LITMIR.BIZ

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glowing figure of a woman wearing old-fashioned clothing.

      “Get back to class,” she said to him in a soft yet stern voice.

      The guard ran as fast as he could out of the attic, but he didn’t stop to enter a classroom, as she had suggested. Instead, he ran straight out the first set of doors he came to, eager to put as much distance as he could between himself and the terrifying apparition he had seen.

      The guard eventually quit his job, sharing that he had continued to have terrifying nightmares about the experience.

      Although there are plenty more recent ghostly tales involving this building and encounters with the ghost of Eliza Bolton, there are some that aren’t all that new, having been shared for generations.

      During my research I found a story published in the 1916–17 Year Book of the Ottawa Normal School. While I’m not sure if the story is meant to be fiction or a documented true tale, it is certainly intriguing to read the words of students and their perspective on just what this ghost could be. Of course, in their case, the ghost isn’t that of a teacher but that of a student.

      The Ghost of the Normal School

      By R. Pearl Chamney and Myrtle H. Adams

      I had often heard of the Ghost that haunts the Normal School, but being somewhat of a sceptic, doubted its existence. Several students have declared that a shadowy apparition has been seen by some of their number, flitting in at the door at the back of the gallery room, gliding down the steps, and disappearing in a mysterious manner. Now, the time was when I myself would have laughed at these affirmations and I would in my innermost thoughts have considered the propounder of such as fit to rank with the common multitude and as having no place whatever in the cultured halls of the Normal School. But even we who pride ourselves on being proof against all superstition are likely to have our firmest ideas uprooted, and thereby to become susceptible to ghostly visions.

      I was busily engaged one evening after school in the laboratory on the “Verification of the Law of Inverse Squares.” Absorbed in my work I became utterly oblivious of the passing of time. When I had worked for what seemed to me a very short time I glanced casually at my watch and was startled to find by the pale glimmer of the candle which I was using that it was already past eight o’clock. A feeling of dread crept over me at the thought of being alone in this great building.

      Although I tried to assure myself that I was not in the least frightened my heart beat a little more rapidly as I crept stealthily toward the door of the laboratory. Suddenly a cold chill spread over me and I began to shiver. This indescribable feeling grew so intense that when I reached the door my teeth were chattering, my knees were shaking (as no Normal students ever did when called upon to teach), and my fingers were so numb that I had difficulty in forcing the doorknob to yield to their grasp.

      The story of the Ghost of the Normal flashed before my mind in its most dreadful aspects, but knowing that fear is an emotion unworthy of any Normal student, I attempted to drive it from me and vainly endeavoured to recall the “Three Level Theory” instead. I finally pulled the door open, and, horror of horrors! what a ghastly apparition stood facing me! My hair stood on end, my flesh began to creep, my knees knocked together and my teeth chattered. I realized now that the legend of the Normal ghost was only too true. The Awful Thing stood in the pale yellow glimmer of the moonlight that struggled in through the partly shaded window of the little laboratory. It glared at me from the depths of its greenish eyes. It clasped in its claw-like fingers a number of books, which I recognized as similar to those used in our class-rooms.

      “Who are you?” I asked, with all the decision I could muster.

      “I am the ghost of one long gone before,” was the reply in sepulchral tones. “Once I was a happy Normal student like you, but ambition sealed my fate. I hoped to write text-books on Psychology, History of Education, Geography, Science, Music, Art, Hygiene and Grammar, and incidentally to discover scientific truths, write stories and travel in foreign lands, but, alas! my brain refused to sustain the pressure. I come nightly to haunt these rooms and continue my scientific researches. Take warning, fair student, Ambition’s debt is dearly paid.”

      I was glad that I had not attempted to combat my ghostly visitor, for I am told that physical forces do not avail in the presence of such supernatural beings, but that it is more effective to appeal to their intellect.

      Before the Awful Thing had ceased my temperature had dropped considerably from ninety-eight and three-fifths degrees. Such an unnatural condition caused my whole body to tremble. I was about to fall prostrate, when lo! the horrible apparition began slowly, slowly to fade away. Under the hypnotic spell of the late spectre my eyes remained glued to the spot where it had stood, but in the pale moon-light all that I saw was that gruesome skeleton which we use in our hygiene class.

      Solving the Mystery of that Dog-Gone Ghost

      Following is an article from the August 6, 1932, issue of the Ottawa Citizen. It recounts a slightly humorous story of how an incident at an old log house in Nepean, long believed to be haunted, sent the males in a family into quite the tizzy before they learned the truth about what had been causing the ghostly ruckus.

      The Family Dog Ended Ghost Story

      Mr. Robert Cummings of Nepean Tells Tale of How Family Dog and a Strap of Sleigh Bells Caused Excitement In An Old House Which Had Reputation of Being Haunted

      Mr. Robert Cummings, son of the late James Cummings of the 3rd line (R.F.) of Nepean, tells a ghost story with a humorous ending. Mr. Cummings lives on the old Kelly farm. The incident happened when he was a small boy about 40 years ago. On the Kelly farm, when the Cummings family went there first there was an old log house which had the reputation of being haunted. The Cummings used the old place as a storehouse. Among other things, they kept oats there. One night after dark John W. Cummings, a brother of Robert, had to go to the old place to get some oats. As he opened the door he heard bells ringing and feet descending the stairs. ’Twas enough. He closed the door and ran home. He called his brother, W.J., his brother Bob and his father, and told them the place was really haunted. They went with him. Sure enough, when Pa Cummings opened the door, he also heard the bells and then heard feet descending the stairs. He closed the door.

      Held Conference

      Then the four held a conference to decide on a line of action. Pa’s advice was to throw the door wide open and await further developments.

      “Whatever it is in there will likely come out,” he said. They threw the door open and waited, each armed with a stout stick.

      They had not long to wait. Out came the family dog, wagging its tail. The animal had got shut in earlier in the evening. Nothing more ghostly came.

      The Explanation

      The next morning, Mr. Cummings went to the old place to try and find an explanation of the bells that had been heard. He found one. It appears that in the loft there had hung from a peg on the wall a string of sleigh bells. Underneath the bells had been an old rug on which the dog had made itself comfortable. Whenever the dog got up its back struck the string of bells, causing it to ring. When the dog heard the door open it trotted downstairs.

      Other Stories Told

      Mr. Robert Cummings says that despite easy explanation of the dog and the bells, the old house had many other queer stories told of it by neighbors who declared they had heard and seen things in and around the place.

      A few years after the incident referred to, Mr. Cummings Sr. had had the place pulled down. With the destruction of the building its ghostly reputation had ceased.

      The Conversion of Skeptics at the Bytown Museum

      Two types of skeptics are regularly converted after spending some time in the Bytown Museum: those who believe that Ottawa has always been a quiet, mundane, and somewhat sleepy capital, and those who believe that ghosts are merely the figment of an overly hyper imagination.

      From the Iroquois, Algonquin, and Huron people who settled in the area dating back as far as 8000 BCE, through the French explorers

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