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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

History

When Leta Benedict was here a couple of weeks ago, I had a chance to spend a day with her just wandering around. I asked what she wanted to do and one thing she wanted, was to go to a cemetery. So okay, off we went. The most historic cemetery here is Ross Bay Cemetery. The monuments are quite beautiful, many statues and varying themes. The head stones and monuments in days gone by were so meticulously crafted. Many well known people from this area are buried there. Emily Carr the famous painter, known around the world, Robert Dunsmuir and so many more. Follow this link to read more. RBC   Some of the graves we saw dated back to 1812 and possibly older, but there wasn't enough time to view the whole area.

A bit of ghostly information....

Ross Bay Cemetery Victoria

Ross Bay Cemetery is the final resting place for many famous people of Victoria and the scene of several ghosts. The spirit of Isabella Ross can be seen, usually looking out over the water. She owned the land where the cemetery was built. There is also the sighting of an unknown lady dressed in white. The misty clad apparition of David Fee is spotted from time to time. He was murdered outside of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in 1890 on Christmas Eve. The ghosts of a couple dressed in Victorian clothing have been seen floating around the west side of the cemetery. Visitors have sometimes spotted a lady darting around in a panic looking for her lost child.

Read more: "Victoria Canada Ghosts: Graveyards: Haunting's at Old Burying Ground, Ross Bay Cemetery, Pioneer Square" - http://ghosts-hauntings.suite101.com/article.cfm/more_victoria_canada_ghosts#ixzz0BMyttLPV

One grave in particular caught our eye. It's that of a black woman, born in Philadelphia in about 1808 and died 1873. Her name was Rebecca Gibbs. What we saw first was a poem she wrote and it was on one side of her grave marker. The other side tells who she was. A little more searching around gave me a little more information about Rebecca. She was a poet laundress and nurse. She moved to Barkerville  BC, and lived there during the Gold Rush Era until her house was destroyed in the fire. She came back to Victoria where she died in 1873. It was hard to find a lot of information due to the time lines. However what I did find out,  I enjoyed. The link above to Barkerville is a lot of reading, but if you like history, you will enjoy it.

There is so much interesting history to uncover that it makes walking through a cemetery not quite so imposing. Take a walk sometime and see what you might find out about your own part of the world...

rebeccagibbs2b

rebeccagibbs1b

3 comments:

  1. I found this post very interesting, Ro...thanks for the links. I've always loved hearing ghost stories or anything to do with the paranormal.

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  2. Hey, I happened across your post and my heart almost leapt out of my chest. I've seen a lady in white at Ross Bay too, right near the entrance on Memorial Crescent. She has a long, white dress and long, dark hair. Do you know any more about her? I've seen her more than once there, but I hadn't known that other people had seen her too.

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  3. I don't know any more than what I found in that information I posted. There are a couple of books about ghosts in Victoria that might help with that or perhaps if you google "the lady in white at Ross Bay Cemetary" ??. I've seen an apparition at Saxe Point, a dark haired woman at the lookout. She disappeared when I turned to ask my friend if she'd seen her....it was very cool....

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