The MacKenzie House is rumored to be haunted
By Erin George
The smell of a wood-burning stove fills the air as fallen leaves blow across the front entrance of a weathered yellow brick Georgian style town house. Black shutters frame each window and a low wrought iron fence surrounds the front yard. The gardens look ready for winter.
This is The Mackenzie House, the last residence of William Lyon Mackenzie.
Located on Bond Street, in the middle of downtown Toronto, one block south of Ryerson. The Mackenzie house is preserved by the Toronto Historical Board. It is rumored to be the most haunted house in Canada. While the legitimacy of the ghost stories themselves may be debatable, the Mackenzie House is worth visiting.
Disturbances were first reported when the house was operated as a private museum by the Mackenzie Homestead Foundation. Caretakers Mr. and Mrs. Charles Edmunds moved into the house in 1956 and immediately began to hear footsteps on the wooden stairway when the house was empty. Several times, a short gentleman in a frock coat and a woman with long, dark, brown hair appeared to Mrs. Edmunds. On one occasion she claims the woman slapped her, leaving her face bruised with three welt marks. Mrs. Edmunds’ description of the two ghostly figures fit the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie.
Music from the parlour piano would occasionally wake the caretakers’ son and his wife. But when the house was investigated nothing was found. Isabel Grace, the youngest daughter of Mackenzie and mother of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, played the piano. One time, the house plants were found overwatered and disturbed, and mud was smeared across the window curtains. From the basement a rumbling, clanking noise could be heard at night. A flatbed printing press was stored in the basement at the time but was locked and not in use.
In 1960, unable to take the strain of living with the house’s ghosts, the Edmunds moved out of The Mackenzie House and were replaced by Mr. and Mrs. Dobban. The Dobbans moved a few months later, complaining the same disturbances.
The staff at The Mackenzie House consider the stories to be the work of overactive imaginations.
Savitri Dindial, a Mackenzie House tour guide, escorts groups through the house while dressed in a Victorian costume. She is often asked about the ghost stories.
“When living in a house this old, it’s easy to hear noises.People allow their imaginations to get the better of them. As far as we know there isn’t any ghost,” said Dindial.
Site supervisor Janet Schwartz said none of her staff have had an unpleasant experience in the Mackenzie House.
“The ghost stories are part of the history of the house and we certainly acknowledge that and talk about it but we don’t play it up,” she said.
Archdeacon John Frank of the Holy Trinity Church performed an exorcism, when the Toronto Historical Board acquired the house in 1860. Some people do not think this exorcism worked. In 1962, restoration carpenters found a hangman’s noose dangling from a stairway. Kitchen taps reportedly turned themselves on and off and the toilet flushed itself according to 1966 caretaker Mrs. Winifred McGlary. The last incident happened as recently as 1973 when Simone Daviaux, a cleaner, heard piano music playing.
William Lyon Mackenzie was a prominent radical journalist, a rebellious member of Parliament, the leader of the 1837 rebellion and the first mayor of Toronto. The Bond Street town house was purchased with $3,500 raised through a trust fund. The fund was set up for Mackenzie in recognition of his contribution to the community.
The Mackenzie House is a beautifully restored home with room settings of Victorian furniture in vogue at the time of Mackenzie’s death in 1861. While no one can agree if the ghosts are really present, the home itself is quaint and of great historical significance. Visitors may need to use their imagination to recreate the caretakers’ paranormal experiences but in these rooms that won’t be too difficult. In the main parloud sits the piano heard by the Edmunds. Oil portraits of Mackenzie and his wife stare at visitors from the dark, shadowy depths of the sombre colored paint. In the master bedroom sits a queen-sized sleigh bed, napping bed and Mackenzie’s dressing table.
The Mackenzie House is located at 82 Bond Street. It is open from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31, Tuesday to Friday, 12 noon to 4 p.m., weekends 12 noon to 5 p.m.. Admission is $3.50 for adults, $2.75 for seniors, and $2.50 for the children Special events include a Victorian Christmas, evening gas-lit tours, the 1837 rebellion educational program for elementary students and printing demonstrations using an operating 1845 Washington flatbed printing press.
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