Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Ghost horses?  Ghost cats?  I’m sold.  The “Hamilton (Ontario, Canada,) Spectator,” October 28, 2005:

BY JOHN BURMAN--The Headless Horseman rode one of the most famous spectral steeds in legend and literature. And cats are familiar fixtures come Halloween. But how many people know Hamilton has both a ghost cat that gets stuck between windows and ghost horses eager to haul a city artillery regiment’s long-gone guns? 

There’s no Headless Horseman in Hamilton’s John W. Foote VC Armoury, but members of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry insist there are large four-legged spirits in one corner where the old stables and gun sheds used to stand. No one has seen them. But some have heard hooves stamping and harnesses and chains used to haul the gun carriages rattling and jingling. And they’ve noticed the unmistakable smell of horses. 

The best account comes from a lieutenant who bedded down troops in the area some time ago.

RHLI Captain Tim Fletcher says the horses haunt the area known as the old armouries which is that part of the building that replaced the original wooden structure that burned in 1886. There were stables there for horses used to pull the artillery, long since converted to a gun shed for 11 Battery which is part of today’s 11th Field Artillery Regiment. 

There have been no horses in the building on James Street North since long before the Second World War. Some time ago a group of RHLI recruits on a training course were bunked down for the night in the old stables with, as Fletcher says, the traditional military warning to “get some sleep, you’re going to need it.”

As the troopers hit the sack the lieutenant in charge posted a fire picket — someone detailed to stay awake on fire watch — and then put his head down as well. Around 3 am the officer awoke with a start roused by the clink of chains and heavy breathing. One look at the man on watch told him he wasn’t the only one who’d heard it. Snatching a flashlight, he whirled the beam around the room but there was nothing to see. By now other troopers were awake and the room was filled with the sound of horses moving and a faint aroma of sweating horses filled the air. The noises continued for a while and then died down. 

“The catch,” says Fletcher, “is none of the soldiers involved had any idea the area had been a stable until they told others the story.”

The hapless ghost cat haunts a windowsill at the former Hamilton Customs House, now the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre on Stuart Street, a pretty spooky place for human ghosts as well. 

In 1988 a woman named Annette worked for a martial arts academy located in the building at the time. Haunted Hamilton tour guides in the building referred to her as a “ghost magnet.” She reported many strange things in the building such as doors banging cold breezes and a man’s voice telling her to “get out."

But the strangest thing she saw working late one night was the appearance of a black cat apparently caught between a storm window and an inside window frame in the front hallway. The cat looked terrified, with all its fur standing on end. Annette struggled to pry open the window — both had been nailed shut for months — to free the cat. As she pushed and pulled on the window frame, the cat slowly vanished before her eyes.