The history of the things that haunt us at Halloween
As with many Western holidays, Halloween is associated with several traditions whose history has been long forgotten. Last year, the Sil looked back at some of these traditions in our first iteration of Spooky Facts. This year we’ve returned to examine the history of some haunting Halloween traditions.
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Haunted Houses
The origin of haunted houses as we know it comes from the Great Depression. At the time, Halloween in the United States had become known as a holiday where youth concocted elaborate pranks.
In 1933 when the pranks escalated to include property damage, vandalism and harassment, parents came together to find ways of distracting their kids. Along with trick-or-treating, parents created haunted houses in their basements and had their children go from house to house to experience different scary settings.
The beginning of the haunted house industry however came about when Walt Disney opened the Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland California in 1969 and Walt Disney World in 1971. Much more impressive than the basement haunted houses, the mansion featured a ballroom sequence of dancing ghouls in its Grand Hall, a seance room with a talking crystal ball and a graveyard full of grim grinning ghosts singing about spooking the living. From here, alongside the horror movie industry, the professional haunted house industry continued to grow.
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“Boo!”
Did you think of a ghost? Have you ever wondered why we associate this sound with ghosts? One of the first times that the word was found in text was in the 1560s poetic thriller Here Begynneth A Treatyse Of The Smyth Whych That Forged Hym A New Dame where it used more as a statement of one’s presence than a way to startle.
It was only later that the word was associated with fright. In 1738, the word appeared in Gilbert Crokatt’s Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence Display’d and this and an 1808 text noted that the word was used to scare children in North Scotland. By the 1820s, the word was known as the exclamation of real ghosts and those dressed up as ghosts. Another early example of ghosts saying “boo” was in the 1963 play Punch and Judy.
Why this sound? It is likely meant to imitate the mooing of a cow, but how and why this evolved into a word with ghostly connotation is unknown.
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Ghost Stories
As long as there have been ghosts, there have been stories about them. There are ancient ghost stories from Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, India, Scotland and many more places. Ancient Roman writings tell tales of ghosts who frequently showed up and rattled chains. Early ghost sightings include the first reported poltergeist (a ghost that causes physical disturbances) in 856 A.D. and the sightings of Anne Boleyn’s ghost after her 1536 death.
With his 1765 novel Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole was credited with inventing the gothic novel and legitimizing the horror story as a literary form. Following this, gothic horror novels such as Frankenstein (1818), A Christmas Carol (1843) and Dracula (1897) were released.
In the Victorian era (1837-1901), ghost stories became increasingly popular. One of the potential reasons for this is that the industrial revolution led many people to migrate to big cities and move into houses with servants who, much like ghosts, were expected to move around the house without being seen or heard.
The Victorians also used gas lamps, the carbon monoxide from which could have caused hallucinations. Another factor could have been the introduction of the telegraph. The ability for messages to be transmitted across oceans using Morse code made it much less of a leap to believe a dead person was tapping out Morse code to you.
The Victorians told their ghost stories on long, cold and dark Christmas nights. However, because it was based on the supernatural, the Puritans frowned upon this tradition and it didn’t gain the same traction in America.
Nonetheless, Christmas issues of American magazines still carried ghost stories until as late as 1915. Eventually, as Americans took on the originally Scottish holiday of Halloween, they emphasized the scary elements and integrated ghost stories into the celebrations.
Ghost stories have gone on to take many forms, laying the foundation for the Halloween movies and horror films that we know and love today.
By Andrew Mrozowski
Content warning: this article contains mentions of suicide
What if I told you that you are living in a haunted city? Hamilton has had a long history with ghosts dating back to hundreds of years, so naturally, there are claims of specters still roaming the city.
With All Hallows Eve quickly approaching, paranormal activity is reaching a new high. Once the sun goes down, an eerie feeling fills the crisp cool air as darkness seeps through every corner and alleyway in the city.
This means good business for Stephanie ‘Spooky Steph’ Dumbreck, founder and owner of Haunted Hamilton. She has been leading ghosts walks and tours across Hamilton for nearly 20 years and has a passion for Hamilton’s haunted scene.
“It has evolved [since] I first started Haunted Hamilton… The paranormal wasn’t even looked at the same. All along [Haunted Hamilton] has been a passion for local history for me and what better way for that than a good ghost story,” explained Dumbreck.
Originally starting off with her spine-chilling tour of downtown Hamilton, Dumbreck has since launched a variety of different tours from her haunted cruise along Hamilton’s harbor to a haunted bus trip taking you on an overnight paranormal investigation.
“Hamilton is extremely haunted, it’s just a matter of where you look and how you look because anywhere can be haunted. Hamilton has such cool historical landmarks and locations,” said Dumbreck.
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[spacer height="20px"]One stop on Spooky Steph’s downtown tour is Whitehern Mansion. Located right behind Hamilton City Hall, Whitehern is one of the only period mansions remaining within the downtown core and has since been turned into a historical museum.
What many do not know is that Whitehern Mansion is haunted by the ghost of Issac McQuesten. This fact is eluded to by the house’s staff who reportedly sign a contract during their employment stating that they will be terminated if they mention the ghost.
Calvin McQuesten was a famous industrialist who helped build the Queen Elizabeth’s Way, Rainbow Bridge and the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington. Three years before his death in 1885, he moved his family from Boston to Hamilton and entrusted his son, Isaac McQuesten, with his business and family fortune.
McQuesten never had the drive his father had to run the company and ended up destroying the business. This caused him to turn to alcohol abuse and drive up a crushing debt. Afraid of the social repercussions of seeking help in his own city, McQuesten ended up spending time in an asylum in Guelph.
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[spacer height="20px"]On one grueling night in 1888, McQuesten kissed his six children and wife goodnight and told them that he was going to work in their parlor. At midnight, his wife woke up to check up on him and found his body laying still on the floor. The remnants of a sleeping draught made from a mix of sleeping pills and a generous amount of alcohol were in a cup on his desk.
McQuesten took his own life at Whitehern that night. His body was laid to rest but a superstitious belief dictates that if a life is taken before its rightful time then the soul will be stuck in purgatory. McQuesten’s spirit is in a state between death and the afterlife, forever trapped on earth.
Fast forward to present day Hamilton, two employees of the Whitehern Museum were closing up for the night. One staff member went upstairs to ensure that no spectators were still roaming the house while the other swept the outside of the front door.
As she made her way downstairs to leave, she felt somebody push her. She braced herself against the wall to avoid tumbling down the stairs. Suddenly, she caught sight of a grey and shadowy human figure in front of her.
She watched him run down the stairs and as he attempted to reach the front door, the figure disappeared as quickly as he appeared.
According to Dumbreck, the incident is proof that Issac McQuesten is trapped within the house and every time he attempts to leave it, he is forced back inside.
This amongst other chilling tales have spooked Hamiltonians in the past and present, with new encounters surrounding the supernatural occurring in the shadows of some of the oldest parts of the city.
Whether you are a believer or a skeptic, Hamilton is a fascinating place for indulging in rich history, but you also never know what might be peeking at you from the darkness, waiting to make its move.
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