The Oaken Snuggery Part 20

Photos by Suzanne Currie

 THE OAKEN SNUGGERY - PART 20

BY TED CURRIE

     I was walking out around the Bosevelt’s smaller version of Walden Pond this morning, and the conditions reminded me of the story of Maria Shea, one of Suzanne’s ancestors, who came through these same woods, in this part of Muskoka, but on a very unfortunate journey for her, and the entourage bringing her coffin to the burying ground. Maria, in the late 1860’s, living in the Ufford area of the present Township of Muskoka Lakes, had passed away after a short but painful illness, as many of the homesteader class had suffered in those early years of settlement, from diphtheria and influenza outbreaks, without having adequate medical provisions, and a generous supply of physicians to tend to the ill. Maria Shea couldn’t be saved, and her family wanted her buried in the Falkenburg Cemetery, a considerable distance from the Watt Township farmstead. Using poorly cleared bush trails, the funeral procession moved through the countryside slowly, with the coffin of Maria Shea on a cart, but carried up and down hillsides to avoid any unfortunate dislodging of the deceased, and the route would have put them quite close to this Rose Hill property. The small cemetery on the hillside reminded me of this pioneer funeral, even though it is definitely not where Maria was buried.

     After quite some time parading through the woods and clearings between Watt and Falkenburg, the procession arrived at the cemetery, but when they arrived at the pre-dug grave, they found it had filled-up with water from the rainfall of the day before. The Shea family would not advance the funeral service without first removing all the water from the six foot deep hole, and although it took many hours to complete the task, Maria Shea was buried in a much drier grave, satisfying mourners and Maria’s kin folk. What a sad venture that was, traveling all that distance by foot, and small wagon, to make sure Maria had a fitting funeral, in a consecrated church cemetery. I tried to visualize what it would have looked like, coming through the thick forests in this part of the township, and how difficult the footing would have been on sections that were washed out from the rain, and full of natural obstacles, that could only increase the suffering of the funeral procession. Yet their pioneer grit helped them achieve their objective, of giving Maria Shea a decent burial in a tree bordered section of picturesque landscape a few miles north of Bracebridge.

     On most days spent here at The Oaken Snuggery, I can wander the well trodden pathways and think happy thoughts. For some reason this morning, I couldn’t get Maria Shea off my mind, but this was the historian’s folly, not any shortfall of scenery, or quality of the day’s atmosphere. It just felt as if, at any moment, that ghosts of that funeral procession from more than a century ago, would once more, pass along this old farmstead laneway, heading as they were back then, to a gravesite at the Falkenburg cemetery. I have always benefitted and suffered from an over-active imagination. I’ve learned to live with the excesses, either way, but the historian is hardest to convince, that imagination doesn’t always serve the best interests of fact finding.

     The very act of planning to ask my spirit associates why they were haunting, playfully or otherwise, The Oaken Snuggery, was kind of foolish, knowing full well that I didn’t need to make an appointment to talk to the “other side,” or a written sheet of questions I intended to ask them. The girls, in this case, who allegedly go by the names of Cynthia and Francis, ages ten and twelve respectively. I’m pretty sure they could read my mind as I sat in the farmhouse’s Great Room, following dinner, pondering how effective it would be to just surrender to the wee lasses, and beg they tell us to what extent they are willing to go, on the brink of malevolence no doubt, if we continue to miss the point of their rather poignant haunting of this Bed and Breakfast, nestled into the pinery of the ghost hamlet of Rose Hill, just north of the South Muskoka town of Bracebridge, Ontario. A ghost hamlet playing host to a couple of trick playing ghost-children, who have a story to tell, but even with a psychic guest, who identified them visually, sitting on a couch in the hallway, Angela Collins left before we could more thoroughly appreciate why they continued to hang around the environs of the living, apparently not appreciating they have officially departed the mortal coil so to speak. So hatching this idea of asking them outright about their spiritual mission here at the Snuggery seemed the right thing to do for all concerned. I don’t think the girls felt the same, as they ignored me for the next several days. As they had obviously become disenchanted with me, for being overly intrusive, I was becoming fed-up in my own muddled mind, not getting anywhere on this gamble of revealing the source of the random hauntings, and what can be done about short of a blunt force exorcism. I thought first I might yell at them for awhile, insisting that they are hurting very nice people here at the Snuggery, who have done nothing wrong, or inconsiderate to the integrity of the property. They restored a badly run-down turn of the 1900’s farm house, and expanded it in size, (so the ghosts have more room to haunt), and brought the grounds to a park-like attractiveness, perfect for those guests who like to wander and lounge about outside. I have seen the before and after photographs of the farmhouse, and without questions the Bosevelt family did the old homestead proud, including the protection of the old pioneer cemetery on the hillside overlooking the pond. They didn’t employ a bulldozer at any time, and they took great care to look after the native plants and trees, and instead of draining the pond, they insisted on protecting its ecology. If the young ladies who insist on haunting this place were halfway considerate of all these efforts to improve upon the farmhouse and property, they would occupy the premises with a lot more respect and a more harmonious kind of intervention, adding to the heritage of the place. Not detracting from it or sending guests packing-up early because they inspired moments of fright and panic with their appearances and pranks about the dwelling.

