John Tod House

It isn’t Halloween but writing last week’s post, ‘Ghosts on the Grade,’ put me in the mood for another ghost story.

I’d just clipped an article from the Times Colonist about an 1880s Oak Bay farmhouse whose owner wants to move it so he can re-develop his property. The story noted that the old farmhouse was once part of 406 acres owned by Hudson’s Bay Co. chief factor John Tod.

I knew that the house in the news wasn’t the original Tod House but it reminded me of the great ghost story of that Oak Bay landmark; I’d researched and written about it for the Colonist then became friends with its owners in the 1960s. Fred and Waveney Massie are gone now but Tod House, haunted or no, is still there.

I’ll tell you its spine-tingling tale next week.

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Photo: John Tod house, Victoria, looks peaceful enough now.—HistoricPlaces