The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Haunted P.E.I. lighthouse focus of many local legends
Abandoned Annapolis logging village so spooky skeptic won’t visit alone
Towering high above the water at 66 feet, a powerful automated revolving light flashes above a black and white striped pyramidal tower that contains a oneand-a-half-storey dwelling below. Since 1876 — and manned until 1963, when the second lighthouse keeper retired — West Point lighthouse has been guiding vessels across the treacherous, foam-crested waves of the Northumberland Strait that had caused many a past shipwreck. But one vessel that's pulled to the landmark's golden glow at night, and iconic visible painted stripes during the day, can send shivers up spines when sighted, warns Carol
Livingstone, the greatgranddaughter of the first lighthouse keeper William Macdonald (1875 to 1925).
“My father was a First World War veteran, and my sister Elizabeth and I were driving to an evening function at the local legion that had him presenting a picture," she explains. "We were on Shore Road, around seven o'clock, when we saw flickering lights out at sea. It was unusual, so we pulled over on the side of the road to get a closer look.”
To their shock, flames were engulfing the masts of a vessel. So far from help and fearing for the sailors, seconds felt like minutes before what they were seeing began to unfold.
“I had heard the legend of a ‘phantom ship' growing up in West Point, but I never imagined I would see it, and as vivid as you or I. No fog. No mist. We had not had a sip of alcohol to drink,” she said.
“Our sighting was in the late 1970s or early '80s, so keeping that in mind, I pulled out the new film-reel camera that I was bringing to take pictures of the event at the legion. Then, excitedly, I took pictures of the boat.”
The sisters watched for a few minutes before rushing back to their vehicle, fearing they would be late for the legion event. But further down the road, they pulled off for a final glance.
THE SHIP HAD VANISHED.
“It sent a shiver down my spine, but I thought, well, this is wonderful. At least I will have a picture.”
When Livingstone went to get the camera film developed, fumbling, she says, the images were accidentally exposed to the light.
“While it is unfortunate about the pictures, it brings me comfort in knowing many people over the years have seen the ‘phantom ship' to support our claim,” she says.
There has been much speculation of where this supernatural ship originates. Some say it was a pirate vessel that met an untimely end; others, a boat carrying immigrants. But one thing is for sure: the ship is unique to the Northumberland Strait.
GHOST KEEPERS AND BURIED TREASURE
Canada's first active lighthouse inn continues to attract — not just visitors or guests — but the unexplained. Jimmy Stewart, general manager of the West Point Development Corporation, has heard many stories that include ghostly encounters with the original keeper, nicknamed “Lighthouse Willie,” roaming the halls of the inn; a sea serpent; and buried pirate treasure.
“If you look up the shore northward from the lighthouse, about a quarter-mile up the beach, you will see an orange triangle that looks like what you would see on a slow-moving vehicle,” he says, describing where ‘X' marks the spot for hidden treasure near the lighthouse.
“When I was a lot younger, say 50 years ago, there was a road that ran up between the two rows of dunes, and to the left-hand side of the orange sign is meant to be buried ‘Captain' William Kidd's treasure.”
There have been several attempts to dig up the treasure, he says. But no chest or riches have been discovered, except timbers used to build local horse stalls in the community.
FAIRIES AND SEA SERPENTS
Early Scottish and Irish settlers carried beliefs and superstitions over the Atlantic to West Point, with strong opinions in witches, fairies, and forerunners, says Livingstone.
“They could not understand why there were natural pathways through the wooded dunes behind the lighthouse, so they concluded that fairies had made the paths and kept them swept clean for walking," she says.
Visitors to the lighthouse can still walk these fairy trails, woven between vegetation and trees.
Many stories encapsulate Canada's most haunted and — arguably — most picturesque lighthouse. Stewart adds one report of a sea serpent, which has troubled local anglers over the years.
“My father fished here for 48 years and was never known to tell a lie. He would swear that he saw the sea serpent, and again there are lots of people that say the same.”
He described the sea serpent as 60 to 70 feet long, black, with a head the size of a horse that points downwards.
There have been numerous sightings of this mythical creature, according to Stewart. Some fishermen have even tried to shoot it, with bullets pinging off its skin and causing the beast to rise from the water with its body snaking and head rocking back and forth.
The Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum in Grand Prairie, Alberta, houses several reconstructed fossils, and one resembles the sea serpent that swims near West Point Lighthouse.
“West Point has such a rich history,” he adds.
“George Sutherland Currie — nicknamed 'Flat-nose' — was born in this area in 1871. He was a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, robbing banks in the American Old West,” recounts Stewart, while acknowledging Currie died by a gunshot wound.
West Point is well worth a visit, if not a stay, Livingstone suggests.
The lighthouse museum shares numerous stories of interest, one of how a small group of determined volunteers took a dilapidated building and transformed it into today's nationally recognized historical icon.
It goes to show, there is something undeniably captivating about this lonely coastal landmark that beacons those near, far, and even the unexplained. Just don't turn off the light.
Leafless trees close in and choke out the midday sun as David Whitman and his daughter, Lori, tread further into the dense forest.