     It was more than 48 hours since Angela Collins had left the Snuggery, to head back to Toronto as a result of an injury sustained by her mother, at the Collins own house, and I had just settled myself down in one of the big wing chairs in the Great Room, thinking it would be great to hear from her again because I needed help with this project. Suzanne, my charming partner, at home in Gravenhurst, has been able to sleuth around for some background information, but not enough to really get a foothold on the real deal. Who were these girls? Did they die on this property, from potentially a serious farm accident of which they were a party? What do they want from the Bosevelts? What would make them feel more comfortable at the Snuggery, or, what would encourage them to leave the world of the living for the more peaceful hereafter?

     I heard the phone in Mrs. Bosevelt’s office, and I knew immediately it was my new friend, Angela. She must have read my mind. As it turned out however, it was the opposite situation. The over-zealous spirits of Francis and Cynthia had apparently been keeping her from sleeping through the nights, and even her day dreams were being targeted by the dynamic duo.

     “They are determined to get our attention, but I guess I’m the one who is acting as the conduit here, so obviously it doesn’t matter whether I’m in Rose Hill or not. They’ve found me, and very much insist I continue communicating with them,” Angela said, with a resignation of voice, making it clear it’s a big responsibility have psychic capabilities. “I have had two dreams since we left the Snuggery, and both of them have something to do with church, two crucifixes, like the ones we found adhered to one another, and lilacs but they haven’t really put it all together for me. Possibly its their own lingering immaturity, but one thing I do feel very intensely, is that they are feeling unresolved about something; as if they had committed some offense, minor or major, and as a result, something quite negative occurred. They stop short of showing me the ramifications of their actions, if I’m right about this of course, believing, I suppose, that we might be mad at them as well, or rat them out to someone who knows them after all these years. I think this is a situation that occurred long, long before the construction of the present farmhouse, which, as you mentioned at the inn, was built in the early years of 1900.” I agreed with her regarding this date. “Well, I’m seeing a much more primitive structure, actually two log-style cabins with rock chimneys, but they’re divided in the dreams, as if they were of two different time periods. Is that possible Ted,” she asked. “It is possible because there were two pioneer built homesteads, using logs harvested off this free grant land, one dating back to the late 1860’s, the other, according to what we have been able to find out from neighbors, was re-built by a different family three years later due to a fire in the first that reduced it to ashes. The second one was also destroyed by fire a few year after this, and as a result, the property was farmed by a neighbor family until it was sold after the turn of the century, and the present farmhouse constructed,” I replied with some authority of history, that had been uncovered by Suzanne on the research side of the project.

