Maritime Mysteries (5 page)

“When my father drowned during a storm, his family cut off all contact with my mother. Now alone and lonely, she wrote to her father begging him to come over to Indian Harbour and take her back to Scotland. My grandfather did come over, but either couldn't support, or didn't want anything to do with her children, so we were left behind in the care of relatives. To this day I don't know what was on my mother's mind. Perhaps she thought that in time, we'd all be together.

We never heard from her again; never knew if she was alive or dead. Then, one day a letter arrived from Scotland informing us that she had died. Those who knew her in Scotland said she took the guilt of leaving her children behind to her grave. Maybe that's why she came back. I mean her ghost, that is.”

What Hattie Sutherland told Marlana and Donna McGuire is pretty much the same as what she told me.

If there is a postscript to this ghostly tale, it's this: surely Hattie Sutherland must wonder why her mother's ghost has yet to make contact with her.

If ever you go down Indian Harbour way, walk the rocks if you must, but before you leave visit Rogues Gallery and say hello to Donna McGuire, the artist who captured the Lady in the Blue Dress on canvas; a tragic, lonely, and ghostly figure.

Mrs. Copeland's Ghost

T
here's much more to Sable Island than natural gas—a lot more. There's the ghost of Mrs. Copeland. This is her tale of woe.

Sable Island is located some 350 km southwest of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The salty Maritime Mystery that takes place there involves a shipwreck, a murder, and a bleeding ghost.

There are at least two versions to this 18-century mystery that we know of; both are partly fact and partly fiction, although some fishermen will say the story is completely factual. One version, nearly as old as this story, was written by the author of
Sam Slick
, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, and the more recent one,
Fatal and Fertile Crescent
, was written by Lyall Campbell. Of course, there are countless oral versions, and folklore always also plays a significant roll in Maritime Mysteries.

So let the journey begin, to a place of broken ships and restless spirits.

A ship laden down with the personal belongings of the Duke of Kent set sail from England in 1799 for the garrison town of Halifax. Among the passengers were a Mr. Copeland—the garrison's doctor—his wife, two children, and a maid.

When the ship failed to arrive in Halifax, the Duke sent out a search party to look for it. The first obvious place to investigate was Sable Island. When the search party arrived on the island, they found the beach strewn with debris, including many of the Duke's personal belongings. There were also the victims of the shipwrecked vessel. The officer in charge told his men to bed down for the night and they would bury the dead in the morning. In the meantime, he would check the other side of the island for any survivors.

There were, at the time, small huts on the island built specifically for survivors of shipwrecks. Realizing it was getting late, the officer decided to stay in one of the huts and return to his men in the morning. He lit a fire then went outside again to continue searching for survivors. When he returned to the hut, there was a woman standing by the stove. Her long white dress was dripping wet and soiled by sand and seaweed. When he asked who she was and where she came from, she held out her left hand. Her ring finger was missing and oozing with blood. When he moved closer, she fled past him and out the door. He followed and watched her flee over the dunes until she disappeared. When he went back inside, she was again standing by the stove. It was then he recognized who and what she was. It was the ghost of Mrs. Copeland, wife of the garrison's doctor! That was the last time he saw Mrs. Copeland—or rather, her ghost.

On his return to Halifax, the young officer promised himself that he would avenge Mrs. Copeland's murder by seeking out her murderer and returning her ring to her family in England. As soon as he arrived back in Halifax he went after the most notorious member of the wreckers gang—a local group known to prey on victims of shipwrecks. While talking with the daughter of the man he believed to be Mrs. Copeland's murderer, the woman told him that her father found the ring on the beach on Sable Island. The child's mother, however, said that a Frenchman, on Sable Island at the time, had given the ring to her husband. She added that if he wanted the ring back, he could buy it from the local watchmaker. In the end, he did purchase the ring and kept his promise to the dead Mrs. Copeland by returning the ring to her family in England. However, her murderer was never caught. According to those living on the seedy side of Halifax, he suffered a worst fate than the gallows. In his sleep the ghost of Mrs. Copeland would rise up to point an accusing and mutilated finger at him.

Fishermen who sailed close to Sable Island at the time reported seeing a shadowy figure, with an outstretched hand, staring out to sea as if waiting for the return of something ... perhaps a finger and ring!

Ashley's Encounter

T
his incident occurred in a small community outside of Sheet Harbour, on Nova Scotia's south shore. It came my way by the brother of the sister involved, and by the sister's insistence, the names have been changed.

It was a cold winter's afternoon in the late 1930s when Ashley finished school for the day and headed for the safety and warmth of her home. The route she travelled never varied. Her only concern was passing the local graveyard. When the cemetery came in sight, her footsteps always quickened.

On this particular day as Ashley reached the main gate of the cemetery, she was startled by a tall woman coming toward her from between the tombstones. Young Ashley was terror-stricken. She wanted to flee, but was unable to move. She could hear only the beating of her heart. There was snow on the ground, and as Ashley would later recall, the woman left no footprints in the snow, nor did she open the locked gate. She simply walked through it. The stranger took Ashley's hand, and led her away from the cemetery.

When Ashley opened the back door of her home and stepped in the kitchen, the smell of cooking filled her nostrils. Her mother greeted her with a smile, a cup of warm cocoa and hot tea biscuits.

“So,” her mother asked, “how was school today?”

“Okay, I guess,” Ashley replied. Then staring off as if her mind was elsewhere, she told her mother that she met a woman by the graveyard on the way home from school. “She walked a ways with me before leaving. She wanted to know my name and what grade I was in and which school I was attending. She also said that when she was a girl, she went to the same school.” Ashley's mother was anxious to know the name of this stranger. “She knew you,” Ashley said, “she went to school with you. She said her name is Grace Forshaw.

