With over 500 documented ghost stories, Montreal is easily the most haunted city in Canada, if not all of North America. Haunted Montreal dedicates itself to researching these paranormal tales, and the Haunted Montreal Blog unveils a newly researched Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month!

This service is free and you can sign up to our mailing list (top, right-hand corner for desktops and at the bottom for mobile devices) if you wish to receive it every month on the 13th! The blog is published in both English and French!

Haunted Montreal’s seasons of public outdoor ghost tours is now in full swing! Offered every Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, we have four ghost tours on rotation (Old Montreal, Griffintown, Downtown and Mount Royal.)

Our Haunted Pub Crawl is also offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English. For tours in French, these happen on the last Sunday of every month at 4 pm.

Our Paranormal Investigation in the Old Sainte Antoine Cemetery happens on the first Friday and Saturday of every month.

Private tours for all of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors. Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours start at $215 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

Lastly, we have an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. More details are below in our Company News section!

This month we examine the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery, a very deranged and haunted place indeed. Set atop Mount Royal in the heart of Montreal, Canada’s largest graveyard is currently witnessing all sort of problems.

Haunted Research

The Catholic Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery is the largest burial ground in Canada. Located atop Mount Royal, it features 343-acres (139 hectares) of garden landscape with more than 65,000 monuments and 71 family vaults. The cemetery also contains the remains of over a million people. Not only is this vast graveyard reputed to be haunted, but in recent years, it has also witnessed all sorts of desecration and other deranged activity.

Groundhogs have dug up numerous bones, coffin boards and sets of dentures. Trees and branches collapsed onto tombs during an ice storm.

Hundreds of bodies are piled up, awaiting burial, due to a lengthy strike by cemetery workers. To make matters worse, grieving families are locked out and cannot even visit their Dead.

Once Canada’s most picturesque burial ground, today Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery is a desolate, overgrown and forlorn place. With little maintenance, shattered trees and scattered bones, Global News described this massive graveyard as “A Montreal cemetery nightmare.”

The Montreal Catholic Diocese established Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery in 1854 because they needed more space for the Dead. In fact, several waves of cholera had hammered the Saint Antoine Catholic Cemetery. It was full of corpses, many of them in mass graves, and was bursting at the seams.

To alleviate this over-crowding, the Diocese opened the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery atop the mountain. Created on a property purchased from Dr. Pierre Beaubien, it was established as a garden cemetery in the French style. Designed by landscape architect Henri-Maurice Perreault, who had studied rural graveyards in Boston and New York, the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery intended to mimic these in style.

The first burial in Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery occurred on May 29, 1855. A woman named Jane Gilroy McCready, who died at 35, was interred within the bucolic landscape. She had been the wife of a municipal councilor.

Over the years, many celebrated figures were buried within the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery. These include politicians, soldiers and businesspeople of all stripes. Celebrated locals, such as hockey legend Maurice “The Rocket” Richard, politician Bernard Devlin, journalist Nick Auf der Maur and tormented poet Émile Nelligan were also buried there.

Generally-speaking, most of the Dead are simply everyday Montrealers who were interred into familial plots or vaults.

Others, less fortunate, were buried in paupers’ graves, sections for deceased orphans and creepy fields for the remains of Anatomy victims.

Furthermore, according to the Diocese: “The funerary sites are conceded for a fixed period not exceeding 100 years. The abandonment of the Cemetery entails cancellation of the concession without indemnity by either party. (3.3 Term of the Concession).” This essentially means that after 100 years, burial plots are recycled if payments are not made by descendants of those interred there.

There are also many reports that the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery is haunted. While Canada’s largest cemetery is the home to at least a dozen ghosts, this column will mention only one of them due to word restraints.

The ghost in question is that of Sarah Ellen Page King (a.k.a. “Sadie”). Other alleged spirits include Joseph Guibord, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, René Angélil, Mayor Camillen Houde and many others.

The spirit of Sadie allegedly haunts the gravestone where she is buried. Witnesses have reported hearing the disembodied sounds of a woman and infant weeping and bawling, as though in agonizing emotion.

Excluded in both life and death by her own family, Sadie’s story is a tragic example of how women were poorly treated in the early 20^th Century.

Sadie was married to Richard Willis King (a.k.a. “Dick”), an alcoholic. They had three children together: Mary, Donald and George. Unfortunately, George died after only six months. He was buried away from the main family plot under a small tombstone.

For some reason, Sadie was promptly sent to the Saint-Jean-de-Dieu Lunatic Asylum. The likely reason was depression following the death of her son George. However, instead of being treated for her understandable melancholy, Sadie was locked up in the asylum for 24 years until her death in 1946.

To make matters worse, her alcoholic husband Dick never visited her – nor did any other family members for that matter. Furthermore, her very existence became a matter of shame and taboo for the family. Sadie was never talked about – it was as if she did not exist.

Upon Sadie’s death in the asylum, she was buried beside her deceased son – far away from the family plot. Furthermore, nobody erected a tombstone to commemorate her. In fact, her son Donald did not even attend the funeral.

