Mrs. Ernest Boyd's boarding house
Amidst her inquiry, Watson discovered the bloody history behind Mrs. Ernest Boyd's boarding house, which was located at the intersection of Simcoe and Perry streets.
In 1949, Velibor Rajik, a Yugoslavian emigrant, came to stay at the boarding house and soon he and Mrs. Boyd became romantically involved, Watson said.
"She decided she wanted to leave her husband and family and to be with him...her lover, he didn't like that very much so he stabbed her to death," she said.
"He was the last person to be hanged in Oxford County and that was in 1954."
Oxford County's most "famous ghost"
Thomas Cook, who Watson described as an overweight, angry alcoholic, moved to Canada from Nottingham, England, in 1848 and married into a prominent Innerkip family.
Cook's wife and son passed away and Cook later remarried.
On July 21, 1862, witnesses told police they saw Cook choking his second wife, Bridget, who was found dead shortly after.
"He was the very first person that was publicly hanged for murder in Woodstock and 3,400 people showed up to watch his hanging," Watson said.
"When they hanged him...they didn't account for obese size and the shock from the fall was so great that is severed his head from his body."
Watson said the public health building in Woodstock, which was previously the city's jail, still has Cook's death mask on the outside of the building.
"The custom used to be they would make a death mask of the person after they were hanged to deter criminals. This was the only time in Woodstock's history that they actually made the death mask," she said.
Watson said Cook's ghost is rumoured to haunt the unused fourth floor of the courthouse.
Elizabeth Ann Tilford:
In 1935 there was the case of Elizabeth Ann Tilford, who was the only woman to be hanged in Oxford County.
"She was on her third husband and was slowly poisoning him with arsenic. He figured something was wrong because he was sick and he begged his parents that after he died to have his body analyzed," Watson said.
"The autopsy proved that he had been poisoned so then they started wondering about her second husband because he had died mysteriously as well."
Watson said that the body of Tilford's second husband was exhumed but was too badly deteriorated for examination.
Norman Garfield:
Former wrestler and candy store merchant Ben Johnson was working at his Dundas Street shop one evening in 1921 when it was held up.
The perpetrator, Norman Garfield, killed Johnson and was later apprehended by police.
"(Garfield) didn't want to die by the gallows so he swallowed a large quantity of ground glass," Watson said.
"The doctors worked really hard and saved him and, a couple of days later, he was actually hanged."
Benwell Swamp Murder:
In the late 1880s and early 1890s, a farming scam was circulating in the area, advertising free farming education and partnerships to men in England, Watson said.
English men would pay a fee, come to Oxford County and quickly learn that they had been duped.
One victim of the scam, Reginald Birchall, tried to get in on the scam himself and ended up conning two English men to come to Oxford County. One of the men, Frederick Benwell, was taken to see Birchall's so-called farm near Woodstock but never returned.
Benwell's body was discovered in a swamp on the second concession in Blenheim, Watson said, and approximately 100 people went out to the area to look for clues.
When it was all tied back to Birchall, he was tried, convicted and later hanged for the murder.
Woodstock - There are dozens of theories about ghosts and ghost sightings, though in this empirical age, most dismiss the supernatural. Some people believe a ghost is the residual energy of a particularly emotional person or event. Sigmund Freud speculated that ghosts were a projection of the subconscious mind, a psychological expression of our fear of death.
Others are of the opinion that ghosts are "telepathic images," a transmission from the past that replays an event or moment from years ago. A more convoluted theory involves "time slips," though that uses quantum physics and other hard sciences to explain fluctuations in time and space. Of course, ghosts could just be examples of our imaginations at work, self-induced hallucinations that play images across our eyes.
And sometimes a ghost is just Donald Urquhart's horse sleeping in a ditch on a Zorra Township road.
Whatever the reason, or the reality, every municipality in Canada boasts a ghost or two of its own. Oxford County is no exception. Oxford, in fact, boasts a variety of otherworldly spectres, ranging from the tortured spirit of Thomas Cook to a mysterious lady in grey.
The Courthouse Ghost
WOODSTOCK - Poor Isaiah Wright.
In 1903, Wright, a prisoner at the Woodstock jail, was found cowering in his cell after rousing the evening watch with his blood-curdling screams. The terrified convict told the guards he had been tormented by a ghost, three eerie visits during the early morning hours, and begged to be moved to another cell.
One newspaper account from the time identified the ghost as J. Reginald Birchall, a murderer who had been executed in the Woodstock jail yard. Wright was actually locked in cell 13, the same cage that had been Birchall's home before his date with the gallows. Thirteen years previously, on the day of Birchall's execution, Wright had also been the prisoner who had dug the condemned man's grave.
