NEWSPAPER BUILDING PROVIDES ITS OWN GHOST STORIES
(Original headline: Who you gonna call? Ghosts haunt the Herald )
6/27/06

Holly Benoit and I stare intently at the computer screen, almost willing
the "thing" to reappear.
The 20-year-old works in the Herald accounts department and was jolted a
few days earlier by what seemed to be an apparition of a woman in a long
white gown, moving swiftly between the desks.
Since the overhead security camera was aimed at the exact spot, we've
been given permission to view the tape from that scary morning. And
that's what we're doing now.

Sure enough, here's Holly, moving in and out of view and looking quite
agitated. And here's her mother Marg, who was also in the office at the
time, just the two of them. Both have very serious expressions.
And here comes the security guard, checking things out, just as Holly
had described.
But no sign of anything else. We reverse the tape and stare again. And
again. Was that a flicker?

Nope. Just the three worried-looking women. How disappointing.
So who — or what — might it be? Holly isn't the only employee to
have seen something over the years.
Some believe it's Martha, first wife of Richard John Uniacke, the
lawyer/politician who was named Nova Scotia's solicitor general in 1781
and attorney general in 1797.
The couple lived in a house on the site now occupied by The Herald
Building on Argyle Street.

Incredibly, Richard married Martha when she was only 12, and they had 12
children! She died when she was only 40, most likely in the same
townhouse, because Richard's estate in Mount Uniacke wasn't built by
then.
She and Richard are buried beneath St. Paul's Anglican Church, just a
block from the Herald. Perhaps she likes to return occasionally because
she misses her old haunt, so to speak.
Herald publisher Graham Dennis is amused by the stories but, like me,
isn't ready to believe in ghosts.
"Not ghosts as such," he says, "but I do believe there are (people)
whose personalities linger on, long after them. I absolutely do!"
He adds that the newspaper has never lacked for powerful personalities,
especially females.
Whatever the explanation, I'm hearing some unnerving stories from
normally sensible Herald colleagues. • Take Stephanie Brown, for
example. She works in classifieds and she tells me she was working one
Sunday morning, alone except for the security guard in the lobby.
Suddenly, she heard muffled voices of a man and woman, coming from a
nearby hall that was in darkness.
Puzzled, Stephanie peeked around the corner, up and down the dark hall.
It was empty.
"Yet it sounded like they were right beside me," she says. "I got goose
bumps. It was scary!"• Then there was Susan Bradley's experience.
Susan's a veteran news reporter who had a scare one night on a late
shift. She was alone at the time and, as she headed to the door to the
lunchroom, she felt a presence crowding her from behind, as though
someone was trying to get past her.

Susan fled to her desk and dialed a telephone operator, just to hear
another human voice!• And let's not forget Barry Kaiser, who worked on
the fourth floor for 32 years before he retired.
One night, chatting with a colleague, he was stunned to see a figure
materializing a few feet away.

"He had on a blue/black hammer-tailed coat, stockings and black shoes
with square, gold buckles."
Barry couldn't make out the face because it was blurry.
Shaken, he directed his colleague's attention to the apparition but it
vanished before he could turn.

As eerie as these events are, they can be matched by the strange
occurrences at the other downtown Herald location at the corner or
Prince and Brunswick streets.
The three-storey brick heritage building opened in 1875 as the Halifax
Visiting Dispensary. Within its walls were an apothecary, a dispensary
and, ominously, a morgue and coroner's office in the basement.
Natasha Mitchell works there. She's administrative co-ordinator of the
newspaper's customer service department and admits to feeling presences,
especially on the stairs to the basement, now a staff lunchroom.

"Like someone brushing by me."
Natasha has heard many strange tales over the years, like the one about
the ghostly cup. Once, several women were having lunch when one got up
for some coffee. As she went to pour, her cup moved along the counter,
all by itself.
"They all saw it," adds Natasha.
Scariest of all, however, have been sightings of a little girl, just
standing there in a long white dress.

"She's been seen, as plain as day!" says Natasha. "People have been
scared to go back alone."
Once, a staffer encountered the wraith racing up and down a third-floor
corridor.
"She was screaming for help," says Natasha.

"She was screaming, 'Help me! Help me!' "
So there you have it, some curious goings-on indeed.
So, how can a disbeliever like me get to the bottom of all this
weirdness?

"You should challenge the ghost to come find you," a colleague suggested
brightly.
Er, perhaps not.

.:Story originally published by:.
The Chronicle Herald Halifax / NS | Peter Duffy - June 27.06