What’s Halloween Without a Good Ghost Story
There’s nothing quite like a mystery, and Victoria certainly has had its 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?
* * * * *
As a newspaper editor, D.W. Higgins had an inside track to the news of the day in early Victoria. Among the many stories he recounted in newspaper articles and two books during his retirement is that of the hapless Mrs. Goodwin and her ghostly encounter.
Our story begins in 1859 when a French merchant named Aimie Lassal and his wife built a small cottage at the corner of Kane and Douglas streets. Upon its completion, the Lassals, he young, handsome and of “somewhat swift habits,” she also young and lovely, moved in.
Even 40 years after, Higgins recalled her beauty, her tall and graceful figure, her jet black eyes, “deep as wells,” and her blue-black hair. Proud, witty and vivacious, Mrs. Lassal was an instant success on the local social scene. Her charm and grace made her a natural centre for gatherings, where her musical laugh, Parisian accent and her ability to make visitors “think she sympathized with them in their sorrows and joys” won the friendship of most of Fort Victoria’s leading citizens.
Not only did Ms. Assal capture the hearts of those she met and entertained, but their loyalty and adulation. No social function, no matter how slight, could be organized without Mrs. Lassal’s advice, her opinion carrying such weight that, soon, “her opinion was asked by the society leaders on nearly every subject before a decision was reached.
“In this capacity she became the repository of many family secrets which the possessor should have kept safely locked in the recession of their own hearts.
“But human beings, especially women,” Higgins continued with unabashed chauvinism, “are so confiding that when a person has once earned their confidence there is scarcely any limit to the secrets they will disclose. It often seems as though their hearts are bursting to tell all that they know, and often more than they know, to someone whom they think they can trust.
“When the spool has once begun to turn it scarcely ever ceases to revolve until the thread has all but run out and both ends are in another’s possession.”
For his part, M. Lassal, a merchant with premises on Wharf Street, achieved popularity also. To all appearances he had the best of both worlds: a prosperous business and a beautiful wife.
But, alas, tragedy was in the making.
One afternoon, Lassal returned from his office early to say he was ill. Mrs. Lassal immediately put him to bed and called a doctor who in due course, gave the grim diagnosis: pneumonia. Lassal failed rapidly and, by the next morning, neared the end. Then he was gone, the announcement of his sudden passing literally stunning the small community.
As a measure of his popularity, 100s attended the funeral, Lassal being interred in the Quadra Street Burying Ground (today’s Pioneer Square). Internment locally was just an interim measure, said the widow, as she intended to have his remains shipped back to France to be placed in the family mausoleum.
“The widow’s grief,” recalled Higgins, “was unconsolable. Bowed with woe and with streaming eyes, she gazed at the [sealed] coffin as it was lowered into the grave and the service was read over the remains. On her return to the cottage she was waited upon by several ladies who took turns in watching over her for several days and nights lest in one of her paroxysms she should make away with herself.”
But time heals all wounds and Mrs. Lassal regained her composure.
She had copies made of a daguerreotype of her beloved Aimee which she mailed to friends in California and France as a final memento. Then, in following weeks, she settled her affairs and held a sale of household furniture. That accomplished, she disposed of the cottage and corner lot for a small sum and boarded the mail steamer for California.
Then she was gone, leaving many friends “sincerely sorry to part with the accomplished and captivating lady who had won their hearts and who had been so cruelly bereaved”.
Emily Carr house in James Bay is one of Victoria’s reputedly haunted locations. The Lassals’ cottage has long made way to progress, alas. —Victoria Heritage Foundation
But the Lassals weren’t forgotten. Victorians were reminded of them when the new owner of the cottage moved in with his family. Refurnished and improved, the little house soon again became a centre of social activity where all were welcome. Card games (never with money bets) and piano playing became the order of the evening, with sing-songs and dancing the highlights.
It was in the former Lassal cottage that picnics and parties were planned. One particularly successful outing was a picnic at Elk Lake, attended by many young men and women (well chaperoned), which lasted well into the evening.
When the residents of the cottage, Mr. and Mrs. George Goodwin returned home, they were astonished to find their trim and tidy bungalow had been ransacked by burglars.
“Nearly every movable” object had been disturbed. Furniture was thrown about, drawers pulled and their contents dumped onto the floor. The closets had been searched, clothing torn from their hangers. A settee that Goodwin had purchased from the Lassal furnishings was ripped open, its horse hair stuffing pulled out, and the beds left in a similar state. As a final gesture, the burglar(s) had even pulled up the carpets.