Sadie’s family also refused to pay the associated fees for her burial in Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery. Indeed, the only record of her existence was through the burial records maintained by the Diocese.

Haunted by the treatment of her excluded and abused grandmother, poet and playwright Donna Langevin wrote A Story for Sadie to expose the family taboo. Her goal was to bring Sadie’s memory back to life in her literary work – and she succeeded.

Haunted Montreal’s Paranormal Investigation Unit is planning a visit to the grave very soon.

Also noteworthy, at the time of this writing, Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery is in a total shambles due to a lengthy strike that was only recently resolved.  Represented by the CSN union, graveyard workers began their labour action in January 2023. The strike was triggered because their Collective Agreement had expired, job cuts were harming maintenance operations in the cemetery and the workers were underpaid for their gruesome duties.

The strike resulted in Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery locking people out, including workers, visitors in mourning and even the Dead scheduled for burial.

As the months passed, bodies began piling up in a massive refrigerated unit.

An ice storm on April 5 also resulted in hundreds of broken trees and fallen branches, many of which fell upon the tombstones and mausoleums. With maintenance staff on strike, when the spring came, it wasn’t long before the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery was overgrown with long grass, random wildflowers, invasive species and unsightly weeds.

To make matters worse, groundhogs have long plagued the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery. Known to burrow into the graveyard, these creatures have a bad habit of unearthing human bones, coffin boards and even sets of dentures!

Before the strike, gravediggers would quickly re-bury the sinister remains and fill in the groundhog holes. However, during the labour action there was no maintenance in the cemetery for over six months.

Local ecologists have suggested that the groundhogs, a protected species on the mountain, may have gone into overdrive with no human intervention for over half a year.

The cemetery did open on Mother’s Day to allow relatives to visit family graves, but large lineups formed at the entrance. It was the first time the cemetery had been open to the public in months.

However, Union President Éric Dufault said: “For sure it was really popular but it was a disaster. We were there on Mother’s Day and really it was a bad experience for the families.”

Due to the long line-ups, many mourners had to enter the cemetery by squeezing through a damaged fence.

Given the fiasco, the cemetery was not re-opened again during the strike, even for Father’s Day.

At the time of the settlement, approximately 300 corpses were in cold storage awaiting interment. Bereaved families were understandably upset. They have since launched a $6-million class action lawsuit against the cemetery, claiming “the deceased are being locked in refrigeration tanks and the gravesites are being left untended.”

One mourner participating in the lawsuit, whose mother was in cold storage, stated: “It is a refrigerator where they store meat. This is unacceptable. We cannot accept to see our loved ones treated that way, plus our families.”

Generally speaking, the Dead do not like to be disrespected. When their remains and memories are desecrated, ghost-sightings and paranormal activity tend to spike.  

Perhaps worried about the potential of even more ghosts emerging from the cemetery, the Archbishop of Montreal called for an end to the lockout. Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte said that families had suffered enough and he urged the cemetery management and the workers’ union to resolve the dispute.

The Archbishop’s pleas fell on deaf ears and were ultimately unsuccessful.

In response to the impasse and increasingly furious families, Quebec Labour Minister Jean Boulet finally intervened and mediated a settlement. On July 13, cemetery workers agreed to sign a new Collective Agreement with an 83% approval rating.

Many citizens had wondered why it took so long to resolve the issue especially after a similar cemetery strike in 2007. Why, they asked, was the Diocese not providing proper wages, resources and support to its workers – and the Dead?

Indeed, on its website, the Diocese features an article called “An organization with a human touch.”

The information states: “Building on respect for human life, ethics, quality customer service, professionalism, attention to detail, and teamwork, the Fabrique (translation: “Diocese”) manages its activities carefully to balance its financials, ensure its sustainability and fulfill its long-term obligations.”

In another article, they stated: “A true Montréal institution, the Fabrique oversees the proper development of the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery – the largest in Canada – as well as the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montréal, an essential destination for pilgrimages, tourism and culture.”

However, trusted historians have pointed out that the organization has genocidal roots and therefore must be taken with a grain of salt. Indeed, Montreal’s Catholic Diocese is rooted in a French colonial organization called “The Society of Notre Dame of Montreal for the Conversion of the Savage Peoples of New France.”

Furthermore, they are one of the few Catholic entities that actually charge an admission fee to enter their leading church – in this case the Notre-Dame Basilica. The Diocese also has a lucrative contract for a nightly light show in the Basilica called Aura.

In other words, the Diocese is generating a lot of revenue through its activities at the Notre-Dame Basilica. However, it appears that the Diocese has not been using these profits to support its workers, visitors and the Dead in Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery.

Perhaps it is worth noting that the Sulpician Order never took a Vow of Poverty.

In conclusion, at the time of this writing Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery is not what it once was. Due to labour strife, upset ghosts, groundhog colonies and an apathetic administration, it is unlikely that this deranged cemetery in the heart of Montreal will recover anytime soon.

Company News

Haunted Montreal’s seasons of public outdoor ghost tours is now in full swing! Offered every Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, we have four ghost tours on rotation (Old Montreal, Griffintown, Downtown and Mount Royal.)

