The haunting of Belmont House - Action News
Home WebMail Friday, November 22, 2024, 10:28 PM | Calgary | -11.4°C | Regions Advertise Login | Our platform is in maintenance mode. Some URLs may not be available. |
New Brunswick

The haunting of Belmont House

Belmont House, once home to some of New Brunswick's best-known families, is now divided into apartments. And in one tenant's mind, there's no doubt the place is haunted.

Built in the 1820s near Fredericton, its one of the spookiest houses in the province

The front of Belmont House
The front of the Belmont gives no hint of what some residents have said is a very haunted house. (Aniekan Etuhube/CBC )

Tucked away beyond some trees, just past the Fredericton airport, lies a house steeped in history.

Down a driveway covered in pine needles, sheltered by a canopy of trees, sits Belmont House. It's been on this spot of land with an apple orchard to the right and the Saint John River in behind for the past 200 years.

Throughout its history, this three-storey house with a wrap-around verandah has been the subject of many ghostly rumours.

The 14-room mansion, built in the 1820s, was once home to some of New Brunswick's best-known families. Now divided into apartments, tenant Rebecca Cogswell has called it home for the past year.

And in Cogswell's mind, there's no doubt there are ghosts inhabiting the property with her.

"Definitely more than one or two ghosts a phantom cat, too," Cogswell said. "I think I've seen that phantom cat out of the corner of my eye."

Rebecca Cogswell poses for a photo
Rebecca Cogswell has been living in Belmont House since October of 2022 and she says she's not been entirely alone during that time. (Aniekan Etuhube/CBC)

Cogswell's living room is massive, with expansive windows facing the Saint John Riverand French doors leading off into a bedroom that was most likely a parlour. The floors are original, although painted a deep red. She points out the original nails in the floor, large and square, and someetchings on the original windows.

Julia Thompson, an archivist at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, says there is a wealth of history and memories inside the walls of Belmont.

"A lot of New Brunswick personalities have come from that home, lived there, had family that lived there or been inspired by it in some way," she said.

The home was built for a Supreme Court judge named John Murray Bliss in 1820, great-grandfather to well-known poet Bliss Carman. In the 1840s, it was home to Robert Duncan Wilmot, a New Brunswick lieutenant-governor and a father of confederation. In 1980, it was officially declared a National Historic Site.

WATCH | Take a tour of the legendary Belmont House:

Enter Belmont House if you dare

11 months ago
Duration 4:27
Built in the 1820s, this haunted house near Fredericton has been the source for some terrifying tales of ghostly happenings.

As for the tales of it being haunted, there are hints in the archives as to where those rumours originated.

In the mid-1980s, well-known New Brunswick journalist Jackie Webster rented one of the apartments and began writing about her experiences living there.

An archival black and white photo of the house
An archival photo from 1951, Belmont House is in Lincoln, just outside of Fredericton. (Provincial Archives of New Brunswick)

In one of her articles, Thompson said, Webster tells the story of "at least one candlelight vigil where they called on the presence of this ghost at Belmont House, and you could come to Belmont and be part of that."

Webster believed that seance brought something negative out at Belmont, and she soon moved out.

"Power of suggestion? Maybe," said Cogswell of the story. "But you get a sense sometimes that you're not alone."

'It doesn't really scare me'

Cogswell says one of the "hotspots" for ghostly activity in the apartment where she lives with her partner is, strangely, the bathroom.

"You tend to hear kind of murmurs, voices, every time you're in there," she said.

"You close the door and it sounds like people are talking in other parts of the house. Like a conversation. It's definitely not music. It's definitely talking really low," she said.

"I've never been able to kind of figure out what anyone was saying. And every time you pause to hear it or you start to move around the house you can never seem to quite find it."

Cogswell, who works from home, claims this happens multiple times every week even when the television is off and her phone is silent in her hand. She said they don't own a radio.

The backside of the house shows peeling paint
The back of the house hasn't been repainted in several years. Many of these windows are original. (Aniekan Etuhube/CBC)

While she says the unexplained murmurs don't "really scare" her, the basement is another story.

"The basement definitely feels [like] there's a heaviness," she said. "It's almost a feeling like you shouldn't be there for too long."

She keeps the basement door off the kitchen locked, with a bell on the handle to scare off the ghosts and only uses the outside entrance to the cellar.

One bulb lights a dim corridor in the basement
When the house was built, there wouldn't have been electricity wired in the basement, only candles to cast the light. (Aniekan Etuhube/CBC)

The only space in the home Cogswell refuses to visit is the attic. She said some people claim to see faces at those third-floor windows.

"I don't think anyone's been up there in 20 years. So, yeah, I will not go up there. No. I think that would be pushing it a little bit too much."

Lucky to live in historic home

Belmont House, Cogswell said, has been sold and she isn't sure what the new owners will do with the property. She is planning to start searching for a new apartment.

"I feel like I'm going to feel more of a sense that I'm really not alone when we start packing up," she says. "I feel like I'll feel more of a sense of loss."

For all that she's experienced while living here, Cogswell says she's never been truly frightened of whatever presence she feels in the house. In fact, she considers herself lucky to have lived in Belmont, a home that captured the imagination of her friends and family for years.

"I think they were more excited that I was going to come up with a really fun story. And I mean, I'm still waiting, you never know. After you leave, you never know what could happen," she joked.

"Even just a year of the 200 years that this place has been around we're just a blip in its memory."