The damage was so great that Mrs. Goodwin broke down, her husband having to take inventory himself. That accomplished, he was even more puzzled than before as nothing was missing. Mrs. Goodwin’s gold watch, left on the mantel, hadn’t been touched, her jewellery, although disturbed, was in its drawer. Even a small collection of good silverware remained.
Although theories as to the identity and motive of the intruder were many, none could offer a solution. One of the investigating constables, despairing of finding a clue, offered the opinion that, whoever the burglar was, he must have been looking for something of value that had been secreted in or about the house by the Lassals and forgotten by the widow when she moved.
Then the affair was more or less forgotten for a few weeks—until the Goodwins had their second unwelcome caller.
Mrs. Goodwin apparently slept in the front bedroom with their one child, Goodwin occupying the back room. As it was a Sunday, both retired early. Both slept soundly until, some time in the middle of the night, Mrs. Goodwin was awakened by a “rustling sound”.
Ears straining, heart pounding, she listened intently for several minutes then, thinking she must have been mistaken, she settled back. At that moment she detected the unmistakable sound of someone moving stealthily across the floor. Thinking it must be her husband, she called out, “Is that you,. George?”
Upon getting no response she reached for the night table to strike a match—to have her arm roughly pinioned and a man’s voice hiss, “Make a noise or cry out and you’ll be a dead woman. Hush!”
Higgins: “The woman’s heart stood still; her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. She strove to speak but could not articulate a sound. Her voice had left her. She weakly struggled to rise and then fell back motionless on the bed...”
What happened after that, she couldn’t tell. All that she remembered of that long and terrifying night was the impression of someone creeping about her bedroom.
With the eventual dawning of a new day she awakened to wonder if it had actually happened at all, or whether she’d dreamed the whole thing. Glancing furtively about the room, she saw that all was in order. But, less than reassured that her caller was gone, she clutched her child to her breast and screamed.
Almost instantly, Goodwin was at her side, revolver in hand. When told of her adventure, he sent for the police. But, as before, there was no answer to the mystery. This time nothing had been disturbed and, as before, nothing had been taken; all windows and doors were firmly latched.
Even the gardens were examined for footprints without result.
It was then that a baffled detective remarked, “It’s our opinion that as nothing has been stolen it is not plunder the thieves sought. They were after something or somebody. Have you an—er—er—that is to say, have you a pretty servant girl?”
Assured that the Goodwins had no servant girl, pretty or otherwise, he concluded: “Well, as you haven’t a pretty servant girl, and as there are no signs to show how the man got in or out, we’ve come to the conclusion that this house is—is haunted!”
At this, Mrs. Goodwin, who had calmed down somewhat, gave another scream and fainted, the police officers beating a hasty retreat.
But the damage was done and “haunted” was the ill-starred cottage from that day forth.
“Superstitious people who had occasion to pass by it after dark hurried by, and many took to the muddy street, fearing to follow the sidewalk. The pretty little evenings that Mrs. Goodwin was in the habit of giving were discontinued indefinitely. Strange voices were said to be heard by the occupants.
In the middle of the night Mrs. Goodwin, who no longer slept alone, would awaken her husband with screams of terror. She was always hearing footsteps in the dark, her arm was often grasped by a strong hand and a raucous voice whispered in her ear, “Make an outcry and you are a dead woman!”
Tormented by the “ghost,” real or imagined, Mrs. Goodwin soon began to show signs of her suffering.
“She became pale and thin. Black half-circles appeared under her eyes as the strain upon her nerves steadily increased. From a good-natured, well-conditioned woman, rolling in good health, she was rapidly wasting away... If a friend called to see her the visitor was constantly looking over her shoulder as if there was something dreadful behind her; something that meant to harm her.”
Although many scoffed at the idea of a ghost, none of Goodwin’s friends, when asked, would assist him in an attempt to “bag his special household bogey”. Several young stalwarts did agree to sit through the night in the front bedroom but, one by one, as the witching hour drew near, they made their excuses and departed.
Asked if they’d heard or seen anything out of the ordinary, they admitted that they hadn’t.. Asked why they’d left poor Goodwin to fight his ghost alone, one said, “Because we couldn’t stand the creepy feeling that ran up our spine and made our hair palpitate and set our blood on end [sic].”
Bowing to the inevitable, the Goodwins moved to other quarters and put the cottage up for rent. But none who knew the story of its midnight marauder that ransacked rooms and whispered sweet threats into a lady’s ear would let the house no matter how low the rent.
When one family, new to Victoria, did move in, they moved out again the very same day. Not because they’d met the ghost but because some helpful soul had given them the Lassal cottage’s history.
Then the house stood empty.
* * * * *
Ironically, the next chapter in the haunted cottage’s tale of misfortune occurred some four years later—half a world away.