But another newspaper article indicated that Wright's spectre might have been Thomas Cook, the first man to be executed in Oxford County. In 1903, a grave had been discovered at the corner of Dundas and Finkle streets. It seems that Cook's body had never been buried with its coffin. Instead, a medical doctor and his students had surreptitiously purchased the murderer's body before the coffin arrived at the Innerkip cemetery.
But Cook's ghost didn't just torment the poor Mr. Wright. After his ghastly execution, in which Cook's head was parted from its heavyset body, there were rumours of a phantom stalking the Woodstock cellblocks. Cook's troubled spirit was still making mischief in the early 1980s, haunting a group of contractors while they renovated the courthouse.
The Ghost of Bob Gourley
EMBRO - The four Gourley brothers could best be described as drunken louts, given to hard liquor and violent, bizarre behaviour. But on Sunday mornings, this quartet of soused bachelors would abstain from the rotgut, instead making the eight-kilometre trip to Embro for church service.
As soon as the minister said his last amen, however, the brothers would begin to drink the hard stuff, fortifying themselves for the long trip back to their farm.
One Sunday during the late summer, Robert Gourley was sitting in the back of the wagon during the sloshed trip home. While the sun slowly disappeared behind the trees, Robert decided it was time for another swig, but a sudden bump on the dusty path made it his very last. The jolt knocked Robert from his perch, slamming him against a tree root and breaking his neck. Robert's twisted body was discovered the next day, still clutching his broken whisky bottle.
For the next two decades, there were stories of a strange figure seen roaming the side road where Robert died. This phantom was always described as short and stout, almost a shadowy gnome skulking through Zorra Township, but its eyes glared like two balls of fire. Witnesses also spoke of the strange noises, the moans and strangled gurgling that announced the spirit. The only word that could be understood, the legends said, was "deoch," which is Gaelic for drink.
The last encounter with Bob Gourley's ghost occurred 20 years after his death, when the phantom met a church elder along the same thickly wooded road. The frightened man held out his Bible, trying to put the Good Book between himself and the spectre, but the gesture had little effect. Instead, to the elder's surprise, the penitent ghost actually spoke. After telling the man the entire wretched tale, the phantom concluded with a promise: "This is the last time I shall appear on earth, for tonight I would have died had I not been killed 20 years ago on this spot through 'deoch.'"
Bob Gourley's ghost was never seen again.
Amidst her inquiry, Watson discovered the bloody history behind Mrs. Ernest Boyd's boarding house, which was located at the intersection of Simcoe and Perry streets.
In 1949, Velibor Rajik, a Yugoslavian emigrant, came to stay at the boarding house and soon he and Mrs. Boyd became romantically involved, Watson said.
"She decided she wanted to leave her husband and family and to be with him...her lover, he didn't like that very much so he stabbed her to death," she said.
"He was the last person to be hanged in Oxford County and that was in 1954."
Oxford County's most "famous ghost"
Thomas Cook, who Watson described as an overweight, angry alcoholic, moved to Canada from Nottingham, England, in 1848 and married into a prominent Innerkip family.
Cook's wife and son passed away and Cook later remarried.
On July 21, 1862, witnesses told police they saw Cook choking his second wife, Bridget, who was found dead shortly after.
"He was the very first person that was publicly hanged for murder in Woodstock and 3,400 people showed up to watch his hanging," Watson said.
"When they hanged him...they didn't account for obese size and the shock from the fall was so great that is severed his head from his body."
Watson said the public health building in Woodstock, which was previously the city's jail, still has Cook's death mask on the outside of the building.
"The custom used to be they would make a death mask of the person after they were hanged to deter criminals. This was the only time in Woodstock's history that they actually made the death mask," she said.
Watson said Cook's ghost is rumoured to haunt the unused fourth floor of the courthouse.
Elizabeth Ann Tilford:
In 1935 there was the case of Elizabeth Ann Tilford, who was the only woman to be hanged in Oxford County.
"She was on her third husband and was slowly poisoning him with arsenic. He figured something was wrong because he was sick and he begged his parents that after he died to have his body analyzed," Watson said.
"The autopsy proved that he had been poisoned so then they started wondering about her second husband because he had died mysteriously as well."
Watson said that the body of Tilford's second husband was exhumed but was too badly deteriorated for examination.
Norman Garfield:
Former wrestler and candy store merchant Ben Johnson was working at his Dundas Street shop one evening in 1921 when it was held up.
The perpetrator, Norman Garfield, killed Johnson and was later apprehended by police.
"(Garfield) didn't want to die by the gallows so he swallowed a large quantity of ground glass," Watson said.
"The doctors worked really hard and saved him and, a couple of days later, he was actually hanged."
