the Howard tomb
Colborne Lodge in High Park is haunted! Go there at night in October, see the house and grounds by candlelight, hear some very creepy ghost stories while fog shrouds the moon, and be prepared for your imagination to run away…
the parlour, where a wreath of hair lies on display
In 1873 John George Howard and his wife Jemima deeded the park (which includes the house and the property) to the City of Toronto, and the city has been its steward ever since. Colborne Lodge is now a museum which is open year round, and in October they switch up the supernatural factor and give a haunted house tour.
Jemima Howard’s bedroom
It’s not all smoke and mirrors, though, the Howard stories are supported by the couple’s detailed journals and meticulous record-keeping; the legends that abound from the era are well-known to local historians.
I took the photo above in Jemima Howard’s bedroom, the room she died in… her husband, John, tried to get her committed to the Provincial Lunatic Asylum (he was the architect). He was unsuccessful, so he sequestered her to one end of the house and kept her locked up. Aren’t you glad this isn’t 1877? It turns out later that she was suffering from symptoms of breast cancer, one of the first women in Canada to receive such a diagnosis.
For more about “Haunted in High Park”, visit the Colborne Lodge page at the City of Toronto’s website.