How a mysterious haunting at UPEI came to an end

When chemistry Prof. Barry Linkletter was a student at UPEI there were tales going around the old Cass chemistry building that would strain the credulity of any budding scientist.

There would be footsteps when no one was there, and experiments would be tampered with.

"Usually it was somewhat helpful," said Linkletter.

"You're going back thinking, 'I should have turned that off,' and you'd go back and it's already off."

Many were convinced there was a ghost, and it was, in Linkletter's student days, a fine building for a haunting. Built in 1939, it had not seen a major renovation.

"It was just built in the old-fashioned way," he said.

"It had all the old wood. The basement bathroom was just a symphony of oak and beautiful woodworking."

There was never any visible appearance of the ghost, but everyone agreed on who it was. The building was named for Father Frederick Cass, the first priest to teach chemistry on the campus, back when it was Saint Dunstan's University. His portrait was hanging in the building, and he was the obvious candidate for the haunting.

'You'd get creeped out a little'

Linkletter used to work alone late at night in the student lounge, and it was during those late nights that he would hear the ghost himself.

"I would hear footsteps on the stairs, and they were clear as day. I would be convinced that someone was in the building going up the stairs," he said.

"You'd find no one and then you'd get creeped out a little."

But there was never anything frightening about the apparition, he said, and the Cass ghost was generally considered friendly, or at least harmless.

Still feels a presence

In 1996, the Cass building came up for a major renovation. The inside was gutted and rebuilt.

"The ghost has not been heard since, to my knowledge anyway," said Linkletter.

"I feel once they get rid of all the old, rattling pipes the ghost went away."

It is not the most romantic of endings, and Linkletter said there are some who are still convinced there was a haunting. Linkletter said he doesn't miss the footsteps, because he still feels a presence.

"I don't think there's a sadness that the ghost isn't heard anymore, because you feel the spirit of the previous faculty at UPEI every day," he said.

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With files from Laura Chapin