The Chronicles Blog

(Part 3 )

It appears that the anti-vaxxing truckers’ protest that besieged Ottawa and blocked cross-border points, inconvenienced 1000s of fellow Canadians and cost the nation 100s of millions of dollars, has been shut down by police.

The crisis reached the point that, for only the second time in history, the Emergency Act was invoked.

In trying to compare the ‘On-To-Ottawa Trek’ by thousands of unemployed men in 1935 to the three-week-long occupation of Ottawa, next week’s Chronicle is based upon the recollections of onetime Lake Cowichan resident and Spanish Civil War veteran Ronald Liversedge.

His account of the Woodward’s fracas and the eight-hour occupation of the Vancouver Public Museum, as seen from the inside of the unemployed workers’ protests, is, as to be expected, partisan.

That said, however, his description of the events leading up to the Ottawa Trek, as he recalled them while living in Lake Cowichan in the 1960s, is accepted as being one of the best accounts of these epoch events in Canadian history.

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PHOTO: Street barbecues, yes, but no need of soup kitchens for the protesting truckers in Ottawa. —Public Domain

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(Part 2 )

In trying to compare the ‘On-To-Ottawa Trek’ by thousands of unemployed men in 1935 to the continuing occupation of Ottawa and the blockading of crucial border crossings by anti-vaxxing truckers and their supporters, this week’s Chronicle is based upon the “recollections” of onetime Lake Cowichan resident and Spanish Civil War veteran Ronald Liversedge.

As we saw last week, in 1934, preparations were underway in Vancouver for a general strike across B.C. Thousands of single men had rebelled against government-run relief work camps where they’d laboured for their board and 25 cents a day.

What they wanted was real work—real jobs with pay cheques that enabled them to live their lives as productive and contented citizens, to look to the future with hope and optimism.
But this was the Great Depression, the Dirty ‘30s.

The capital systems of the entire western world had foundered after the stock market crash of 1929. Canada was no exception. As noted last week, 30 per cent of the Canadian labour force was out of work, one in five Canadians were dependent upon government relief for survival, and the unemployment rate remained above 12 per cent until Canada began to prepare for another world war—and workers were again wanted.

For most of 10 years, federal and provincial governments met the challenges hesitantly, uncertainly, even reluctantly, often with downright cavalier and niggardly responses. The result was social unrest such as Canada had never seen before.

Until now if one wishes to equate what’s happening in Ottawa and at border crossings to the events of 1934-35.

Please note: In recounting these historic events, l would make known that, although I’m generally empathetic, my own beliefs don’t totally agree with those of Mr. Liversedge and company of 87 years ago. I’d also point out that the participation of acknowledged Communists in the Trek to Ottawa didn’t corrupt the protest.

It was a march to demand that the federal government do more to meet the suffering of millions of Canadians—including, as we’ll see, many of those who were employed.

I also remind readers that Liversedge’s account of the Trek-To-Ottawa is accepted as being, overall, historically accurate.

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(First of two parts)
I seem to recall having recently presented you with a case of history, sort of, repeating itself.

One could argue that the ongoing (as of time of writing) truckers’ protest in Ottawa is another case of deja vu. The precedent, for those of us who know even a smattering of Canadian history, is the 1935 On-to-Ottawa Trek of the unemployed in 1935. This was mid-Depression, the worst ever experienced by Canadians.

There, all similarity ends. Not only in protesters’ modes of transport and their stated aims, but particularly in the way the two protest movements have conducted themselves, and the responses by various levels of government.

We’re talking the difference between day and night.

In the 1960s, Ronald Liversledge who’d been one of the leading participants of this epochal event in Canadian history, was living in Lake Cowichan when he wrote Recollections of the On-To-Ottawa Trek, 1935.

Originally self published in a cheap and crude format “produced by volunteer labour,” it was reissued in standard paperback format in 1973. Despite the author’s pro-labour viewpoint and his personal participation, it’s considered to be one of the best accounts of the events leading up to and during the protest that ended in tragedy for some of the protesters and a policeman.

It’s easy to think that, because Ronald Liversledge was one of the ‘ringleaders” of this cross-country protest, his account is suspect. The fact is, it has a distinct aura of truthfulness and most historians, it seems, accept his version as being honest and incisive.

It should be required reading in Canadian schools.