Our Haunted Pub Crawl is also offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English. For tours in French, these happen on the last Sunday of every month at 4 pm.

Our Paranormal Investigation in the Old Sainte Antoine Cemetery happens on the first Friday and Saturday of every month.

Private tours for any of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors. Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours are based on the availability of our actors and start at $215 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

You can bring the Haunted Montreal experience to your office party, house, school or event by booking one of our Travelling Ghost Storytellers today.

Hear some of the spookiest tales from our tours and our blog told by a professional actor and storyteller. You provide the venue, we provide the stories and storyteller. Find out more and then contact info@hauntedmontreal.com

Our team also releases videos every second Saturday, in both languages, of ghost stories from the Haunted Montreal Blog. Hosted by Holly Rhiannon (in English) and Dr. Mab (in French), this initiative is sure to please ghost story fans!

Please like, subscribe and hit the bell!

In other news, if you want to send someone a haunted experience as a gift, you certainly can! We are offering Haunted Montreal Gift Certificates through our website and redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual events (no expiration date).

Finally, we have opened an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. We are selling t-shirts, magnets, sweatshirts (for those haunted fall and winter nights) and mugs with both the Haunted Montreal logo and our tour imagery.

Purchases can be ordered through our online store.

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all of our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl, paranormal investigation or virtual event!

If you enjoyed the experience, we encourage you to write a review on our Tripadvisor page, something that really helps Haunted Montreal to market its tours.

Lastly, if you would like to receive the Haunted Montreal Blog on the 13th of every month, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming Up on September 13: The REM’s Ghostly Gamble Part 3

One section of Montreal’s new light rail system, the REM, is finally operational. The line, running from Central Station in Montreal to Brossard, passes over the Black Rock Irish Famine Cemetery. Given that the REM desecrated the hallowed ground by removing over a dozen bodies to insert a concrete pylon, many people speculated that the REM would become haunted. It appears to be the case – since its opening, the REM has been plagued with electrical problems and was even struck by lightning!

Author:

Donovan King is a postcolonial historian, teacher, tour guide and professional actor. As the founder of Haunted Montreal, he combines his skills to create the best possible Montreal ghost stories, in both writing and theatrical performance. King holds a DEC (Professional Theatre Acting, John Abbott College), BFA (Drama-in-Education, Concordia), B.Ed (History and English Teaching, McGill), MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary) and ACS (Montreal Tourist Guide, Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec). He is also a certified Montreal Destination Specialist.

Translator (into French):

Claude Chevalot holds a master’s degree in applied linguistics from McGill University. She is a writer, editor and translator. For more than 15 years, she has devoted herself almost exclusively to literary translation and to the translation of texts on current and contemporary art.

Haunted Research

Located high up on the slopes of Mount Royal, the Protestant Mount Royal Cemetery is rumoured to be one of the most haunted places in Montreal. Often described as a City of the Dead overlooking a City of the Living, it is reportedly home to many ghosts, fairies and other mysterious apparitions.

Haunted Montreal recently received an anonymous letter from a former Westmount High School student who had a terrifying experience in the graveyard. The letter-writer claims that a spirit followed him or her home following a visit to the cemetery. After going to sleep, the author was woken up by a ghostly male figure who was quietly uttering his or her name. Drenched in sweat from fear, the letter-writer found the strength to flick on the light switch, only to realize there was nobody present. In telling Haunted Montreal his or her story, the author joins a long list of others who have experienced ghostly and paranormal activity in the Protestant Mount Royal Cemetery.

The 165-acre Mount Royal Cemetery was incorporated in 1847 after the Protestant St. Lawrence Burial Ground was deemed full and could no longer accept any new corpses. Opened in 1852, the Mount Royal Cemetery was one of the first cemeteries in North America to follow a European trend whereby burial grounds were moved outside of city limits and landscaped into beautiful gardens, ensuring the dead could rest in peace.

Administered by 21 elected Trustees, the cemetery is a private non-profit organization and, while originally designed for burials of six Protestant denominations, is now open to persons of all faiths and races. Among the lush gardens, majestic monuments, obelisks and statues have been erected over the years, creating an exceptional funerary setting. Burial rights have always been offered in perpetuity and the Cemetery Managers ensure that no graves are ever reused or abandoned, making it a very popular place to spend an eternity. Due to its exceptional history and beauty, the Mount Royal Cemetery was designated a National Historic Site in 2002.

Today, there are almost 200,000 bodies interred in the cemetery, which is slowly running out of space. Statistically, Mount Royal Cemetery is part of the largest intact burial ground in North America when combined with the neighboring Catholic Notre-Dame des Neiges Cemetery and two smaller adjacent Jewish burial grounds. These include the Spanish and Portuguese – Shearith Israel Cemetery and Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery. Of the four graveyards, the Mount Royal Cemetery is said to be the most haunted.

