Phantom Fires in St. John's
Running off Gower Street in downtown St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada is Willicott’s Lane, one of the oldest lanes in St. John’s. If you had stood on this lane in the early 1800's, you would be smack in the middle of an area known as Tanrahan’s Town. A maze of tightly packed, poorly constructed houses, garbage filled ditches and open sewers, the area produced a particularly dreadful stench, often offending the delicate nostrils of those attending Sunday service in all their finery at the Cathedral. Named after a local slum landlord, the neighbourhood saw some 1500 souls crammed into about 200 houses, all of which burned to the ground in the Tanrahan’s Town fire of 1855. The neighbourhood was rebuilt from the ashes, only to be destroyed completely a mere 37 years later in the Great Fire of 1892.
With its history of destructive fires, it is fitting that one of the more unique hauntings in Newfoundland occurs within the limits of what was once Tanrahan’s Town. This haunting involves a house which backs onto Willicott’s Lane. The building was constructed slightly after the Great Fire of 1892. For most of the middle part of this century the house was occupied by an old woman who lived alone in the house, and who eventually died within its walls. The house stood empty for a while before it passed on to new owners who began to notice a very strange phenomenon. A second floor room on the back of the house contains not the ghost of a person or animal, but rather of a ghostly fire. Different people have reported seeing a fire burning in the fireplace, but upon closer examination, the fire has disappeared, and a hand placed within the grate has felt no heat, the stones cold to the touch.
In the 1980s, as a tenant lay in his bed in a different room on the same floor, his door swung open. Looking from his bed out into the hall, the man saw the flickering of firelight reflected on the walls. Knowing himself alone in the house, he left his bed to investigate, and found nothing. He closed the door, and returned to bed. Once in bed, the door swung open again, revealing the same strange light. He got up to check, and again found nothing, the light disappearing as he left his room. A third time he returned to bed, and again, just as he was drifting off to sleep, the door swung wide, the firelight flickering on the opposite wall.
While this type of haunting is rare it is not unique. A similar spirit fire was reported in a small sea-side community on the south coast of Ireland by John D. Seymour in 1911. According to reports a large family house in the community was known to be haunted by a variety of spirits. Two sisters occupied one of the upstairs rooms, where they shared a bed. The two girls on numerous occasions awoke to find the floorboards of the room engulfed in flames, flames which produced neither smell nor heat. The first time this happened, the girls ran from the room, convinced, as one very well might be, that the room underneath was ablaze. This fire would be witnessed two or three nights in a row, and then would disappear for some time before suddenly blazing forth once more. While it was witnessed on occasion in other parts of the house, it occurred chiefly in the room where the two girls slept.