The two are exploring the remains of Roxbury, an abandoned Annapolis County logging and farming village described as “lost in the woods” by locals.
“At first glance, there is not much to see,” says Whitman.
He is a retired schoolteacher, now referred to as the ‘Mayor of Roxbury’ after writing his first self-published book about the area called ‘Lost in The Woods: The Lure and History of Roxbury,’ which came out in 2005.
‘ALWAYS INTRIGUED’
Whitman’s interest sparked in the oncethriving settlement destroyed by a forest fire and abandoned in 1904, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was here where he spent hours fishing at a nearby river with friends.
“I was always intrigued by Roxbury as a kid. The village is about four miles off the main road, in the middle of nowhere. And when I began teaching school in Halifax, I started to research the area where very little is known.”
Over the years, he went digging for facts, church and school records, deeds, newspaper reports, and interviewed descendants of those that had once called the area “home.”
Whitman discovered a mysterious and tragic past.
“Originally, Roxbury was known as Durland’s Settlement, after Thomas Durland, the first English Loyalist settler in the early 1800s. His brother Charles followed with his family, and by 1865, there were 15 families in the settlement with a population around 60,” he says.
RUMOURS OF GOLD
But the settlement stretches further back.
Mi’kmaq were the first inhabitants, followed by French Acadians fleeing from British soldiers after refusing to pledge British allegiance – known as the Expulsion from 1755 to 1764.
“About 60 French Acadian exiles took to the river and hid on South Mountain,” Whitman says.
“The Mi’kmaq became their allies, but many Acadians did not survive the freezing winter.”
Rumours persist, says Whitman, that the Acadians, while fleeing, left stashes of gold under Mile Rock on Roxbury Road.
“There have been some treasure hunters over the years, but nothing retrieved or at least made public.”
While piecing his second book together on the area, Whitman says he interviewed many who reported “strange voices” while alone on Roxbury Road.
“Legend has it some of the French Acadians were planning to come back and get this gold, so I think it plays on the imagination which can run wild out there when no one is around,” he dismisses with a nervous laugh.
SERIOUS FOREST FIRE
When the Loyalists arrived (1775 to 1783), they built permanent structures over the Acadian nomadic-style homes using rocks from the mountain.
“By 1904, most of the residents had moved out with the lumber industry depleted and the serious forest fire.”
Whitman explains to produce blueberries, they burned the land, but a fire got out of control and spread over hundreds of acres torching Roxbury.
Today, the scorched, leafless Inspiration tree echoes this history.
“The tree is aptly named Inspiration because if you make it that far, you might as well keep going,” says Whitman.
There is an 18.7-kilometre out and back trail, described as “difficult” on All Trails, which features a lake and cuts through the settlement.
LAST SETTLEMENT
Roxbury lay dormant for several years, attended only by nature. Then, in the 1920s, families set up homesteads, including Whitman’s father.
“Roxbury had a school, church, post office, sawmill and grist mill. The last family moved out in 1927,” notes Whitman.
Andrew Rosengren and the Thygesen family were the last homesteaders.
“Then in 1948 through to the late 1950s, lumbering activities by J. H. Hicks and Sons and Max Napthal interrupted the settlement’s slumber. And in the 2000s, forestry work from Bowater Mersey and Lafarge Canada Inc.”
So, what’s left there now? Stone foundations, deep round wells, shreds of lumber.
“But people go there a lot to hike,” says Whitman.
Yet Whitman says he will “never walk there alone.”
The supernatural skeptic who claims “there is a scientific explanation for everything” admits he has heard “through the trees” a sound that resembles the “wailing of a man.”
Other interviewees of Whitman reported “strange noises” or “figures.”
NOT FOR FAINT OF HEART
It is not a place for the faint of heart, he says.
“I have not been back there for a while. Not by myself, especially to the graveyards. There was always something about them. There is one graveyard where a man lost his wife in childbirth, and he would visit and cry on their graves.”
In one cemetery, a headstone peeks through the vegetation with just one bold word, “Baby.”
He continues, “In my second book, ‘Roxbury: A return to a ghost town,’ I interviewed people that say they could feel or even see someone watching them. It gave them an intense feeling that they should not be there.”
GHOSTLY IMPRINT
The book, published in 2015 with a Foreword by John Demont, includes photographs by witnesses, capturing “blurred images of a young girl in a white dress” floating through the cemetery and disappearing into the trees.
“This place can stir the imagination, especially in the graveyards that are in the middle of the woods,” Whitman says.
Adding, “People that do not know the history or have not read the books go back there and treat it just as a hike or a tour, but those that know the area are reluctant to go by themselves.”
Dormant wooden cottages in the area — designated by the province as a Provincial Park Reserve — have left a ghostly imprint on many people, including former students of Whitman, who he says will “never talk about what they heard or saw” because it was so frightening.
Whitman is part of Friends of Roxbury that gathered funding for interpretative signage to preserve the lumber settlement’s history. As a result, he no longer needs to give tours in a place he describes as “isolated and creepy.”