Legend has it that just after sunset shadowy figures begin roaming the graveyard and lingering on its bluffs. Strange, undead entities have been seen wandering through the cemetery and at night there are reports of paranormal shadows flickering about. The most famous ghost of the Mount Royal Cemetery is said to be an Algonquin warrior who has been seen near the cliffs overlooking the Camillien Houde Lookout, often terrifying tourists below.

Mount Royal Cemetery is very popular with ghost hunters, who have even been featured in VICE Magazine. There have been many reports of paranormal activity in the graveyard and unexplained photographs have appeared featuring ghostly images. Teams of paranormal investigators have reported seeing fairies in the cemetery and have heard disembodied noises, including wood creaking and a little girl giggling. One psychic likened it to the sound of “a coffin opening.”

It should also be noted that the cemetery closes at 5 pm during the colder months and that security guards patrol the entire graveyard at night in cars. One of the reasons for that, aside from the usual vandals, are rumours that black masses sometimes occur in the cemetery, allegedly involving the sacrifice of animals. This could be another reason why Mount Royal Cemetery is rumoured to be so haunted.

Returning to the anonymous letter writer, the author declared: “I wish to remain anonymous, so I created this email account which I will delete within a day or two.  I used to live in Montreal and I did have a spirit follow me home once after a walk on the Mount Royal Cemetery. I was in a college at the time and with a friend.  I didn’t know it until that night when I was alone and woken up by a male figure quietly saying my name.  I promptly told it to go away without even realizing how quickly I was responding and turned on my other side. By the time I realized that I had just seen and heard something abnormal, it left but within a second I was drenched in sweat from fear. I got the strength to turn on the light after a few seconds and saw nothing. I never had an event take place afterwards.  NO I WAS NOT HALF ASLEEP AND IMAGINING IT. I can say for certain I was woken up by this spirit.”

The author also mentioned a male friend who “has witnessed EXTREMELY strange and unexplainable things” in the cemetery, including a mysterious cult of some sort  with “a circle of candles possibly floating” nearby. The friend was also startled when “a massive white dog or wolf appeared and started running towards him.” Terrified, he ran away as fast as he could and, once at a safe distance, counted his blessings that he was unharmed.

With their creepy encounters, the anonymous author and his or her friend joined a long list of people who have experienced the paranormal in the Mount Royal Cemetery.

There is no easy answer to the question as to who or what is haunting this hallowed ground.With almost 200,000 bodies, including many people and children who died under tragic circumstances, there are a lot of possibilities.

Indeed, the first corpse to be buried, on October 19th 1852, was that of a holy man named Reverend Squire who had perished during the course of his duties.

Four days earlier he was asked to go to the Ottawa Hotel to visit a sick merchant who was dying of cholera. The next day, Reverend Squire himself fell ill and then perished soon after. His burial would mark the beginning of long series of funerals that is still going on to this very day.

The cemetery also contains a section for children who died prematurely, often due to contagious diseases, as well as 459 war graves. Many of these military personnel, 276 from World War I and 183 from World War II, were killed violently in battle. Notable politicians who died tragically include Montreal Mayor John Easton Mills, who succumbed to typhus in 1847 while caring for Irish Famine refugees, and Canadian Prime Minister Sir John Abbott, who was cut down by brain cancer in 1892.

There are many others who met tragic fates, including some of the victims of the Titanic’s sinking. Charles Melville Hays, once the President of the Grand Trunk Railway, drowned at sea when the great ship sank after striking an iceberg in 1912. Many hours after the tragedy, his body was found floating in the ocean by a rescue boat and was identified by a gold watch with his name engraved on it. Charles Melville Hays’s corpse was transported to Montreal on a train from Halifax and he was buried in the Mount Royal Cemetery on May 8th 1912, almost a month after the tragedy.

Five more Titanic victims are buried in Mount Royal Cemetery, and there are also five in the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery, and one in the Baron de Hirsch Cemetery.

There is also a commemorative plaque, installed at the Montreal Sailors’ Institute Lot, where more than 550 sailors have been buried since 1890, many of them from drowning. The list of tragic deaths goes on and on.

As for the ghostly Algonquian warrior, there are many questions as to why he haunts the cemetery. Is he guarding something? Did he perish long ago in a forgotten war? Is his presence related to other First Nations burial sites found on Mount Royal? Historically, there have been discoveries of aboriginal graves on the mountain, often with the deceased being buried in the fetal position. Could the Protestant Cemetery have been laid out on top of another older burial site, creating a disturbance for those originally interred? If so, could the spirit of the Algonquian warrior have returned to this world in a sort of paranormal protest?

While nobody knows the answers to these questions, the appearance of the ghostly Algonquian warrior is definitely one of Mount Royal’s most mysterious legends.

With so many possibilities among the almost 200,000 burials, it is almost impossible to determine just who or what is haunting Mount Royal Cemetery. With all the shadowy figures, strange cults, ghosts and fairies, only one thing is certain: Mount Royal Cemetery is one of the most haunted places on the island of Montreal. It’s a true City of the Dead overlooking a City of the Living.

