Ghastly, ghostly goings-on around town (Port Dover Maple Leaf)

UNEXPLAINED HAPPENINGS AT LIGHTHOUSE THEATRE, STONEY’S HARDWARE & MORE

October 30, 2024

Port Dover Maple Leaf

By Jacob Fehr

IN celebration of Halloween this week, the Maple Leaf sought out some spooky stories about spectres in Port Dover, speaking to people who could share accounts or legends of seemingly supernatural experiences. What follows is a series of frightening tales of phantoms found in our quiet port…

Ethel Steele and paranormal investigations at Lighthouse Theatre

Perhaps Port Dover’s most famous ghost is believed to be that of Ethel Steele (1881–1979), a local homemaker whose descendants say she had will like her last name.

Mrs. Steele was well known in the area for directing more shows during her lifetime than anyone else at Port Dover’s Town Hall venue, which is now Lighthouse Theatre, and was active in many community organizations, such as the Legion, the Red Cross, and the Rebekah Lodge. She donated proceeds from her midwinter shows to charitable causes.

“Ethel was so much a part of live theatre in Port Dover that it is believed her ghost lives in the building to this day. A photo of her hangs in the second-floor lobby, watching over the events of today,” the theatre’s website states.

Port Dover Harbour Museum curator Katie Graham offered additional information.

“A portrait of Ethel was presented by her children to be hung in the auditorium lobby. It’s tradition for performers to tap her portrait before going on stage, asking Ethel for good luck—as some may say, the spirit of Ethel may still be lingering around. There are stories of computers turning on by themselves and pens flying off desks,” she said.

Lighthouse has had members of a group known as Spirit Hunters Ontario investigate a possible paranormal presence at the theatre multiple times. On October 13, the group returned with guest medium Angel Morgan. Theatre production manager Alice Barnett was in the building for the investigations.

“They always come fully prepared with a lot of equipment. This time around they had five cameras set up, three recorders, dowsing rods, and pendulums,” Ms. Barnett said. “None of the experiences they have are described as scary, they describe the activity here as being very happy in nature.”

She said she hasn’t experienced anything at Lighthouse that seemed supernatural, but some of her coworkers have reported “seeing things move in the corner of their eye, hearing footsteps when no one else is here, and hearing glasses clink together.”

“Lots of folks think the theatre is haunted!” she said.

Ms. Barnett explained Spirit Hunters Ontario members sift the data from investigations, but Lighthouse has not yet received the group’s report on the October investigation.

Hair-raising hijinks at the old haunt

Before it was demolished at the beginning of this year, Norfolk Tavern was believed to be Port Dover’s oldest building, having been built around 1836. Nearly 200 years of history unfurled outside the tavern as it stood through the growth of the community around it.

The tavern’s former owners and customers have told stories about strange goings-on within the building for years, a few of which were reported on by the Maple Leaf last fall. Some people reported seeing objects flying into the air.

Susan McIntyre, who owned the tavern for 17 years with her husband, the late Jim McIntyre, and a group of others, said she believes the building was haunted. She would hear footsteps coming from the recently renovated apartment above the main floor when no one was there.

“The dog’s ears would perk up. I would think Jim was coming home, but there was no one there,” Ms. McIntyre said.

One time, she found all the cupboards in the kitchen seemingly opened on their own. She also recalled a server who said they saw a spectre in The Brig, which operated in the building’s basement. While she remembered a story about someone falling off the tavern’s balcony “over a century ago,” she wasn’t sure if it was true or connected with the staff member’s frightening sighting.

Darryl Swarts and Alana Swarts owned the tavern for 12 years after Mrs. McIntyre’s group sold it to them. He heard lots of ghost stories and even experienced something spooky himself.

One day, the fire alarm sounded from the building’s attic. They found no fire when they checked, but beneath the pulled alarm, they discovered an old copy of a Port Dover Maple Leaf issue that was opened to a page featuring a picture of Darryl’s sister in skating attire. At that time, she lived in the apartment above the hotel but had no knowledge of the old newspaper.

“The Lady in Black” at Port Dover’s east pier

Residents have reported seeing what appears to be a woman dressed in all black near the east pier in Port Dover, especially when there’s stormy weather on the water. Known as “The Lady in Black,” some say the eerie figure looks longingly out at the lake.

