A Horrible Haunting in St. John’s
Published in The Evening Telegram on January 1, 1908, the following account has to be one of the most disturbing hauntings ever recorded in St. John’s, NL. The names of those involved have been lost, and the exact location of the house is unknown. Perhaps that is for the best.
Coming Home
A gentleman, newly returned to St. John’s after some time in the United States, leased a house for the winter with his wife. The place suited their needs well enough—quiet, sturdy, unremarkable. To secure the property, the wife paid three months’ rent in advance, confident they had found a comfortable home.
That first evening, they settled in without concern, pleased with their good fortune. But when night fell and the house grew silent, their sense of security disappeared.
By morning they left, never to return again.
Dragged Through The Dark
In the small hours, the woman awoke to a scene torn from a nightmare. The bedroom, that had seemed warm and quiet, had become a stage for something dreadful. In the dim glow of the moonlight, two figures stood—no flickering shadows, no tricks of the mind, but solid, unmistakable forms. People. Or, at least, they had been people.
She recognized them at once. A man and a woman, both once prominent citizens of St. John’s. Their names had been spoken with respect in life, their faces familiar in the streets. But those days were long past. The man had been dead for years. The woman, too, was meant to be at rest—buried, mourned, and a memory.
And yet, here she was. Death had not delivered anything like peace.
The man stood rigid, his grip like iron, his fingers twisted deep into the woman’s hair. With slow, merciless force, he dragged her across the wooden floor. She writhed in his grasp, her body contorting in unnatural ways, nails scraping uselessly at the boards as if she might claw her way back to the grave.
Then came the scream.
It was not the scream of lungs and breath, not the sound of any living thing. It was deeper, more primal—a cry that tore through the very bones of the house. The walls shuddered, the air seemed to freeze and fracture, and for a moment, the woman in bed was certain that something inside her had splintered as well.
And then—silence.
The figures were gone. The room was as it had been before, but nothing would ever be the same again for the woman lying in her bed, frozen in terror.
She did not move. She did not breathe. She fell unconscious.
In The Morning
When she came to, the woman rose, left the house, and did not return. No pleading from her husband, no reasoning, no bargain could sway her. What happened in that room—what she had seen—was enough to drive her away forever. The landlord, unmoved by talk of ghosts, kept the three months’ rent.
To this day, no one knows which house it was, only that it still stands somewhere in St. John’s—perhaps nestled among rows of colourful homes, its dreadful history long forgotten. Or perhaps not forgotten at all.
Maybe, in some dark bedroom, on some bitter winter night, they return—the man and the woman, locked in their wretched struggle, playing out their terrible, endless dance.
It could only be a matter of time before someone wakes in the darkness — cold, breathless, and utterly not alone.
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A Ghost Story, The Evening Telegram, January 8, 1908
Offbeat History, January 4, 1961
