Stories are woven; threads of fact and fiction intertwine, sometimes so deftly it's impossible to separate the two. The mystery of Bonavista's Mockbeggar coffins is one of those stories. Strands of historical fact have been dyed with campfire creepiness and the truth is hazy. History has become a ghost story.

Mockbeggar, Bonavista

Mockbeggar is a neighbourhood of Bonavista, a town on Newfoundland's east coast. The town has a long history. Bonavista has been populated for centuries from indigenous North American settlement to Cabot's 1497 landfall to modern rural Newfoundland hub. It has attracted visitors for longer than anyone has been keeping track, and therein lies the mystery of the Mockbeggar coffins.

In a nutshell, a century ago construction work on a canal in Bonavista connecting O'dea's Pond to the ocean (GoogleMaps) revealed coffins containing well-preserved human remains. The bodies inside were dressed in unusual clothing. In July 1922 Rev. William J. Lockyear, writer of the Trinity column in the St. John's Evening Telegram reported:

During the week of excavating for the canal last year several coffins were uncovered, in some of which some clothing was found, vis., a pair of long stockings, three or four inches of the top of another stocking, and a pair of men's dark blue bloomer trousers and a coat, such as the Puritans wore, and such as we see in pictures of them today.

-- William J. Lockyear, Evening Telegram, July 22, 1922

Lockyear goes on to explain that Forbes, the local doctor, had collected and disinfected the clothing, then made it available for inspection at the local drug store. The clothes were described as being in an excellent state of repair, despite having been buried for at least 250 years. If he was right about that date, that puts the burials sometime in late 1600s. While that does seem like quite a long time ago, there are records of the people inhabiting Bonavista at that time.

Lockyer goes on to say that, not only had he had the chance to see the clothes. He had the opportunity to open two more coffins:

The two graves that were opened by the Doctor [Forbes] during my visit, were disappointing in results, as nothing was found in them but the bottom board of the coffins, and that was all but gone. At the head of one grave was a slate stone, broken off nearly level with the ground. The part of it that was under the surface was in perfect condition, and on it were out the letters A. D. W. E. S. L. These letters never formed a part of a word, or words; but evidently they had been cut to experiment with, before attempting to cut them in the regular inscription on the upper part of the stone, which unfortunately for us, had disappeared.

-- William J. Lockyear, Evening Telegram, July 22, 1922

Lockyer points out that the graves he had the opportunity to examine came from dry loam whereas the caskets with the well-preserved clothing came from boggy soil closer to the canal.

Cold climate bogs can do a great job preserving human remains. Decay is inhibited because bogs are acidic and lack oxygen. Unfortunately, once exposed to surface conditions, decay resumes. So, whatever happened to them after they left the bog, the contents of the Mockbeggar coffins are likely severely degraded.

With the passage of time, it's not gotten any easier to figure out who they were.

My 'man-on-the-ground' William Lockyear has some definite ideas. "That they were English I have no doubt," he writes. Lockyer bolstered his assertion by citing the observations of a 'lady who had the courage to closely and intelligently examine the clothing.' She speculated that the graves contained the remains of Puritans who got separated from the rest of their party enroute to Massachusetts.

Lockyer ended his account with an invitation for others to advance, and support, competing theories. In the century that followed, others have done just that..

In 1968, H.M. Heath wrote an article in the Newfoundland Quarterly indicating that at the same time the bodies were uncovered so, too, was a boat. The boat was 25ft long and, like the bodies, well-preserved. Under the belief that the Mockbeggar area had been inhabited by the French, the boat came to be known as "the old French bateau." Heath shares correspondence written by Canon Bayley of Bonavista in 1930. The Canon described the find, in a manner suggesting the locals weren't deeply into archeology -- apparently they broke apart the boat and turned some of the 'jet-black oak" into ornamentation for walking sticks. And, to be fair, rural Newfoundlanders in the early 20th century had seen so many boats, it might be hard to get too excited about one, no matter the wood.

Bayley continued,

"In January of this year [1930] a brass disc— evidently a boat marker — bearing on its face the date 1583, a double eagle, between the heads the letter "G" and other devices, fell into my hands. A second relic has recently been brought to me. This is a copper coin. It was found in a split in the timber of the same boat. The date 1619 is quite clear. This and a boy's face would point to Louis XIII. The fleur-de-lys on the reverse side of the coin would also point to French origin."

