Why I Love Whitby-Part 4

So I told you awhile back I would tell you the story about the Whitby Centennial Building or to be more exact - the ghost of the Centennial Building.

The Centennial Building was once the Courthouse for the County and trials were held there . The story goes that there was gentleman named "Jack" nervously awaiting the outcome on his nephew's rape trial in the spectator galley in the balcony area. Just as the verdict was to be announced , Jack hurried to the edge of the balcony and accidentally fell over to his death as they read the guilty verdict. It is reported that people believe they see the ghost of the well dressed man haunting the former courthouse area which is currently the Whitby Theatre Group. Well, I personally was haunted during my visits to the Theatre.

My mother Carole was a member of the Theatre Group for many years and often would bring my sister and I to watch rehearsals and the plays. As young kids would do, we wandered off exploring the mysterious rooms of the building. The scariest room of them all was what I knew to be the balcony where the spotlights etc were hanging. There were a number of times that the hairs stood on end while sitting there watching the performers below. My mother also said she had an unexplained occurrence while she was performing in front of an audience. She said that she wasn't feeling well during the performance and when she waited off stage for her next scene and older gentleman dressed in a suit, tophat and cane put his hand on her shoulder and smiled an encouragement. When she looked back at him again he had disappeared into thin air. It wasn't until after the play that she realized there were no actors in such a costume and what she had seen had been an apparition.

Another Whitby building also purported to be haunted is the home of Sherriff Nelson Reynolds located on Byron and Dunlop streets. The house was built in 1874 as a miniature of Trafalgar Castle. Apparently the ghost of distiller Harry Hatch haunts its walls from the days of prohibition .Al Capone was even rumoured to buy his bootleg liquour from Harry back in the day.

Now the Trafalgar Castle is a private school for girls and the Old Hatch House is now a Montessori school. I'm not sure if they still have ghost sightings but you can read about the sitings in ghost story books and on the net.

One other well reported ghost spot is the Old Whitby Psychiatric Hospital and Outbuildings. There were a number of creepy disturbances out there from clanging noises to ghosts wandering the halls etc. I can well imagine this would be a good "haunt" as the buildings down there were stark and ominous.

There are lots of other great ghost stories from neighbouring towns such as the Old Scugog Road Motorcycle Ghost-but I'll leave that for another teller. Try googling up some of these sites and see the paranormal studies that have been done.

So next time you're in Whitby, drive by the Centennial Building on Centre Street and give "Jack" a friendly wave and then turn down Dunlop to Byron Street and wave to "Harry", some our friendly ghosties. And since you're here, look at some of the other lovely homes in the area- historical or not, and maybe you'll also find a little piece of Whitby to Love Too!