This fascinating footnote came about as the result of the visit to Paris of “an English gentleman who had a mercantile interest in Victoria”. While strolling through Paris streets one morning, he paused to admire some of the historic buildings, his guide pointing out the palace window at which King Louis XVI had addressed the mob calling for his head.
As he pondered that historic moment, a party of a dozen or so men and women approached. In the midst of the group was a short and stout man, plainly dressed, of sallow complexion and waxed moustache.
Upon feeling an elbow in his ribs, he turned, and his guide asked him to remove his hat as the approaching figure was that of the emperor, Napoleon III.
But it wasn’t the emperor at whom the Englishman was staring. His eyes were riveted upon the beautiful woman at the emperor’s side; her flowing, jet-black hair, her flashing eyes and her musical laugh as she whispered into the obviously captivated emperor’s ear as the entourage passed by.
Turning back to his guide he asked if he knew the woman’s name, saying that he was sure he’d met her somewhere before.
“Why, that is Mrs. Lassal,” the guide replied, and explained that she was a special friend of the emperor; so much so that the empress was jealous of her hold upon Napoleon and that her husband, M. Lassal, was rumoured to be made a count and appointed as minister to Spain.
Eventually the businessman returned to Victoria where he promptly informed Goodwin of his incredible encounter on a Paris boulevard. Goodwin, at once sensing something was seriously wrong, acquired the services of a grave-digger and rushed to the Quadra Street cemetery. Once the coffin of Aimee Lassal was uncovered, he opened the lid and peered inside.
Instead of dusty bones he found only a jumble of rocks!
Today, what was Victoria’s main cemetery, where Mr. Lassal was supposedly interred, is a park. —Author’s Collection
There were no human remains in the coffin and Goodwin didn’t take long to figure out why. At the time of his “death,” Lassal had been in financial trouble. Through the connivance of the doctor, he and Mrs. Lassal had staged his demise and held an elaborate funeral. While 100s of mourners had paid their final respects at the cemetery, M. Lassal had been on board a ship bound for France!
In deference to the widow’s “unconsolable” grief, no creditor had been so ungentlemanly as to press her with a bill. Thus she’d been able to sell the cottage and its furnishings, then bid fond farewell to Fort Victoria. Following her husband to Paris, Mrs. Lassal had practised her overwhelming charm upon the emperor and, to quote Higgins, “made the fortunes of both”.
But if the coffin of stones in the Quadra Street burying ground solved one mystery, it left another unresolved. Who’d repeatedly broken into the Goodwin cottage and driven Mrs. Goodwin to the point of a nervous breakdown? What was he looking for?
Some speculated that Mrs. Lassal had left behind a valuable piece of jewellery and the “ghost” had been looking for it.
Whether or not he found what he was after, Higgins couldn’t say. But he did mention that the ‘haunted’ cottage lost its evil reputation in time and, at the time of his writing about it some 50 year later, it was again occupied.
And there, according to our storyteller, the tale ends. But does it? When writing his series of reminiscences of early-day Victoria, the retired newspaper editor often changed the names of those involved.
Whether to spare the families of those involved further embarrassment, or to save himself a libel suit, he invariably made a token adjustment to a name. “Smith” became Smythe, Copland became Copley, Power became Powell, or something equally transparent. If this is the case in the story of the haunted cottage, who were the real Mr. and Mrs. Lassal?
A check of yellowing editions of the Colonist soon turns up the June 1860 obituary of one Julian Lassalette, of the Victoria firm of St. Ours & Lassalette, after a “very brief” illness. Aged 30, his death came as a shock to his many friends; particularly to his wife who, it was reported, was “unconsolable.”
The Lassalettes’ residence: Kane Street!
* * * * *
But let’s back up a bit. To early in the story when Higgins told how Mrs. Lassal had won the confidences of many of Victoria’s leading citizens:
“...Human beings, especially women, are so confiding that when a person has once earned their confidence there is scarcely any limit to the secrets they will disclose. It often seems as though their hearts are bursting to tell all that they know, and often more than they know, to someone whom they think they can trust....”
Do you suppose it possible that Mrs. Lassal had become privy to, and had some kind of physical evidence of, a secret so deep and dark that it’s owner became so desperate as to play the role of a burglar while seeking to find it in the cottage since occupied by the Goodwins?
As we’ve also seen, one of the police officers who investigated the burglary offered the opinion that, whoever the burglar was, he must have been looking for something of value that had been secreted in or about the house by the Lassals and ‘forgotten’ by the widow when she moved.
Just wondering. Happy Halloween.
Have a question, comment or suggestion for TW? Use our Contact Page.