Company News

With the Hallowe’en Season now over, Haunted Montreal is moving into winter mode, meaning there will be no more public tours until May, 2017. Private tours are still available for groups of 10 or more people, subject to the availability of our actors and weather conditions.

We are going to try and develop some activities for the winter, such as haunted pub crawls and ghost investigations in haunted buildings. If you have any suggestions for haunted activities during the winter months, please contact info@hauntedmontreal.com.

We also plan to improve and upgrade our website and blog to make them more manageable and user-friendly.

A big thank you to all of our clients who attended a Haunted Montreal ghost walk during the 2016 season! If you enjoyed the experience, we encourage you to write a review on our Tripadvisor page, something that helps Haunted Montreal to market its tours. Lastly, to receive the blog on the 13th of every month, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming up on January 13: Westmount’s Haunted Murray Hill Park

Westmount’s Murray Hill Park is a 14 acre, bucolic greenspace that has long attracted residents to enjoy picnics and games on its grassy slopes. The recently deceased Montreal bard Leonard Cohen grew up beside these grounds and left readers with haunting descriptions of it in his novels. There are also rumours that Murray Hill Park is haunted by ghosts from an older era. More specifically, there are unsubstantiated reports that a host of phantom children in antique under-things can sometimes be seen singing while traipsing through the large, open greenspace. If true, who are these ghostly children and why do they haunt Murray Hill Park?

Donovan King is a historian, teacher and professional actor. As the founder of Haunted Montreal, he combines his skills to create the best possible Montreal ghost stories, in both writing and theatrical performance. King holds a DEC (Professional Theatre Acting, John Abbot College), BFA (Drama-in-Education, Concordia), B.Ed (History and English Teaching, McGill) and MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary).

HAUNTED RESEARCH

In September, 2016, dozens of skeletons were discovered buried underneath René-Lévesque Boulevard in front of the Hydro-Québec headquarters during construction work. Archaeologists were called in to extract and study the remains, before transferring them to the Protestant Mount Royal Cemetery. Originally the location of the Protestant St. Lawrence Burial Ground, which served the community from 1797 until the early 1870’s, today there is no indication of the cemetery’s existence, except when digging up the road.

Meanwhile, workers at Complexe Guy-Favreau, a federal government building that was partially built on the old cemetery in 1978, must contend with paranormal activity when working in the portion of the building that was built on the old burial ground. There are rumours that the ghosts of the old cemetery are unhappy with their predicament and want to destroy Complexe Guy-Favreau. Furthermore, disembodied, British accents can sometimes be heard in the section built on the old cemetery, murmuring as though in mourning. Objects also sometimes get knocked over for no reason and the scent of incense sometimes returns without explanation. One employee even reported encountering some sort of undead creature in a dark washroom early one morning. Before speculating as to who or what might be haunting this area, it is always a good idea to examine the history first.

Before the British took over the city in 1760, all burial grounds were located within the city walls of the French colony of Ville-Marie. The cemetery’s northern boundary was at the wall, today marked by Fortification Lane. It extended as far south as the middle of what is now St. James Street. The eastern boundary was at St. Francois-Xavier Street and it extended to Victoria Square in the west.

With an influx of British Protestants, a new burial place was needed for them. At first they opened another cemetery adjacent to the northern wall. Burials were overseen at first by Rev. David Chabrand deLisle, a Protestant clergyman from France. The government had chosen deLisle because they hoped he might be able to convert French Canadians to the Protestant religion. However, despite being the Protestant minister in Montreal for nearly 30 years, he was unsuccessful in converting any Catholics. Some people suggested he had a communication problem, especially because he also had a reputation for speaking English so poorly that his own parishioners could not understand him most of the time. When Rev. David Chabrand deLisle died in 1794, he was buried in the same cemetery inside the city walls.

By the end of the 18th century, officials were becoming concerned with the ongoing burials “within the walls” because of the perceived dangers to public health. They theorized that it was dangerous for the dead and the living to co-exist so closely together, especially with infectious diseases like cholera and smallpox spreading. Churchwardens submitted a petition to close the old cemeteries to the Attorney General of Lower Canada, who approved the request and demanded that people stop burying corpses within the city walls.

Plans were immediately made to open two new cemeteries, one for the Catholics and one of the Protestants, in rural areas outside the city walls.  The new Protestant Saint Lawrence Burial Ground opened in 1797 in the vicinity of today’s St. Urbain and René-Lévesque Boulevard (formerly Dorchester Street), whereas the more westerly Catholic Saint Antoine Cemetery opened two years later in 1799 near Peel Street.

The Saint Lawrence Burial Ground, also known as the Dorchester Street Cemetery and Protestant’s Burying Ground, saw a lot of action during its 80 year existence. When it first opened in 1797, Protestants were given the opportunity to transfer bodies from the old cemetery within the walls to the new one on the outskirts. Plans were afoot to erect buildings on the old cemeteries, which by now occupied valuable real estate. In 1799, James McGill heard that his friend John Porteous’ grave in the old cemetery was being repossessed. To resolve the issue, he had the skeleton exhumed and moved to Burial Plot #16 in the new St. Lawrence Burial Ground, where it was re-interred. McGill had purchased his personal plot for 10 pounds and it measured 10 x 7½ feet.