Local legends have it that “The Lady in Black” is the spirit of a Port Dover widow whose husband was lost at sea, never to be recovered. Without a body to bury, she couldn’t move past her husband’s tragic fate.

Overwrought with grief, some say the ghost still wears her funeral garb as a reflection of her inability to move on, as if to tell the world she’ll keep waiting to bury her husband. Ms. Graham said “The Lady in Black” has been connected to a home by the lift bridge.

Startling stories from Stoney’s Home Hardware

Employees at Stoney’s Home Hardware have had a handful of uncanny incidents at the store over the last few decades, especially in the 2000s.

Owner Greg Cable recalled one morning decades ago when he was working alone before the store opened. “Because it was early and quiet, I thought about having some music on,” he said. At the time, they had radios in the store not too far from where he was working near the front.

About five minutes later, “all of a sudden, one of the radios turned on,” he said. Struck by the strange occurrence, he checked out the radio and found it working fine. He couldn’t explain why it turned on by itself, especially after thinking about doing it himself.

“We’ve never had one of them turn on by themselves before and haven’t had one do it since,” he said, adding it was a weird experience. “That was my very first one.”

Another time, around midday 10–12 years ago, Mr. Cable was working on an order in the store’s back room with employee Pam Meade. Ms. Meade left the room and started walking down the store’s main aisle. As Mr. Cable passed by the doorway to the main aisle, he saw a bird feeder launch off a shelf and clatter on the floor behind her.

“Something was not happy with me that day,” she said.

“It didn’t roll out of the aisle; it flew out of the aisle. It came at her,” he said. He mentioned that they typically don’t have specific spots on the shelves for birdfeeders, so they couldn’t find where it came from. It was as if it appeared out of nowhere.

“Those are two things that I have experienced that I could not explain,” Mr. Cable said.

One night around closing time a few decades ago, he said an employee “swore she saw a figure walk in the shadows” in the same part of the store where the birdfeeder incident would happen many years later. They looked around to see if a customer was still in the store but didn’t find anyone.

Stoney’s employee John Sinkowski, who has worked at the store for many decades, shared some of his inexplicable experiences.

In the 2000s, his daughter Katie Sinkowski brought paranormal investigators from Toronto to check out the business. Once the group’s leader introduced himself to any spirits who might be listening, the store’s paint-mixing machine turned on.

Using electromagnetic field (EMF) detectors to search for a spike that may indicate a spectral presence, one of the group members recorded a high EMF reading near the front of the store that they couldn’t attribute to a hydro connection. A medium found that “the place was full.”

“The first one I had any connection with, it was closing time and [one of the staff] didn’t want to come to the back because some things had been going on,” Mr. Sinkowski said. They saw a shadowy figure and split up to follow it, thinking it might be a customer, but couldn’t find anyone.

“It was the same height as the EMF reading at the front,” he said. The account strangely resembled Mr. Cable’s experience with another employee seeing a shadowy figure.

During the investigation at the store decades ago, Ms. Sinkowski reportedly felt something touching her. After they went downstairs, a bike suspended from the ceiling started to swing like a pendulum, stopped, then started again. Mr. Sinkowski said it shouldn’t have been possible for it to move like that on its own.

“Nobody touched it. We were just standing there watching them,” he said. He still has recordings of voices captured at the store from that night.

Another time, some employees were setting up displays of Barbie doll clothes and mirrors near each other. Suddenly, and all at once, the Barbie clothes came off the hooks and fell on the floor.

“The next day we came in and all the mirrors were on the floor. We figured somebody didn’t like where we put them,” he said.

One incident involved a customer who Mr. Sinkowski was helping at the time. He said a can of paint came off its shelf and fell straight down, never turning or rotating as if it had slipped from a precarious position. When it landed, its lid didn’t pop like it usually would.

“She just looked at me and left,” he recalled with laughter. “Never said a word, never said nothing.”

He speculates the store’s staggering stories are the work of the spirit of Miss Giles, a woman who he said built the building and operated a dry goods business there for decades during the late nineteenth century. As he understands it, she had no family and bequeathed the store to an employee to continue operating.

“As far as here goes, I think the odds are good—whether you believe or not—it’s Miss Giles. Still looking after the place,” Mr. Sinkowski said.

He speculated that she “still wanted to feel part of the place and was helping out,” or maybe she just “didn’t like” how they arranged those displays they found knocked over.

Originally published October 30, 2024