When you read next week’s Chronicle, compare the circumstances described by Mr. Liversledge to news accounts of those which led up to the current debacle in Ottawa. If ever there was a time to really learn from history, this is it!
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PHOTO: Eighty-seven years ago, thousands of unemployed couldn’t protest with trucks—they had no gas. So they ‘rode the rails’ eastward from Vancouver, determined to present themselves directly to the R.B. Bennett government in Ottawa. They made it as far as Regina where they were met with mounted police and bullets. www.labourheritagecentre.ca

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Years ago, when I was still writing the Chronicles in the Cowichan Valley Citizen, I received a complaint from a young woman I knew to be an activist for her gender. (I’m trying not to say, feminist.)

She accused me of not writing about women pioneers, only men.

She hadn’t been paying attention. I was able to reel off a list of women whose stories I’d told from my days of writing for the Colonist to that point in time in the Citizen. To name just a few, locally, provincially and nationally:

—Annie Duncan
—Clara Gravenor
—Johanna Maguire
—Elizabeth Sea
—Minnie Paterson
—Nellie Cashman
—Laura Secord
—And numerous others

There were more but I’m not going to dig for them now. Yes, by far, my articles were male-oriented because, folks, that’s the way it was. The British Columbia frontier was, for decades, predominately a man’s world for the simple fact that there were very few women. They came later.

Which isn’t to say I couldn’t have tried harder to be more inclusive. But when working to deadline, as I almost always was doing in those days (in truth, nothing’s changed), I followed the line of least resistance. So men’s adventures, achievements, conflicts and failures it was...

But enough. The lady’s complaint did give me pause for thought which, in my usual roundabout way, brings us to next week’s Chronicle. For years now, and I do mean years, I’ve had a book on my desk that contains an article about a truly amazing woman who so impressed me that I’ve wanted to write about her.

But there’s always something to do and I’d need the publisher’s permission to make use of the firsthand content so I kept putting it off and off and off. The book I’m referring to is Volume 13 of Boundary History, published by the Boundary Historical Society boundaryhistorical@gmail.com.

Well, this week I bit the bullet and emailed them, asking for permission. Talk about service!

Within half an hour I had a response from Doreen Sorensen, Secretary, saying she’d pass my request on to her board of directors. Next day, I had their approval. All they asked in return is that I acknowledge the BHS which, as you see, I’m doing here.

So who is the heroine who so impressed me that I’ve kept her at my elbow all this time?

Hands up, those of you who recognize Bea Zucco. To quote the BHS, “From miner’s wife and mother in the bush to champion on the steps of the provincial legislature, and more, Bea...travelled a unique path. Her story is an inspiration.”

Quite simply, her husband, a miner, became terminally ill with the dreaded occupational hazard and ‘widow-maker,’ silicosis. But there was no workman’s compensation, no government interest, just the old story of “so sad, too bad...”

Mrs. Zucco, like 100s of other miners’ widows with young children to care for, was on her own. She resolved to fight to have the disease officially categorized as a hazard of the workplace and a threat to workers’ health. Her years-long struggle took her all the way, as noted by the BHS, to the Provincial Legislature.

That’s the Bea Zucco I’m going to tell you about next week. A workers’ champion who has received too little recognition. As I’ve long argued, we Canadians just don’t seem to honour our heroes, male or female. Ironically, in the few cases where we have done so, we’re now hellbent on tearing down their statues and their reputations.

But no editorializing; just the story of Bea Zucco who, unable to save her own husband, set out to save the lives of 1000s of others—and succeeded.

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PHOTO: —Grand Forks Gazette

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Genealogists have a field day with Vital Statistics; they’re a treasure chest for family researchers and historians alike.

But, of course, they really don’t tell you much beyond the barest of bones. Take, for example, this one:

BIRTH 1826

DEATH 22 May 1874 (aged 47-48)
Victoria, Capital Regional District, British Columbia, Canada

BURIAL Unknown

Now what’s an author/historian/storyteller supposed to do with that?

Not a heck of a lot, obviously, unless you have access to other sources. So, to answer the old puzzle, which comes first, the chicken or the egg, the answer is to seek out details like vital statistics after we’ve discovered a story.

Often that source is a newspaper. Which is how I chanced upon the fascinating man whose statistics are given above. When I worked for The Daily Colonist, as it was when I was still a lad, I’d spend my evening supper break in the morgue, or library, digging through what were known as the vertical files—clipping files of old news stories, some of them going back decades.

