Hauntings: Mary Ellen Spook

Caledonia Mills in Antigonish county,Nova Scotia is one of the most fearful places in Nova Scotia for reasons that are still unsolved today. Many years ago the legend of the ‘Spook Farm’ became well known and well documented but no explanation ever came from this supernatural event.

It all began when a man named Alexander Macdonald and his wife Mary went to visit one of their friends in New Glasgow,Nova Scotia. Their friend was devastated, telling them her husband had just been killed in a coal mining accident and because her husband was the bread earner, she tearfully admitted that she was no longer able to support her six children.

Out of  sympathy for their friend, the MacDonald’s agreed to take the youngest daughter, Mary Ellen to go live with them in Caledonia Mills. They had a large farm and their oldest daughter was grown and living away from home so they took Mary Ellen and turned her onto one of their own, calling her their daughter.

As time progressed into years the Macdonald’s began to notice a strange black dog that would come up to their doorstep and play with Mary Ellen but oddly if someone else so much as approached it, the dog would simply vanish as if into thin air.

In 1921 things began to get really strange at the Macdonald’s residence when Mary Ellen was 16 years of age but being logical people they chopped it up as coincidence. It first began when they were all in bed one night, a fire had abruptly started and Alexander went down to put it out, thinking it was just a flu fire,however;the fire had not come from the fireplace or woodstove.

Once the first fire had been extinguished, another would burst into flames in a different room of the house and the fires kept unnaturally jumping from room to room, giving off a bluish haze. The family was completely mystified by all of this and even the wet towels they tried to put the fires out with as well as random patches of wall paper would suddenly burst into flames, although, even the fires could not stand up to the Lord. If there was a crucifix or a picture of the Lord the fire would jump it and the holy pictures and crucifixes would be left unharmed.