     “Do you think that these hell raising children might have had something to do with the fires in these cabins, possibly to the extent of having perished in one of them as a result of mischief,” I asked the woman with the psychic good senses. “I don’t get this message at all, but it is becoming a little clearer, that they may have had a minor role in at least one of the fires but it’s not a positive vibe I’m getting back, from their dream-time interventions,” Angela added to the conversation. “I’m confused about the religious significance of portions of the visions I’m receiving,” she related of the several dreams having most significance to this paranormal investigation. “Was it ever the case where church services were ever held in the homes of pioneers because there was nothing else within an easy commute of their property,” she asked. “It was very common,” I reported with the historian’s confidence. “There are lots of recollections about congregation sharing between homesteads in a particular under-served township in Muskoka, and each Sunday the venue might change to someone else’s shanty or log cabin; until of course, churches were constructed, and even then it was often the case where all denominations were welcomed into the church regardless whether it was Anglican or Methodist, Presbyterian or Catholic, although there were very few of those, because the population was largely Protestant in the true pioneering period of settlement. You know, the Orange Lodge, King Billy parades on the 12th of July, just like they had in old Ireland. And there were a few other situations where larger outbuildings were prepared and used as churches-in-waiting, that would accommodate a much larger congregation, but had none of the finishing details and architecture of a more traditional church building.” I agreed that this might have been the case with the two cabins, that were on this property before the farmhouse and outbuildings were constructed, and possibly this might relate to the sensory perception that the Snuggery  property had a context of religion beyond the early attempts at agriculture, which of course was a distinct failure for the three families that owned the land since the 1860’s, who put their faith in the quality of the soil to produce a sustaining, even profitable harvest.

     Angela informed me, rather abruptly, that she needed to end our conversation, as her mother, bedridden as a result of the accident, was calling for assistance. I thanked her heartily for the assistance, and she remind me that whatever was still weighing on the girls after well more than a century, had kept them earth bound, but it was only now that the resident family of this property was paying attention, and wanting some resolution to end the unsettling events disturbing the peace and comfort of The Oaken Snuggery. “In my opinion, the sisters had something in their possession, at a critical time in this rural neighborhood, that didn’t belong to them, and it may have been the crosses we found fused together which undoubtedly had chains when they were taken, potentially from one of these homestead cabins during one of those Sunday multi-faith meetings. I think the crosses belonged to Catholics, and the consequence of having stolen them, was likely impressed upon them as being of a hell-fire nature. If they had taken them, for whatever reason, they felt God was going to punish them in a most painful way. Maybe this is what the adults were saying at the time, when they went missing, and the girls became panic stricken, and refused to reveal their secret in fear of holy retribution.” She concluded, “but listen, this is just conjecture, and it might be a foul ball into the bleachers, when it comes down to how much fact this represents, and how much fiction is coloring the black and white of history as it played out back then. Good luck, and I will contact you again soon should something else pop up, as these girls have engaged me since we met up there at Rose Hill.” I thanked her for giving me something to go on, and information that might help Suzanne at our home office, dig a little deeper using published journals from this general area, from this approximate time in local history. I don’t think I sleep better now, but I will certainly be more receptive to the girls’ overtures, having this new insight on the naughty hauntings of The Oaken Snuggery.

     There are times when I grow weary of hunting wayward spirits. Tired of chasing down the pranksters who by all accounts, are no longer part of this mortal coil. I can find myself getting totally frustrated by what I can’t identify, and resolve within a sensible budget of time. Yet, there are times, and I’m experiencing them now, when all the frustration and exhaustion seem to react upon their own energies, suddenly, and quite accidentally, revealing truths and facts that previously seemed impossible to ferret-out from the available information and prevailing circumstances. I suppose then, it can be said with some shade of accuracy, that from frustration and aggravation, comes the mortal fortitude to swim when everything had pointed to “sink” as the only real option. The more confused and frustrated I become with this place, and these ghosts, the more colors I see painted onto this black and white picture, of the true Oaken Snuggery, and those living and deceased, who dwell here happily or not so much! The quest must continue. I shall live with my shortfalls, knowing that apparently, and with some amazement on my part, I do my best work suffering from self imposed loathing and defeatism. These wee lasses have a lot of explaining to do, and I’m in a listening mood.