Hauntings: Mary Ellen Spook

The family awoke many nights to the smell of smoke thereafter until it got to the point they were too scared to go to sleep in fear they would burn to death in their beds. It did not take the family long to figure out that there was something very unnatural taking place in their home. The fires would ignite themselves within different areas of the house and would burn themselves out after a while. The MacDonald’s often heard pounding noises that would accompany them as well.

As time progressed and more of the community began to hear about what was happening, many of the neighbors offered to help by guarding the house in hopes to catch a possible intruding arsonist at play. The fires were relentless continuing to burn,appearing out of nowhere but no arsonists were ever caught throughout all of this.

There fires were just the beginning of the unexplained phenomenas and as time progressed the Macdonald’s would notice things happening in their barn as well. Ashes would be found in their stored milk and the animals would be moved to different locations within the barn. At night Alexander would always lock up the animals in the barn and come the morning the animals would be outside and the lock off the door.

Eventually the family was persuaded by the local authorities to leave so that they could run an investigation into the said incidents. The family left the house one cold December night after 38 fires had been started and investigators moved in. People were intrigued by this case and everything from reporters to doctors volunteered to study it. Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was invited to investigate the mysterious happenings.

Now under investigation, every person who went to the Macdonald’s house experienced the fires, lights and noises and each and everyone of them were unnerved by these happenings. In the end they all came to the conclusion that neither the fires or the other strange happenings that took place in that house were by the work of human hands.

Because all of the strange happenings only began when Mary Ellen moved in, she was branded ‘Mary Ellen Spook.’ Not long after the investigations, the family moved out all together and moved to Antigonish in Nova Scotia and Mary Ellen moved to Ontario, in central Canada.

Above photo:This is Mary Ellen at her residence in Ontario.

No further incidents occurred after the family moved, however; shortly after the house burned to the ground. The only remnants of the house that still remains today is the foundation,luring those who are curious. Locals do not ever go by there at night, even though it is hidden within the woods. It is said that you should never take anything from the house, least you will be cursed. It has been documented that those that did had very bad things happen to them such as their own house burning to the ground.

One of the original journalists who went there to study this strange phenomena along with the others published a report in the Halifax herald in 1922. This report is still in circulation and because it was written in 1922, there are even spelling and grammar mistakes because at that time there were no computers to fix the errors of the reporter. This report can be read at:  Mary Ellen Spook

More Articles By Mystify

What You Don’t Know About Cinnamon

England’s Ancient Healing Wells

Save Our Planet

The Top Five Ways To Give Your Brain A Workout

The Third Eye Fact Or Fiction

The Truth About What It’s Really Like to be an Identical Twin

A Passage Through Time

Copyright © 2009 Tanya Kime-Wallace