SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — Art Lockhart, 79, of Summerside still shudders talking about an encounter he and his wife, Miriam, had almost a decade ago in a Lennox Island cemetery.
Lockhart said he and Miriam never thought much about spirits or ghosts — until that day.
“I’ve never been superstitious,’’ said Art, a retired businessman, “but, it put a chill up and down my back.’’
Art and Miriam have been recording gravestones throughout Prince County for years. While it’s a hobby for the couple, their photos are used by MacNaught History Centre and Archives on its website, peiancestry.com. They started in 2009 and have since photographed gravestones at more than 100 cemeteries.
To this day, nothing has stood out to the couple — except for one eerie encounter at Saint Anne’s Roman Catholic Cemetery in Lennox Island in 2011.
Art was preparing to take a picture of a gravestone when a man appeared out of nowhere at his shoulder.
“All of a sudden a man stood at my shoulder and spoke. I turned around and spoke to him (for a few minutes). He asked what I was doing and I told him I was photographing the stones for genealogy.’’
“I said to (Miriam), ‘let’s get this finished and get out of here’. I have never had an encounter where I had anything like that happen. You get a shudder. I can’t explain it.’’
Art Lockhart
Art said he turned back to take the picture and by the time he turned around again the man was gone, as if he had vanished into thin air.
“I said to Miriam who was standing right beside me, ‘Where did he go?’ and she said, ‘I don’t know’.’’
Art said he had only turned away for a split second and there was nothing within eyesight the man could have hid behind.
“It put a chill up and down my back,’’ Art says again. “Where could he have gone?’’
“There was no one (within eyesight),’’ Miriam adds, “and we had talked to him for quite a few minutes. He said he was an Indian descendent ... raised by the Mitchells.’’
“Instantly, he was gone,’’ Art says, mesmerized. “It wasn’t minutes before I turned back; it was seconds.’’
Art described him as a man who was probably in his early 40s.
The mysterious encounter shook up the couple. Art and Miriam know how their story might sounds to some people. They can’t explain it to this day.
“I said to (Miriam), ‘let’s get this finished and get out of here’. I have never had an encounter where I had anything like that happen. You get a shudder,’’ Art says. “I can’t explain it.’’
A different encounter took place at Beaconsfield Historic House in Charlottetown earlier this month.
The Mi’kmaq Paranormal Facebook Group was outside the house on Monday, Oct. 7, at 10 p.m. when people in the group noticed what appeared to be a figure visible on the right-hand side of the door on Kent Street staring back at them. There were no lights on in the house at the time.
The next day one of the group members sent the photo to Harris Ford, who runs Beaconsfield’s Facebook page, and asked him if someone was in the house at the time. Ford replied that all staff would have been out of the building by 5 p.m.
“It’s crazy,’’ Ford told The Guardian. “I don’t like being in the house by myself. It’s freaky. I think it’s a ghost or a spirit, and it has changed the way I think of this. The previous site director always felt there was a spirit in the house.’’
Ford said people in the group described the figure as “looking mean or angry and had been previously spotted looking out the second-floor drawing room accompanied by two children’’.
The Mi’kmaq group is looking to do a lock-up in the new year when Beaconsfield will allow them to stay the night to see if any paranormal emcounters occur.
More information on the Beaconsfield experience can be found on its Facebook page, including the suspected identity of the supposed spirit.
Check out this story about a potential ghost here at Beaconsfield!
Posted by Beaconsfield Historic House on Wednesday, October 30, 2019
If you dare
How to visit Wyatt Historic House and Beaconsfield Historic House:
- Wyatt Historic House in Summerside is open Monday through Saturday, June 28 to Aug. 31, but it does take spring, fall and winter bookings. Call 902-432-1332.
- Beaconsfield Historic House in Charlottetown is open year-round (Oct. 31, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) with reduced hours from November to April, noon to 4 p.m., Monday to Friday. Call 902-368-6603.
Beaconsfield is certainly not the only historic house in P.E.I. that has a tale to tell.
Marlene Campbell, programmer for Culture Summerside, said there have been numerous unexplained incidents in Wyatt Historic House, one of three houses Wanda Wyatt donated to the city, when she died at 102 in 1998, to become the cornerstone of the city’s arts, heritage and culture mandate.
Campbell said they have spirits in the house to this day, but they’ve only had one actual ghost. She said the difference is a ghost is earthbound, has unresolved issues, can’t make their way to the light and is perhaps angry. A spirit, on the other hand, has crossed into the light, is happy and comes back only to check things out and say hi.
She also said a person will know when they’ve come in contact with a spirit. They’ll either feel like they just walked through a cobweb or they walk into a very cold spot in the room.
Everything inside Wyatt Historic House came with it when it was given to the city except for one item, a mangle (mechanical laundry aid that can act as an iron) that the P.E.I. Heritage Foundation had repaired. The foundation didn’t have a place to put it, so it gave it to the curator of the Wyatt house. This is where the ghost comes in.
“(The mangle) arrived in the month of May and when the student (staff) came on in June they very quickly started to complain there was an issue in the room that it was in,’’ Campbell explained. “In the morning, it was like the door was being held shut on them from the other side and when they looked through the key hole the rocking chair would be going back and forth and the room was very cold.’’
The house's curator at the time managed to track down a medium who was brought in to help.
"(The medium) said the mangle, at one time, had been in a laundromat in Charlottetown. A young man was working on the mangle on a very hot summer day and had a massive heart attack and died. (The medium said the now deceased man) hovered over his body and saw his co-workers carry it away but thinks it was a mistake, that he cannot possibly be dead and if he stays with the mangle they will bring his body back to him.
"All those years he clung to the mangle. The medium showed (the ghost) to the light, and we’ve never had an issue since,’’ Campbell said.
The house also contains a large portrait of Aunt Jessie (James Ned Wyatt’s sister), whose eyes seem to follow people wherever they go.
A number of years ago, Campbell said a summer student, on her last day of work, was showing members of an Ontario family around the house and made a derogatory comment about
Aunt Jessie. When the tour group went up the stairs next to the portrait something disturbing happened.
“Suddenly, the door of the attic flies off (its hinges) ... and just misses striking (the tour guide) on the back of the head.’’
Campbell said they called in a carpenter to repair the attic door and he found it rather odd that the top hinge of the door was shattered but the top hinge was still in place.
“The door should never have come off,’’ she said. “Nobody says anything (now) about Aunt Jessie.’’