Or straining my eyes on the microfilm machine with its green light and purple print.

How I cursed the genius who came up with that colour combo; an hour or so was almost sure to bring on the start of a headache even for young eyes.

But the point of the exercise, after all, was to access the wealth of old Colonists and Victoria Daily Times with their millions of stories on those rolls of 35mm film. To a newbie such as I, who was just beginning to grope my way into the incredible repository that is our provincial history, that microfilm machine, for all its crudity, was the key.

So I carried on, straining my eyes, making notes then advancing to using a typewriter alongside. To get to the point, one of those great discoveries came when, working my way through the British Colonist a year at a time, I came to 1904—and to D.W. Higgins.

I’ve introduced you to D.W. several times in these pages, even letting him tell you about the Christmas dinner that almost cost him his life, in his own words. What I found in those 1904 Colonist’s were a series of articles, reminiscences, he later compiled in two books. Highly collectible today are The Mystic Spring and The Passing of a Race.

Modern researchers such as the late, local David Ricardo Williams have criticized Higgins’ claim to have been on the inside of almost every major news story over his 50-year-long journalistic and political career, most of it in Victoria.

In particular, they fault him for his use of reconstructed dialogue.

So be it. I accept that Higgins was, in fact, privy to details of the great political events, many of the leading the pioneer personalities and details of the major crimes of his day. I do acknowledge that he isn’t always 100 per cent accurate (who is?) and that he likely embellished his own role in them.

But I refuse to look a gift horse in the mouth. To read Higgins’ stories, for all their purplish prose, as judged by our contemporary standards, has been a joyful voyage of discovery for me. The subject of this week’s Chronicle was one of the very first of D.W.’s stories that I found and I’ve been following in his shadow ever since.

The story of ‘Happy’ Tom Schooley, as told here, is as much mine as it is D.W.’s but he experienced and recorded it first, a fact I respectfully acknowledge.

Speaking of cold statistics, as I did earlier, I’ll give you a hint from another clerical entry relating to Thomas Schooley: Miner, age 38 (sic), executed for the murder of Henry Foreman.

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere!

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PHOTO: A foggy fall shot of the historic Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria B.C. So wrote Sheryl Walker of this moody scene used as a cover photo for the Old Cemeteries Society’s Stories Beyond the Graves in Victoria, B.C. It’s that imposing dark headstone on the left that prompted me to dig into my archives for this week’s Chronicle.

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I’ve often wondered why some people seem hyper-sensitive to their family histories; sometimes to the point of burning old papers, photos and other memorabilia that should have been passed on to future generations.

Personally, I’ve often joked that if my great grandfather was hanged for cattle rustling I’d revel in the fact. (Think of it as colour!)

Well, a lady researching her family history approached me in October about one of her forefathers whom I’d written about, years ago. As it happened, a fellow scribe had just picked up on that very issue of the Citizen back when the Chronicles appeared there, so I forwarded her a copy of his post.

(It saved me having to dig into my files.)

From his post, which he based on my column, she clearly saw that her antecedent on her mother-in-law’s side of the family was both a cattle rustler and an attempted murderer whose chosen career as a frontier hellion was cut short by the dreaded ‘Hanging’ Judge Begbie.

Rather than cringe with embarrassment, she wants to know more.

So, Louise, I’m giving you both barrels in next week’s Chronicles. Readers are welcome to come along for the ride if they so desire.

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PHOTO: As if farming on the Cowichan frontier wasn’t challenging enough, having a gunslinging cattle rustler for a neighbour was salt in the wound! —Author’s collection

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You may recognize the names of renowned Victoria architects Samuel Maclure and Francis Rattenbury who’s as well remembered for his having been murdered by his wife’s lover as he is for having designed the B.C. Parliament Buildings.

But how about Thomas Hooper?

Not only are his wonderful creations all over the Greater Victoria landscape but he has left another, far, far more tantalizing legacy. Many of his homes and buildings are believed to be haunted!

So much so that some honestly believe that he practised black magic while achieving his architect’s credentials—that he baptized his first buildings with human sacrifices.

Sound far-fetched?

Of course it is. But those stories about his creations, some of them credibly vouched for, of ghostly images, mysterious doings and things that go bump in the night are too many to be ignored. Hence his title among paranormalists as “the haunted architect.”

You’ll hear the whole ghostly tale in next week’s Chronicles.