Benwell Swamp Murder:
In the late 1880s and early 1890s, a farming scam was circulating in the area, advertising free farming education and partnerships to men in England, Watson said.
English men would pay a fee, come to Oxford County and quickly learn that they had been duped.
One victim of the scam, Reginald Birchall, tried to get in on the scam himself and ended up conning two English men to come to Oxford County. One of the men, Frederick Benwell, was taken to see Birchall's so-called farm near Woodstock but never returned.
Benwell's body was discovered in a swamp on the second concession in Blenheim, Watson said, and approximately 100 people went out to the area to look for clues.
When it was all tied back to Birchall, he was tried, convicted and later hanged for the murder.
Woodstock - There are dozens of theories about ghosts and ghost sightings, though in this empirical age, most dismiss the supernatural. Some people believe a ghost is the residual energy of a particularly emotional person or event. Sigmund Freud speculated that ghosts were a projection of the subconscious mind, a psychological expression of our fear of death.
Others are of the opinion that ghosts are "telepathic images," a transmission from the past that replays an event or moment from years ago. A more convoluted theory involves "time slips," though that uses quantum physics and other hard sciences to explain fluctuations in time and space. Of course, ghosts could just be examples of our imaginations at work, self-induced hallucinations that play images across our eyes.
And sometimes a ghost is just Donald Urquhart's horse sleeping in a ditch on a Zorra Township road.
Whatever the reason, or the reality, every municipality in Canada boasts a ghost or two of its own. Oxford County is no exception. Oxford, in fact, boasts a variety of otherworldly spectres, ranging from the tortured spirit of Thomas Cook to a mysterious lady in grey.
The Courthouse Ghost
WOODSTOCK - Poor Isaiah Wright.
In 1903, Wright, a prisoner at the Woodstock jail, was found cowering in his cell after rousing the evening watch with his blood-curdling screams. The terrified convict told the guards he had been tormented by a ghost, three eerie visits during the early morning hours, and begged to be moved to another cell.
One newspaper account from the time identified the ghost as J. Reginald Birchall, a murderer who had been executed in the Woodstock jail yard. Wright was actually locked in cell 13, the same cage that had been Birchall's home before his date with the gallows. Thirteen years previously, on the day of Birchall's execution, Wright had also been the prisoner who had dug the condemned man's grave.
But another newspaper article indicated that Wright's spectre might have been Thomas Cook, the first man to be executed in Oxford County. In 1903, a grave had been discovered at the corner of Dundas and Finkle streets. It seems that Cook's body had never been buried with its coffin. Instead, a medical doctor and his students had surreptitiously purchased the murderer's body before the coffin arrived at the Innerkip cemetery.
But Cook's ghost didn't just torment the poor Mr. Wright. After his ghastly execution, in which Cook's head was parted from its heavyset body, there were rumours of a phantom stalking the Woodstock cellblocks. Cook's troubled spirit was still making mischief in the early 1980s, haunting a group of contractors while they renovated the courthouse.
The Ghost of Bob Gourley
EMBRO - The four Gourley brothers could best be described as drunken louts, given to hard liquor and violent, bizarre behaviour. But on Sunday mornings, this quartet of soused bachelors would abstain from the rotgut, instead making the eight-kilometre trip to Embro for church service.
As soon as the minister said his last amen, however, the brothers would begin to drink the hard stuff, fortifying themselves for the long trip back to their farm.
One Sunday during the late summer, Robert Gourley was sitting in the back of the wagon during the sloshed trip home. While the sun slowly disappeared behind the trees, Robert decided it was time for another swig, but a sudden bump on the dusty path made it his very last. The jolt knocked Robert from his perch, slamming him against a tree root and breaking his neck. Robert's twisted body was discovered the next day, still clutching his broken whisky bottle.
For the next two decades, there were stories of a strange figure seen roaming the side road where Robert died. This phantom was always described as short and stout, almost a shadowy gnome skulking through Zorra Township, but its eyes glared like two balls of fire. Witnesses also spoke of the strange noises, the moans and strangled gurgling that announced the spirit. The only word that could be understood, the legends said, was "deoch," which is Gaelic for drink.
The last encounter with Bob Gourley's ghost occurred 20 years after his death, when the phantom met a church elder along the same thickly wooded road. The frightened man held out his Bible, trying to put the Good Book between himself and the spectre, but the gesture had little effect. Instead, to the elder's surprise, the penitent ghost actually spoke. After telling the man the entire wretched tale, the phantom concluded with a promise: "This is the last time I shall appear on earth, for tonight I would have died had I not been killed 20 years ago on this spot through 'deoch.'"
Bob Gourley's ghost was never seen again.