-- Canon Bayley, 1930

So in Canon Byley's find, Rev. Lockyear got his wish -- an alternate theory complete with evidence. The date on the coin could mean the boat and bodies are significantly older than Lockyer's speculated 250 years. Pieces of the boat remain but, according to H.M. Heath, by 1968 Canon Bayley's coin and marker had disappeared. Have they turned up in the last 50-ish years? Like so many other things connected to this story -- I don't know.

But before I leave it, I'd like to put in a pitch for proper archeology, because we don't really know the relationship between the boat and the graves. How did 'the old French bateau' wind up in a cemetery? I doubt Puritans/French came ashore built caskets, buried their shipmates, said a prayer then buried their boat. Why is there a boat in a cemetery? I don't know.

Continuing on the theme of my ignorance, in 1946 it’s been reported that more bodies were unearthed during the construction of a bridge across the canal. I can find ample reference to this discovery but little concrete detail on what exactly was found, by whom and how.

Lots of poorly cited accounts say that the bodies of men, women and children were uncovered in the Mockbeggar graves. This assertion has been used to support the claim that it was unlikely French fisherman as they probably would not have had their families with them. Whether the bodies of children were ever unearthed in Mockbeggar in the early 1920s, 1946 or some other period in Bonavista's history, I can't say.

Oral tradition suggests that you didn't always have to dig to have encounters with the Mockbeggar graves. Houses were also built on top of them. And, if caskets were discovered while digging the canal, I have little difficulty believing it: the Mockbeggar/canal area is full of homes.

Revolt of the Spooks

In 1911, a poem appeared in the Evening Telegram (August 9, 1911). Entitled The Revolt of the Spooks, it appears to recount a story of graves disturbed during the building of the railroad and the subsequent haunting of the Mockbeggar neighbourhood. While the author is not credited, the poem is 'signed' "R. July 24, 1911, Bonavista."

I suspect, and it's only a suspicion, the author is a Dr. Rutherford of Bonavista. W.J. Lockyear referred to Rutherford as a Telegram-contributing poet of 'no mean order' in a 1922 article. Lockyer also mentions specific Rutherford poems appearing in The Telegram and those pieces are credited similarly to Spooks.

The careful reader will have noticed that this poem appeared in print a decade before the caskets uncovered in the canal construction. It did appear right about the time the Bonavista Branch of the Newfoundland Railway went into operation (it opened in November 1911). The whole thing might be fiction or maybe, though I've yet to track down a reliable source, graves were disturbed when laying the track to Bonavista. Like so much else, I don't know.

Threads of fact, threads of fiction...

In 2000, the Senior's Resource Centre published Our Lives, a collection of stories collected from Newfoundland elders. One 'ghost story' in the book was offered by Wilson Hayward. He shares a story of Bonavista. "There are caskets up [in Mockbeggar] sitting up on top of the ground in lots of places," said Hayward. He reckoned they were French. In any case, one of these caskets wound up supporting a house. The support post sunk into the mud and came to rest on top of a coffin.

If you've seen Poltergeist, you know what happens next.

If you haven't seen Poltergeist, you can check out Hayward's story, here.

Where the threads of fact and fiction intertwine in Hayward's tale, well, I don't know. It's plausible there were houses on graves, but did it really happen? And hauntings? I'll leave it to you.

It's fact and folktales like Hayward's that have lead to Mockbeggar being considered one of the most haunted places in the country.

Bradley House at the Mockbeggar Plantation Provincial Historic Site supposedly has ghosts and, if you're out-and-about in the neighbourhood and the night wind is just right, locals will tell you that you can hear singing in a foreign language.

I, myself, have not heard them but I don't spend much time in Mockbeggar after dark. Pity really, I love a bit of (other) world music. Then again, maybe these mysterious souls are feeling a little more restful these day.

In recent years, Bonavista has taken to restoring the wetlands around O'dea's Pond. So perhaps, any remaining bodies will be afforded some rest…

After all, hundreds of years as a house post is enough to exhaust any spook.