James and Wendy Fairbairn at the Severn River Inn
Currently James and Wendy offer four rooms to rent. The inn has two dining rooms and a lounge/bar area. Their chef is European-trained. The dinner menu features two dinner specialties each evening. It has become well-known for excellent soups. The unique setting of the inn by the river provides a lovely location for weddings. They cater to small (50), intimate wedding festivities and corporate conferences.
The owners are well aware of the history and the hauntings of the inn. In fact, they are now part of a new chapter in the continuing ghostly experiences of visitors and overnight guests.
Wendy shared an early encounter of unexplained activity that occurred in the spring of 2005. “We had just installed a French door near the entrance to the inn. It was a self closing door. Two weeks later, at closing time, James and I were sitting at the bar when we noticed that the new door was ajar. This shouldn’t be happening!”
Wendy decided to go and check the door. As she stood up they both watched the door close on its own. Wendy explained, “The door does not stay open. It was as if someone was holding the door open.”
Last September a woman who was driving by the inn, on Highway 11, felt compelled to turn off the road and visit the inn. James stated what happened next. “This woman came in and sat at the bar. She announced almost immediately that she could feel something there. She asked, ‘tell me about the two women.’”
James was taken aback by the woman’s request. James continued the account, “I told her about our chef who at the time resided in room 1. The chef had said that in the two years he had been there, he would occasionally hear two women arguing with each other outside his door. On each occasion he was the only person in the building.”
The woman decided to stay for the evening. She asked James to tell her about the boat.
James added, “The only thing I could think of was the steamer that once travelled the river taking guests to Stanton House on Sparrow Lake.”
The woman responded, “There was a man on that boat who was having an affair with a younger woman and that is why the women were arguing in the hallway.”
Then she asked James if she could see the upstairs of the inn.
James recounted. “I took her upstairs and showed her around. She said she felt a very strong presence upstairs. The spirit, she thought, was transient. She commented, ‘They don’t live here.’ She then walked down the hallway feeling the walls with her hands. She felt a strong presence coming from room 5. Then we went down to rooms 7 and 8. She stood in the hallway between the doors and commented, ‘There is a very strong energy flow between these two rooms.’”
Wendy added, “These two rooms would have been the original living space of the Jackson family. This was where Ida lived.”
James stated what happened next. “We entered room 7. The woman walked up to a wicker chair in the room and touched it. Then she spoke, ‘The person sitting in this chair doesn’t like me.’ I just said ‘okay.’ We left the room and entered the little hallway that leads to room 5. She stood and faced room 5 and observed, ‘Someone had an accident right here. I also see someone with a noose.’”
As far as James was concerned no one had ever died in the building in that manner. He had heard that someone had hanged themselves in the barn that once stood across the street.
Then she left the inn.
James mentioned an experience a former housekeeper had had while cleaning a room. “She wouldn’t say what room. The guests had had a party in the room. The room was quite messy. The housekeeper had felt a heaviness or tension in the room. When she was standing by the doorway she was tapped on the shoulder. She looked around, but no one was there. Then she felt the heaviness leave the room.”
A group of employees from Manual Life were once involved in a conference at the inn. One person in the group kept teasing another member of their group about ghosts.
James shared what happened next. “By late evening everyone went off to bed. The man who had tormented his friend about ghosts earlier in the evening was the first to appear in the morning. He looked like he had never slept. During the night his cell phone would ring and it lit up on several occasions, but then it would shut off. He was staying in room 5. He heard noises during the night and felt extremely uncomfortable. He refused to stay there any longer and left the conference.” And the stories continue ….
Was it disturbing for the spirits to have a rapid succession of owners? Did that stir them up? Or was it divers? Activity in these places I have visited is definitely still occurring and would actually seem to be on the increase. Is this because of the time in which we live or has writing about ghosts actually stirred them up and made them more powerful? Does the opportunity to be acknowledged appeal to those who need somehow to communicate? Thoughts to ponder — a little history and a little mystery exist here, so stop and see which era it might be that you will visit.* You might find a new mystery of your own.
* The Severn River Inn is currently closed.
The Mackenzie Inn
~ Kirkfield ~
Author’s note: A name in this chapter has been changed to respect the privacy of a “sensitive” who felt presences in the house. Another individual is not named at all in order to protect the identity of a man who may have been falsely accused, here, of a horrible crime.
It must have seemed like a dream to the villagers of Kirkfield, Ontario, when in 1888, William Mackenzie built a forty-room mansion in their midst. To this day one can marvel at the sight.
This mansion still holds a spell over this tiny settlement in Victoria County. There is a power there, a veil of intrigue and mystery that permeates the house and grounds. One can sense “something” when one crosses the threshold, a feeling, a premonition of the unveiled.
The Mackenzie Inn, as it is referred to today, reflects an era now gone, an era when money could buy whatever you desired. And it is a fact that those who created this grandeur have not left it. The surrounding area is also steeped in Scottish lore and so, whatever you do, never let anyone step on your shadow!
My first acquaintance with the Mackenzie mansion occurred when I was researching a book on old Ontario homesteads in 1979. I remember how this building caught my eye and how I was drawn to stop and inquire. As majestic as it was, its one-time presence was also obviously faded; I was hooked.
A warm Irish family, the MacDonald-Rosses, owned the estate at that time, including the gatehouse, which had been turned into a restaurant, and the log cabin across the street. They worked day and night to save the estate from ruin. Their earnest efforts were, eventually, fruitless and they, too, had their misfortunes and left. The MacDonald-Rosses had become part of the failed dream, part of the mystery and intrigue. To those who dream, this mansion is a castle.
Sir William Mackenzie, Canada’s railway baron, dreamed the first dream. The story began with John Mackenzie, born in 1810, in Ross-shire, Scotland. In 1832, John and his wife left Scotland for Canada where they landed first in Montreal, and then Toronto. In late 1836 they were assigned two lots in Eldon Township, Victoria County, and
