Don’t Disturb The Dead

Don’t Disturb The Dead, You’ll Be Sorry

Victoria has dozens of hauntings, some say because Ley Lines intersect in the city. Others claim of Satanic rituals. Others say it’s because the first European settlers simply covered over or destroyed thousands of native grave markers without any care.
This tale is of the later. Back in the early 1800’s what is known now as Laurel Point on the inner harbour of Victoria, was called Deadman’s Point. It was the burial place of the Lekwungen first nations peoples. They believed that the dead never truly leave us and had set up a whole village for them and considered the area as sacred. Like the Parsi of India, they don’t bury the dead. Instead they’d set them out in nature, where the elements would allow the bodies to break down and return to the environment. They’d gather up the remains and would place them in basket that they would mount in trees. Left alone the dead spirits had a place to be where they would not disturb the living.
In 1885, a European named Jacob Sehl arrived. He bought Deadman’s Point thinking it would be a great place for his furniture factory. He proceeded, ignoring any warnings from the First Nations peoples, to clear and take down all the trees, burn and destroy all the baskets and bones. Appalled and frightened the native chief moved all of his people inland, claiming the dead will be very angry. All went unnoticed until January of 1894, when a fire broke out in his factory and at his house over a kilometer away at the same time. His wife Elizabeth went mad after this, claiming she saw, ‘Firemen Spirits’, running around the house, rubbing their hands along everything, stoking the fires. She died six months later of insanity. After losing everything Jacob returned to Europe a broken and bankrupt man.
But the story doesn’t end there. William Pendray bought the point and again not concerned with native warnings, built his new factory there. He was worried about the fires though and installed some highly advanced sprinkler systems, for its time, to protect everything, in the advent of another fire. Proud of his new factory, he walked through the building as it was being finished. Strangely enough one of the large steel cylinders holding the water for his sprinklers, broke away and fell forty feet, crushing his head.
Wait, there’s more.
His only son Ernest was expected to take over and like many young males of the time enjoyed riding his horse and buggy at breakneck speeds through town. As he came up the factory gates, his horse came to a skidding halt. Ernest was thrown from the buggy, straight in front of the horse. The horse then bolted and one of the heavy carriage wheels ran over Ernest’s neck, decapitating the man.       
On Laurel Point now stands The Inn At Laurel Point. Many of the guests have complained about weird things happening to them, ghosts turning on and off lights, coldness, televisions turning channels. The restaurant, even on bright sunny days always appears gloomy and dark inside.
The Pendray house is now known as the Gatsby Mansion, located on the Huntingdon Hotel Property. In September, my wife and I stayed at the Huntingdon Hotel and we had high tea in the Pendray house. I asked the waitress about room #5, it is still haunted reportedly haunted by two male ghosts, the Pendray men. She said, “I shouldn’t tell you this, but just yesterday I came into the downstairs tea room and suddenly one of the pictures fell off the wall. There was no one in the room. Then I turned on the lights, which I assumed someone had turned off. I left the room and returned a minute later to find the other server turning on the lights again. I asked her why she turned them off, she said. ‘No, they were off and I turned them on.’ As I told her and we both turned pale. I had just turned them on.”

Here's the video I made of my last Blog, also about Victoria and Ghosts.

If that story and video didn’t grab you, maybe this will. The opening prologue to my next novel, The Joining. Book One in the Ainsworth Chronicles, set in Victoria.

Prologue

Somewhere in the darkness the course flax fibers of the Hangman’s noose sing.
Its hollow voice swinging to the hangman’s beckoning.
Waiting for the answers buried into the gurgle of time and the finality of voices ending.
From the stillness comes a subtle calling,
Echoing reminders of what remains…
Unsettled.

The Stillwaters Run Deep Series

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