“No, Ashley,” her mother exclaimed, “the woman you met was not Grace Forshaw. Grace Forshaw died twenty-five years ago!”

The Ghosts of Uniacke House

W
hy did Martha Uniacke return from the grave? And why did her daughter join her in eternal vigilance?

Many people leave this world whimpering and afraid; afraid of death, the unknown, and the darkness. And most never return. The answers as to why this mother and daughter returned may lie in the mansion itself and in those who lived there.

Mount Uniacke was built in 1813 as the country home of Richard John Uniacke, Attorney General of Nova Scotia. Uniacke named the estate after his ancestral home in Ireland, where his family were prominent and prosperous members of the landed gentry. Uniacke was born in 1753 at Castletown, Ireland.

Following a bitter quarrel with his father, he set sail for the new world to seek his fortune.

He arrived in Philadelphia in 1774, where he met Moses Delesdernier, a Swiss resident of Nova Scotia who was in Philadelphia seeking residents to settle in Nova Scotia. Delesdernier liked Uniacke and convinced him to come to Nova Scotia and work for him. Uniacke agreed, and the following year at age 21, he married the not yet 13-year-old Martha Delesdernier, daughter of his employer.

On my first visit to Mount Uniacke, I was overcome by a feeling that time was suspended; that the people who once lived there, and died there are still there, in spirit. As I got closer to the mansion, I had an uneasy sense that I was being watched from behind musty smelling drapes. Once inside, I was certain of it. I was also aware of a sadness. The imposing portrait of Richard John Uniacke, the master of the house, hangs on the hall wall and those piercing eyes of his never leave you.

Martha Delesdernier, who bore Uniacke twelve children, died at age forty. It wasn't long after she passed away that strange things began happening. Field workers and house staff noticed Martha wasn't where she was supposed to be—in her grave. What happened in that mansion to bring her back from the graveyard? And why did the spirit of Lady Mary Mitchell, Martha's eldest daughter, also return from the dead? Both Uniacke women are sometimes seen arm in arm strolling down by the lake. Other times they are seen inside the home, and at times, Lady Mitchell sits at the piano while her mother sits and listens. They do not appear to be upset, nor do they attempt to convey a message to the living.

Martha and Lady Mitchell go about their mysterious ways even when tourists from many lands and cultures visit Uniacke House. Most visitors are unaware of the ghosts. But as Goldie Robertson, the Chief Heritage Interpreter, reminded me, there are those who have a special insight into these things—they feel a presence of something or someone from beyond. Such was the case with a family visiting from Lebanon. They were about to enter a bedroom on the first floor when the mother gasped and withdrew from the room. She quickly gathered her children around her and left, telling the guide the room was haunted by two women. The frightened visitor told the guide one spirit was sitting on the bed, while the older lady was seated in a rocking chair.

There is little else to be said about why these two 18-century ladies who haunt Uniacke House; until and unless they somehow convey to the living why they are not at peace in their graves, it will remain a Maritime Mystery.

Next time you visit Mount Uniacke, look beyond the obvious. You'll never know what might be watching from the top of the stairs or staring back from behind the hemlock.

The Man They Hanged Twice

H
e was taunted by relatives, and picked on by his friends. They told him that he had to get even with the man who took his woman. So, young Bennie Swim swapped his guitar for an old .38 Smith and Wesson and set off on a murderous journey in a place called Benton Ridge, New Brunswick.

It was March 27, 1922, sometime around four o'clock in the afternoon when Bennie knocked on the back door of the farm house where his pregnant former girlfriend lived with her new husband. The husband answered the knock, and he was shot dead in his tracks. Bennie then turned the gun on his old girlfriend and shot her in the chest. When she tried to run, he shot her a second time in the back and she fell to the kitchen floor dead. Bennie then turned the gun on himself, but the bullet that lodged in his head did little damage and he survived to face the hangman's noose.

The first words out of his mouth when the sheriff caught up with him were, “Sheriff this is awful, I suppose I'll hang for it.” And he would. Not once, but twice!

Bennie's last days were spent behind the bars in the Woodstock, New Brunswick, provincial jail. According to guards, Bennie was a model prisoner.

During his preliminary hearing, a plea of insanity was entered by the defense. Many witnesses testified that young Bennie Swim was insane. A Government psychiatrist, however, found him mentally competent to stand trial for the double murder. When it was over, the jury found Bennie guilty of first degree murder and he was sentenced to hang on July 15, 1923.

There were, according to reports, several volunteers wanting the hangman's job. Some even came from the state of Maine, willing to do the job for a price. The sheriff who was responsible for hiring a professional hangman was having a difficult time getting an experienced one. Because of that, the hanging was postponed twice. The country's top hangman, Arthur Ellis (not his real name) was otherwise engaged; no doubt hanging other Canadians. Finally, two Montreal hangmen were recommended—a poor recommendation for Bennie Swim. They were little more than amateurs who had gained their so-called experience hanging blacks in the southern United States.

Seven months after the murders and at approximately 5:00
P.M.
on Friday, October 6, 1923, Bennie Swim was led up the steps of the provincial jail in Woodstock to the gallows. While Bennie Swim prayed, a black hood was placed over his head and the noose placed tightly around his neck. Bennie was still praying when the trap door was sprung. A few short minutes later, an unconscious Bennie Swim was cut down. There were three physicians in attendance. To their surprise and horror, they found that Bennie was still alive! On further examination, they also discovered that Bennie's neck wasn't broken in the fall—a sure sign of a bungled hanging. No one outside of that examination room will ever know if Bennie actually regained consciousness. According to those in attendance he never did.

Bennie was carried back up to the gallows and hanged a second time. Bennie hung there for some twenty minutes before he was cut down and pronounced dead. His body, but not his spirit, was placed in a cold grave by relatives.