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Way back in the Dark Ages, 1977 to be exact, I completed a three-week-long blitz of dozens of southern mainland B.C. ghost towns while researching a never completed series of books on the subject.

Among the many sites I visited in the Similkameen District was Coalmont, 11 miles (18km) northwest of Princeton, and mountainside Blakeburn, located southwest of the confluence of Granite Creek and the Tulameen River.

Coalmont, which was the railhead connection to the Kettle Valley Railway for the Blakeburn Mine, still has 80 permanent and 20 seasonal residents.

Not so Blakeburn. But for the collapsing remains of some log cabins and wood-framed houses, a tramway tower, concrete ruins and scarred landscape, there’s virtually nothing to show that this was once a thriving community of 500 souls.

Nothing in the way of a memorial to the 45 men of the Blakeburn Mine who, on Black Wednesday, Aug. 1, 1930, were victims of an horrific explosion and who are buried in a collective grave in the Princeton Cemetery.

This seemed so very, very wrong to me, and so I wrote when I first told the story of that black day in Blakeburn in 1930. Several years later, I was researching in the Provincial Archives and was recognized by a man who said he was writing a book on Blakeburn.

He informed me that that he’d read one if my books on ghost towns and was motivated by my comment about the lack of any kind of on-site memorial at Blakeburn. He said that the local historical society had erected a signboard at Blakeburn and he thanked me for giving them the idea.

Well, fast-forward to 2021 and the signboard has again been stolen.

Wrote Bill Kellett in November: “I was saddened today to discover the sign which had been erected at the former Blakeburn site has been stolen for the second time! It is indeed unfortunate that there are idiots among us who feel the need to engage in this sort of thing!”

I must say that Bill is much politer that I am...

The story of the heroic attempts to rescue the trapped Blakeburn coal miners 90 years ago is heartrending and should never be allowed to be forgotten. I’ll do my best to keep that memory alive in next week’s Chronicles.

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This capsule preview of next week’s Chronicles comes to you courtesy of Wikipedia:

Sewell Prescott "Sue" Moody (1834 – November 4, 1875) was a carpenter and Yankee trader from Maine, United States. He bought the Moodyville Sawmill Co. in 1865 in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, which was facing bankruptcy and established Moodyville, the first European settlement on Burrard Inlet….”

Two more lines give the names of his parents and children and the fact that he died in an 1875 shipwreck.

Talk about the tip of the iceberg!

Look just a little deeper and you’ll find the truly fascinating story about a truly remarkable pioneer who left his mark on British Columbia maps. I’ll prove it to you in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Among his other accomplishments, pioneer sawmill owner Sewell Moody sent a message from beyond the grave. —Wikipedia

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In my recent caption for the coming Christmas Chronicle, I sort of joked that, thanks to email, hardly anyone mails Christmas cards any more, with or without an envelope.

It wasn’t always so, of course. For more than three-quarters of a century Christmas cards were mailed in western world countries by the millions each November-December. But that’s all changed now.

One can argue that our digital technology is to blame. Why use “snail mail” when you can send and receive an email anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes? It’s much less personal than a card but... But.

I believe there’s more to it than that, however. Mail delivery as I knew it from childhood through middle age or so, was—or seemed—to be much more of a bedrock Canadian institution; something that people trusted, used and relied upon without a second thought. Long before the internet and couriers we had ‘posties’ in uniform going their rounds with their black bag hanging over their shoulders, the red boxes at strategic intersections, daily (well, Monday-Friday) home deliveries. Not only rock-solid dependable but inexpensive.

Have you mailed anything lately? Did you suffer sticker shock?

In short, times have really, really changed. That old expression, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” is pure nostalgia now.

But it was that way once. In next week’s Chronicles I tell you of the day when the B.C. mail went through, come hell or high water, sometimes at the risk of the carrier’s safety, even his life.

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Christmas Day, 1858. For pioneer journalist D.W. Higgins, this was his most memorable Yuletide of all—the time Christmas dinner almost cost him his life.

That’s next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Shades of Shirley Temple! I found this wonderful photo at a charity sale in Duncan years ago; I’d love to know the identity of the little girl and if she’s still around. (Proving once again that there oughta be a law that people must write the who, the when and the where on the backs of their family photos!)

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Well, COVID or no, it’s that time of year—Christmas 2021.

And Christmas isn’t complete, of course, without decking the halls with boughs of holly, i.e., home decorating. Then there’s gift giving and meal preparation and, and, and, all pandemic permitting...

