Haunted Ontario 4. Terry Boyle
to a child who was drowned on the property.
“We need to go outside into the backyard. She is leading us.”
We walked toward a grove of lilac near the building. Sheelagh saw Fran, the ghost, and described her to me because I could see nothing.
“Fran is between thirty and forty-two years of age. She has brown hair and is wearing a long dress and jacket. Her dress is grey with shades of lilac or violet trim. She is standing by her grave.”
The outline of two gravesites was apparent near my feet. Back in the building, Sheelagh said, “Most people expect spirits to be troublesome. This is not necessarily true. Fran’s spirit actually enhances this business. She is, after all, watching over her home and loved ones.”
It seems she is a permanent guest at the Grafton Inn.
The trench turned out to be the final resting place of a cow, which might explain why the discovery of bones didn’t elicit a response from Sheelagh.
If you wish to visit Fran, the lady who stands by her grave, the Grafton Inn will welcome you. Grafton is located on Highway 2, east of Cobourg, Ontario.
MacKechnie House
~ Cobourg ~
Elizabeth is lonely, a forgotten child. She is good at hide-and-seek — so good that few people ever see her. She is, in fact, lost to herself; unaware that she is dead. She might seek you out at MacKechnie House, a bed and breakfast establishment in Cobourg, Ontario. If you don’t meet Elizabeth, you may encounter a piper or an elderly woman who also share this glorious nineteenth-century Greek Revival manor.
The story of MacKechnie House begins in 1837, when a young man by the name of D’Arcy Boulton relocated to Cobourg and joined his uncle’s law firm. In 1843 he persuaded three brothers, Henry, Andrew, and Stuart MacKechnie, to leave Scotland and settle in Cobourg. Captain Wallace, a second cousin, also came along.
At that time Cobourg had a bustling harbour, significant for shipping and immigration. In 1823 the population was a mere 350 citizens. By 1840 it had grown to 3,300.
William Cattermole recorded this description of Cobourg in 1831: “This is a fine and flourishing village, in which many half-pay officers of his Majesty’s Army and Navy are comfortably settled. Cobourg is a handsome and thriving place. It has its stores in abundance, its post office, printing office, with a newspaper, its churches, chapels, wharfs, lawyers, blacksmiths, inns and innkeeper; hatters, shoe makers, and every convenience.”
The Rose Room. One guest staying in the room felt a spirit tuck them in at night.
Cobourg featured one hundred and fifty dwellings including twenty stores, three taverns, two schools, a post office, an apothecary, three surgeons, a coach and wagon factory, three furniture warehouses, two brickyards, and several mills on the outskirts of the village.
Upon his arrival in 1843 Stuart MacKechnie purchased a gristmill and piece of property to the west of downtown Cobourg. There he built a sizeable solid-brick, “temple form” Greek Revival-style home. The front porch and double French doors at the main entrance displayed Regency-influenced architecture.
In 1845 the MacKechnie brothers, along with Captain Wallace’s son, Sinclair, formed a partnership and constructed a huge woollen mill on the site of the gristmill that Stuart had originally purchased. They called their business Ontario Woollen Mills, and it quickly became the largest woollen mill in British North America. By 1856 the mill was producing 800 metres a day and employing 200 people. The MacKechnies enjoyed considerable prosperity.
In 1853 Stuart became the mayor of Cobourg, but he only served for a period of four months before his untimely death at the age of thirty-six. His widow, Anna Maria Barbara Poore, the daughter of English baronet Sir Edward Poore, was left to manage the estate.
As for the remaining MacKechnie brothers, fortunes come and go. Despite the efforts of the mill manager to maintain production and profit, the business faltered and the Bank of Montreal foreclosed in 1856. The MacKechnies moved on to other things.
Anna Maria Poore MacKechnie expanded the MacKechnie estate to suit her own needs. In the early 1850s she had another wing added to the north side of the house and there she established a sizeable library. Today it serves as a library and dining area.
In 1862 Anna Maria sold the home to Sheriff James Fortune and his wife, Alice. It was during this period of ownership that the estate became known as Mount Fortune. The location dictated the name. The house stood virtually alone on a high piece of land overlooking the town of Cobourg. Lake Ontario was only a short distance to the southeast. The elevation of the land is no longer what it was in the 1860s, but the inhabitants could indeed look down from the “Mount.” The Fortunes also increased the size of the house. An extensive addition at the back is the kitchen today.
The sheriff oversaw the operations of the gaol and other community matters until his untimely death in 1864, of Bright’s disease at the early age of fifty-one. Rumour indicated some sort of political scandal, and certainly his financial arrangement with his wife was very unusual for the time. The deed to the house and property was only in his wife’s name. Obviously the sheriff wanted to protect his property from his financial dealings.
In 1866, shortly after the beginning of the Fenian raids in Niagara, an infantry battalion associated with the Cobourg Militia was billeted behind the MacKechnie house. The Fenian Brotherhood was a society of Irishmen who sought to force the British to give Ireland its freedom. Many Irish-Americans inhabiting the United States near the Canadian border had banded together to attack British-controlled soil. The fear of Fenian attacks continued for five years. For part of the time the MacKechnie house served as an officers’ mess. Among the soldiers billeted there was a piper.
The MacKechnie Estate.
Alice Fortune sold the estate in 1869 and the home changed hands several times before Cathryn Thompson and Ian Woodburn bought MacKechnie house from Arnold Burgis in 1993. They moved in with their son, Rory. By then the house was in a state of disrepair and every room was full of heirlooms and boxes of Burgis’ possessions. Arnold Burgis had been living in this spacious home alone since the death of his mother.
Ian specializes in restorations and renovations. Cathryn was a business executive in need of a change. A bed and breakfast and catering enterprise seemed the perfect solution. They had a brochure printed.
Built for Upper Canada settler Stuart MacKechnie in the grand and glorious Greek Revival style, MacKechnie House is the finest remaining example of this type of monumental domestic architecture in the Cobourg area …
The MacKechnie House ghost dates from around the same time (mid-1800s), and local rumour spins tales of a Highland Infantry Company Bagpiper’s untimely demise. Duty-conscious to the end (and beyond, it seems!) the only wailing he indulges in is that of his pipes, and modern encounters with this shy fellow, though delightful, can be sporadic.
However, a reluctant ghost is no reason to put off your visit to Cobourg. By the time you’ve seen all there is to see in this history- and event-packed corner of Northumberland County, you’d probably just sleep through his nocturnal perambulations anyway!
When Cathryn first moved into the home she had no idea it was haunted. In fact, she had never been exposed to any unexplained spirit activity. “I am not extremely sensitive to spirits. I didn’t have an experience until I moved here.
“During the first year we experienced something very unusual. One day a friend and her seven-year-old daughter were sitting in the kitchen. We were chatting away when suddenly her daughter pointed toward the library and said, ‘Who is the little girl?’ We didn’t know what she was talking about. We couldn’t see anything.”
On three separate occasions, psychics who were staying in the house reported the existence of