Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The lost haunted Trafalgar Tower

This house at the corner of Cote des Neiges (Snow Coat) Boulevard and Trafalgar is named "Trafalgar." It was built by John Ogilvy fur trader and was the center of his farm that spanned the area. Ogilvy was born around 1769 and came to Montreal around 1790. 
   He built a tower near this house but nobody is really sure now where. It was on "the elevation just above The Boulevard." 
   Remnants remained until at least 1937 but it was gone entirely by 1946. 
   The tower, was thought to be haunted. 
    In 1925 the great archivist Dr. Massicotte was among those who said he heard mysterious footsteps in the tower. 
   There was an effort to build a cemetery here in 1846 but it was decided that what became the Mount Royal Cemetery just up the road was a better site, so this small cemetery was abandoned after that one opened in 1852. So there are still said to be bones in gardens in the area.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:07 pm

    spooky!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. IIRC, one of the «Amis de la montagne» publication has pictures of a stone tower erected on the Mountain that was said to be haunted. However, I do not recall it being called “Trafalgar”.

    I spent many evenings in that house when it was owned by the late Frederic Angus (R. B. Angus’ grandson) watching many movies and slides Fred took during his numerous train trips around the world…

    Fred, who passed away some years ago, was the last railroad mogul (a bunch more associated with the Gilded Age than the XXIth Century), as he owned a sizeable chunk of the CPR.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous1:17 pm

    Nice!!!! Any drawings or paintings of that old tower? Any other ghost stories?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Guillaume Saint-Jean did some tracking down of the Trafalgar tower:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/guil3433/3844525502/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/guil3433/3843729949

    ReplyDelete

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