All of these require not just the time and trouble of planning and setting them in motion but....money.

So, to make things easier for you, I’m going to take you back in time to a century ago, to December 1921 when (if we don’t factor in inflation) prices were cheap.

And to promote you to shop locally I’m going to visit exclusively Duncan stores where you’re sure to find everything you and your family’s hearts desire. But be warned: you can’t use your credit cards—they haven’t been invented yet!


As for credit, period, well, that could be dicey if you hadn’t already established a good working relationship with your grocer, butcher and general store.

Whatever, that’s next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Originally, Christmas cards were printed in postcard format and mailed without an envelope. Now, thanks to email, hardly anyone mails them, with or without an envelope, at all! --Author’s collection

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Lost treasure is where you find it—quite possibly under your very nose!

I offer this as encouragement to armchair enthusiasts who confine their treasure hunting to books, television, movies and daydreams. Ironically, few realize that, while there definitely is gold in some of 'them thar hills,' it can also exist, in various forms, much closer to home.

It might well, in fact, be under your very nose, unsuspected, at this precise moment.

Don’t believe me?

How about these recent newspaper headlines:

• Unopened Nintendo game from 1987 sells for $870,000
• GP finds painting in Courtenay thrift store that could be worth a small fortune
• Rare Coin in a Candy Tin Sells At Auction For $350,000

Or, better yet, the so-called Saddle Ridge Hoard. I quote:

“One day in April 2014, a California couple was on a walk with their dog when they found a metal can sticking out of the ground, according to Dan Whitcomb of Reuters. Rusted from age, they were able to open the can after digging it out finding a large cache of gold coins inside...”

Okay, that one’s a real exception. But don’t kid yourself; treasure, like beauty, can be in the eye of the beholder. Some valuables can look to be anything but.

I’ll tell you about some interesting treasures closer to home that have, in some cases, enriched their finders, in next week’s Chronicles.

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I've wanted to write this story for years.

But I was missing a key element so set it aside then misfiled it. It's been so long now that I don't remember how I happened to learn of it in the first place.

The file turned up while I was researching the Remembrance Day edition of the Cowichan Valley Citizen. I'm still missing that key element--exact details of the Second World War British submarine HMS Totem's spooky link to the Cowichan Valley.

To Cowichan Tribes, to be exact.

But I'm going to tell the story, anyway, what I know of it, in next week's Chronicles. If you simply enjoy naval history, you're in luck. If you're not into ships, naval or otherwise, but you're a believer in the paranormal, this story could be right out of television's iconic Twilight Zone!

That's next week in the Chronicles.

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It wasn't long after I began researching B.C. and west coast shipwrecks that I first read of the sinking of the S.S. Islander. The Victoria-based coastal passenger liner had struck an iceberg in Alaska's Lynn Canal during the Klondike gold rush.

Little did I realize that the day would come when I'd have a direct connection to this historic tragedy.

Among the 42 victims of the Islander were Andrew (Andres) Keating Sr. and his two sons. Keating, who was so rich that he'd once owned much of downtown Los Angeles, had retired to the Cowichan Valley, bought up 1000s of acres, and built one of the most unusual manor houses in the province.

The property on which I have my home, on Koksilah Ridge just south of Duncan, was subdivided from the large Keating estate which has since been reduced to 50 acres. Fortunately, his iconic mansion, my neighbour, has been restored.

There are three fascinating elements to the story of the S.S. Islander: her avoidable sinking with great loss of life, the subsequent attempts to salvage her reputed fortune in gold, and Andrew Keating.

In the second and concluding instalment I'll tell you of the incredible attempts to salvage the Islalnder's treasure--attempts that spanned 60 years! I'll also tell you more about Andrew Keating and his unusual manor-house in next week's Chronicles.

PHOTO: The ill-fated steamship Islander drew treasure hunters right up to the mid-1990s. --Wikipedia

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It really is a small world...

As a kid I thrived on shipwrecks--in magazines and books, anyway. Photos in National Geographic and travel magazines of rusted hulks on semi-tropical beaches, underwater scenes of Spanish treasure galleons, and of Second World War naval ships on the sea bottom in the southern Pacific really turned me on.

By junior high school I was into reading the salvage epics of Capt. Harry Ellsberg and others then, years later, watching the underwater explorations of Capt. Jacques Cousteau and the incredible deep, deep dives on the Titanic by Dr. Robert Ballard on TV.

