.

      He is still there. Ironically, a man who was never allowed to venture far into Wallingford Hall now haunts the building for the rest of eternity.

      Over the years, various stories have been shared regarding strange incidents that are sometimes attributed to the ghost of Anthony. Closed windows are found propped open, shower curtains have been pulled back and forth, lights are said to turn on and off by themselves, and, occasionally, a low and quiet weeping can be heard echoing off the washroom walls when there is nobody inside.

      Of course, the tales of Mary Baxter and Anthony B. Percy might just be a story born of an evening of high spirits, with one or more residents wanting to create a tale to put a fun scare into the other people there. And this story might just be one of those fictions passed down through many generations of Wallingford Hall residents.

      However, if you’re one of the students living in the old building and you experience the strange sensation of a blanket being pulled off, a shadow flitting past, or the odd sounds of crying from a vacant adjacent room, it might be a little harder, in the chill of the moment, to chalk it all up to an old myth that grew out of hand.

      Chapter Sixteen

      The Tivoli Theatre

      One would well expect a theatre to be filled with the voices of actors, the patter of footsteps treading the boards of the stage, and fantastical images inspired by the imagination of playwrights and directors. But the old Tivoli Theatre in Hamilton offered those things even when supposedly quiet and between performances, sending a quick shiver of fright up the spines of employees and actors who worked there.

      Many looked at the remains of the Tivoli Theatre building as a forgotten ruin of an era long past. The 750-seat auditorium still stands vacant, but in 2004, when a portion of the south wall facing James Street North (the area containing the lobby, office space, washrooms, props room and storage space) began to collapse, it was deemed unsafe, and the demolition of that entire section began.

      The Tivoli was built in three sections; the first section was constructed in 1875. The section that used to front James Street North was built with a carriage factory on the upper floors and retail shops at street level. The architecture of the building has been described as a Second Empire style, boasting a steeply pitched mansard roof with dormers, bracketed cornices, and rich classical detailing.