When McGill died in 1813, he was buried next to his old friend, John Porteous. His wife, a Catholic, had to be buried elsewhere due to religious regulations that forbade Protestants from being buried in the same cemeteries as Catholics.

As the years passed, the cemetery began to fill up with the dead. A creepy stone mortuary was constructed for the deceased, but due to a lack of space for Protestant church services, it was taken over for worship in the 1850s by Montreal Anglican Bishop Francis Fulford. He put Rector Edmund Wood in charge of ministering to destitute Montrealers, who would have to share their small house of worship with the Dead. When Wood and Bishop Fulford opened the mortuary door for the first time, they were nearly overpowered by the stench of decomposing corpses. His nostrils twitching, the Bishop, remarked, “Do you not think, Wood, a little incense would be appropriate?”

Despite the ever-present smell of death, Edmund Wood was not discouraged. He opened the creepy mortuary for church services and seats were provided free of charge. Wood’s pastoral work concentrated on the poor, prompting the congregation to grow quickly in size. Before long, there were twice as many people sitting outside, among the tombstones, as there were inside the mortuary. Eventually, the mortuary was deemed too small so a lot was purchased at Saint-Urbain and Ontario Streets, where St. John the Evangelist Church was constructed in the 1870s and opened for worship.

During the 1850s, the Protestant Burying Ground was becoming overcrowded and took on a look of dilapidation, prompting plans to open a new Protestant cemetery on Mount Royal in 1852. The Saint Lawrence Burial Ground was deemed full in 1854, so it was abandoned, allowing Mother Nature to take her course. Twenty years later, in 1872, one visitor described its forlorn condition, explaining that the place was choked with weeds and tall grass.

He noted that several graves had sunken, leaving unsightly hollows and pits and that the monuments were crumbling and many had been defaced with lewd graffiti. Even more bizarrely, a boy’s school had been opened up in the old mortuary. According to the visitor:

“It was noontide, and a warm September sun called the children out to their ghastly playground. Some ran about and shouted in a boisterous game, others were playing hide-and-go-seek, while others again carried on a work of destruction on a more than usually dilapidated funeral urn.”

In 1873, the city finally expropriated the creepy cemetery to make way for a public square. Once again, citizens were asked to remove any corpses they wanted to have re-interred elsewhere. Upon hearing this, McGill University administrators arranged for the transfer of James McGill’s skeleton and monument from Plot #16 to the location where it is today, in front of the Arts Building. They put his skull and bones in a box and placed the box in a pedestal they constructed, securing his funerary urn on top.

This was replaced with a replica in 1944 by the McGill graduates society and Canadian Grenadier Guards after the old one was deemed too eroded. While there is some speculation that they may have moved the wrong body, that of his friend John Porteous, it’s unlikely because the operation was carried out by none other than Richard Srigings, the superintendant of the Protestant Cemetery on Mount Royal. Not only was he an expert in exhumations, but John Porteous had died after being thrown off a horse, cracking his skull, whereas James McGill’s death was sudden and of natural causes. According to one of his associates: “he had no Idea of going off half an Hour [before] he died” on December 19th, 1813.

With the old Saint Lawrence Burial Ground finally abandoned, in 1875 city architects converted it into Dufferin Square, one of the few green spaces in that corner of town during the era. For slightly over a century, Montrealers would enjoy the bucolic Dufferin Square, especially as its reputation as the site of an old cemetery began to fade. Parents would bring children for picnics and lovers would meet there late at night for amorous encounters, oblivious to the fact that hundreds of skeletons lurked just a few feet below the ground.

However, the good times were not to last. During the 1970s, plans were made to expropriate Dufferin Square to make way for a massive federal building called Complexe Guy Favreau. At first, the old cemetery was converted into a parking lot while preparations were being made the new structure. A layer of asphalt was spread over the old burial ground, and it was taken over by motor vehicles in need of parking.

When the foundation work on Complexe Guy Favreau started in 1978, workers were quite surprised by a discovery near the corner of Jeanne Mance Street and Dorchester Boulevard. While digging, they unearthed two perfectly-intact, windowed, metal caskets. The coffins belonged to two bothers: Noah Shaw, who died in 1836 at the age of 16, and Edward Payson Shaw, who died in 1844 at the young age of six. He had accidentally been killed in his father’s carpentry shop on Nazareth Street in Griffintown. The two boys were re-buried in their original, unopened coffins in the Mount Royal Cemetery. They were soon joined by the assorted bones of another sixty individuals, all of whom were dug up during construction of Complexe Guy Favreau, including members of the British garrison who had served in Montreal prior to 1814. Over the course of time, over 100 skeletons had been unearthed in the vicinity.

The massive Complexe Guy Favreau was controversial from the beginning. Designed as a 12-storey building complex containing Canadian government offices, it was named after Guy Favreau, a former MP, federal cabinet minister and Quebec Superior Court Justice. Extending over a six acre plot of land, the complex was built to contain various Canadian governmental offices, rental properties, a housing cooperative, commercial units, and a daycare facility.