Long before then I'd made the wondrous discovery that British Columbia had its own shipwrecks--1000s of them!

In fact, a stretch of the west coast of Vancouver Island was known as the 'Graveyard of the Pacific' and for 'a wreck for every mile'.

I set out to catalogue them; a pursuit I finally gave up as being too big, too time consuming and, arguably, to no real purpose. But I did begin to write about them--perhaps several 100 by now, in newspaper and magazine articles and two books.

I came to joke that I'd sunk more ships than Nelson--in print!

Early in that pursuit I'd read of the sinking of a coastal passenger liner, the S.S. Islander, after she struck an iceberg in Alaska's Lynn Canal during the Klondike gold rush. Little did I realize that the day would come when I'd have a direct connection to that historic tragedy.

That day is now and every day; the property on which I have my home, on Koksilah Ridge just south of Duncan, was subdivided from the large Keating estate. Mr. Keating Sr. and his two sons went down with the Islander.

There are three fascinating elements to the story of the Islander: her sinking with great loss of life, the subsequent attempts to salvage her reputed fortune in gold, and Mr. Keating.

Worthy of a 'sidebar' of his own, he was incredibly rich--t'was said that he once owned much of downtown Los Angeles--and he built a mansion which, long run-down, has since been restored and is itself is something of a mystery.

All that and more in next week's Chronicles.

PHOTO: Fortunately for those aboard the lost liner, the San Francisco Call's report of 65 lives lost was on the high side. --Alaska State Library

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Over the past 24 years I’ve had the privilege of writing the Remembrance Day edition for the Cowichan Valley Citizen. At a calculated guess that would mean close to 150 articles—a lot of words.

All of them honouring what I believe is the most important day of the year: Remembrance Day.

I am the first generation of three of my family who didn’t have to serve my country in war. Both my grandfathers were disabled in the First World War, my great uncle Jim killed; my father and my uncles served in the Second World War and, happily, returned safely.

On the short street in Saanich where I spent my childhood every single man of age but one served in the military, the exception having what was termed an essential occupation in a shipyard.

But I’ve had a free ride, my five years in cadets and three in the reserves don’t count.

So, every year, I willingly take up my ‘pen,’ dig into the files I’ve compiled through the years, and do my best to pay adequate tribute to all the men and women who’ve ever served Canada in uniform, in peacetime, in wartime and in peacekeeping missions.

Bless them one and all!

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As did Alcatraz so too did Victoria have its “birdman.”

Whereas Robert Stroud, a twice convicted murderer, made himself famous through his studies of birds, William W. Gibson achieved immortality by being Victoria’s—Canada’s—Wright Brothers in one.

I was reminded of him by a recent small article in the Times Colonist: Three hectares of the Lansdowne Middle School are being sold for a new French language school.

The connection is this: Lansdowne Middle School and the acres and acres of flat land around it, now all developed as a commercial and residential neighbourhood, was the site of Victoria’s first airport.

But even before the airport, there was aviation activity there—George Gibson’s pioneer attempts to fly his own heavier-than-air, engine-powered aircraft.

‘Birdman’ was the name that doubters and detractors gave him, even laughingly flapping their arms when they met him in the streets.

But he persevered—as you’ll see in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: On Sept. 8, 1920, William Gibson flew the first Canadian-built airplane in all of Canada. His “Twin-plane” crashed during its second flight but Wallace survived.

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There’s nothing quite like a mystery, and Victoria certainly has had her share over the past 180 years.

Some, of course, were solved. Others, like that of the “small haunted cottage” remain unanswered—and as tantalizing today as when they first intrigued Victorians.

And who better to help me tell this multi-faceted tale than our old friend of several previous Chronicles, journalist D.W Higgins?

Next week he and I will take you back to 1859 when a French merchant named Aimie Lassal and his wife built a small cottage at the corner of Victoria’s Kane and Douglas streets. When Lassal died shortly after and she returned to San Francisco, the house was occupied by the Goodwins—who soon regretted having moved in.

That’s next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Halloween ghosts and goblins are just children’s fantasies, right? Certainly Mrs. Goodwin, alone in her bedroom, didn’t think so when the ghostly visitor seized her by the wrist and hissed in her ear, “Make a noise or cry out and you’ll be a dead woman. Hush!” —Pinterest

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