The erection of the structure took place not only on the old burying ground, but also over large swathes of Montreal’s historic Chinatown. As long-standing buildings were torn down to make way for the federal multiplex, Chinatown’s residents were vocal in their disapproval. To help appease the residents at the time, the government included a residential section in the southern section of the building complex on De la Gauchetière Street called “Les habitations du centre-ville”. A beautiful courtyard was also built in the Complexe and opened to the public.

A significant number of park benches were also installed on the southern half of the main concourse of the building, which have proved to be very popular, especially in the winter.

However, as soon as it opened in 1984, problems began happening almost immediately. Some superstitious residents attributed it to the paranormal. For example, in 1988, the brand new Complex Guy Favreau started shedding bricks. The bricks began to fall with such great frequency that the government began to worry that someone might get injured or killed. Some residents began to speculate that the ghosts of the old cemetery were trying to destroy the building. In a panic, the government authorized $8 million in repairs to try and rectify the problem of the tumbling bricks once and for all.

There are also other paranormal incidents within the gigantic building that workers must contend with. Some of the janitorial staff contend that the northern part of the building is haunted, which was built on the footprint of the Protestant Burying Ground. Some of the staff report hearing disembodied British accents murmuring amidst the sound of weeping. One janitor suggested that “it almost sounds like a distant funeral.” There is also the unmistakable smell of incense that sometimes materializes out of nowhere, usually in the basement of the building.One legend has it that mirrors were specifically installed into the ceilings of Complex Guy Favreau to keep any ghosts from rising above street level.

According to some strains of folklore, a ghost cannot rise if its own image is reflected above itself.

In one disturbing incident that unfolded in the early 2000s, a janitor was working in the basement section of Complexe Guy Favreau, the part that was built on the old Saint Lawrence Burial Ground. While using a machine to clean a large stretch of floor, he felt an urge. Feeling hungover as a result of clubbing the night before, he felt pangs in his stomach and decided to go to the bathroom.

He proceeded to the nearest men’s washroom, located in the basement in the north-east corner of the building. The washroom was empty, so he entered one of the stalls and prepared to do his business. He dropped his pants and sat on the toilet seat. Suddenly, the lights began flickering for a few seconds before the washroom was plunged into darkness. The man was surprised because there were rarely any electrical failures in the massive complex. He wondered it the problem was localized or if it affected the whole building.

As he was thinking, he heard a faint gurgling noise from somewhere within the washroom. At first he thought it might be related to the pipes, but as he listened more closely, he realized that it sounded almost human. He then heard what sounded like heavy footsteps slowly coming towards the stall. The gurgling noise got louder and suddenly the door to the stall burst open. The man jumped up in a state of pure terror and yanked his pants back up. He tried to escape from the stall, but it felt as though someone – or something – was in there with him, preventing him from leaving! The man struggled with the unseen creature, which by now had grabbed him. Wrestling, the man finally managed to break free of its grasp. In the inky darkness, he quickly groped his way towards the exit of the bathroom, the gurgling noise right behind him. Finally, he burst out through the washroom door and into the light-filled basement of Complexe Guy-Favreau. He ran as fast as he could to the staff room to report what had happened.

Out of breath, he blurted out his story to a skeptical colleague. When he got his courage back, they went to investigate the bathroom. They cautiously opened the door and began examining the lavatory but found no evidence of electrical failure or anything else unusual. The man was stumped, swearing that he had experienced a ghost or something paranormal. His colleague laughed, suggesting that it could have simply been the man’s hangover playing tricks on his mind. Whatever the case, the janitor quit his job shortly after his bizarre and terrifying experience.

Today, the strange hauntings are rumoured to continue at the Complexe Guy Favreau and many of the staff members are wary of the basement portion of the building. With the unearthing of the skeletons, federal employees are more edgy than ever.

According to one woman who works as a bureaucrat in the building: “There are a lot of rumours about ghosts haunting our building because it was build on an old cemetery. Whenever they dig someone’s skeleton up, people worry that there will more paranormal activity than usual. The fact is we have lots of dead people buried under René-Lévesque Boulevard. Heavy traffic rolls over them all the time. The drivers have no idea that they are disturbing the dead.”

Today, there is nothing whatsoever to indicate the presence of the old Saint Lawrence Burial Ground, not even a historical plaque. Indeed, it is only when workers dig up the road that people are reminded of the gruesome fact that many skeletons lie just beneath the ground on one of Montreal’s busiest boulevards.

Update: Notman House Investigation

Haunted Montreal is also pleased to announce that the people in charge of Notman House finally responded to our request for a paranormal investigation! Based on the Haunted Montreal Blog of June, 2016, new managers agreed that Haunted Montreal should arrange a team to look into allegations of hauntings, including by current staff members. One janitor, for example, is convinced he recently encountered the ghost of William Notman!

The paranormal investigation took place the night of September 24, from 10:30 pm to 3:00 am. There were approximately 20 people investigating, including two teams of professional paranormal investigators, several mediums and psychics, witnesses, plus curiosity-seekers. Following a round of introductions, we heard from the witnesses, including André, who had an uncanny experience in 2002 while guarding a film set.

After a short history lesson, the staff at Notman House led people on a tour of the buildings. The attics were especially creepy, as was the incinerator room in the old St. Margaret’s Hospital for the Incurables, where countless corpses were cremated.

One medium sensed that not everyone who was cremated was actually dead upon the incineration.

Following the tour, investigators were given a few hours to explore the buildings and look for ghosts and paranormal activity using tools like EMF readers, temperature guns, dowsing rods and infrared cameras. Quite a lot of paranormal activity was captured on camera in the spooky attic.

At 2:30 am, we reconvened and shared notes. Everyone agreed that the buildings are haunted, most likely by William Notman and those who died of incurable diseases in the old hospital.

After a cleansing ritual, the investigation was concluded.

Overall, it was a fascinating evening and Haunted Montreal is exploring the possibility of offering this type of activity to our clients during the winter months.

COMPANY NEWS

For the Hallowe’en Season, Haunted Montreal is pleased to announce a brand new ghost tour: the Haunted Red Light District Ghost Walk!Today, Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles is famous as a zone for festivals and entertainment. However, most visitors are unaware the most notorious Red Light District in North America once existed on the same site. Not only does it have a very dark and salacious history, but many of its buildings and streets are also reported to be haunted.Step back in time and experience Montreal in its heyday as a “wide open city”! Discover an era when brothels, gambling dens, booze cans and burlesque halls lined every street and corruption of every type reigned. Guided by a professional actor and storyteller, guests will hear twisted tales and visit sites that are reputed to be haunted and where the ghosts have been spotted.

Hear tales about Montreal’s transformation from a strictly religious colony into Sin City and how the clergy tried to stop it at every turn. Visit one of Montreal’s ghost streets, where paranormal activity is known to disturb tourists exploring the neighbourhood. Learn about Montreal’s Red Light history and how Prohibition prompted millions of visitors to stream in from all over North America looking for a good time.

Discover a haunted hotel where guests experience strange disturbances during the night, thought to be related several murders during the 1980s. Many theatres, cinemas and performance halls in the Quartier des Spectacles are also rumoured to be haunted. Learn about the spirits that occupy these places, including one creepy apparition who is said to lurk in the basement of the Monument-National, once the site of a deranged Victorian waxworks museum – the Eden Musée.

Hear about some of the notorious characters from the era, such as bank robber Machine-Gun Molly, Burlesque Queen Lili St. Cyr, brothel-owner Marcel Les-Dents-en-Or, and serial killer Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, McGill University’s most infamous graduate.

Learn why the Canadian Army demanded that the Red Light District be shut down during WW II and how Mayor Jean Drapeau and police chief Pax Plante tried clean up the unsavory area. Discover how brothel raids, legal battles against corruption, the demolition of entire city blocks, and the rebranding of the entire neighbourhood led to the creation of the Quartier des Spectacles, Montreal’s glittering new Entertainment zone. While officials may have tried to erase the district’s history and stop all salacious activities in the area, the ghosts of the Red Light District still remain.

The Haunted Red Light District Ghost Walk is sure to please ghost hunters, history buffs, Hallowe’en lovers and those who seek pleasure in the paranormal. The following dates have been set in English:

Friday, October 14 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Saturday, October 15  8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Sunday, October 16 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Friday, October 21 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Saturday, October 22  8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Sunday, October 23 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Friday, October 28 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Saturday, October 29 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Sunday, October 30 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

Monday, October 31 8:30 pm Haunted Red Light

To book tickets, please visit our 2016 Tours section.

Haunted Downtown is currently being revised before translation, but is still available for private tours for groups of 10 or more people (in English only, for the moment). Haunted Griffintown and Haunted Mountain are also available for private bookings, in both English or French, subject to availability.

Finally, we invite clients who attended a ghost walk to write a review on our Tripadvisor page, something that is very helpful for Haunted Montreal in promoting its tours.

For those reading the blog who want to receive a new Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month and stay updated, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming up on November 13: The Ghost of L’Esplanade Street

One of the most popular places to spot a ghost in Montreal is on the sloping eastern side of Jeanne Mance Park, which overlooks L’Esplanade Street. It is not uncommon for citizens to bring lawn chairs to the area during the summer months to sit there and wait for him. There have been many reports, some of them recent, about the ghostly apparition of a mysterious soldier wearing an old uniform who has been seen limping in the area. Witnesses have reported seeing the ghostly soldier walking with a cane up one of the long flights of wooden stairs, and entering into one of the old homes at the shadowy southern end of l’Esplanade Street. Who is this mysterious ghost and why is he haunting the area?

Donovan King is a historian, teacher and professional actor. As the founder of Haunted Montreal, he combines his skills to create the best possible Montreal ghost stories, in both writing and theatrical performance. King holds a DEC (Professional Theatre Acting, John Abbot College), BFA (Drama-in-Education, Concordia), B.Ed (History and English Teaching, McGill) and MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary).