Haunted Welland: Welland Museum Building

December 1

This building was originally the city library. It was constructed in 1923 with a grant from the Carnegie foundation.

There are no reports of hauntings or paranormal activity in the building during the time that it housed the library. It seems to have begun when the museum was relocated here. The original museum was located on land owned by Solomon Moore. When the museum relocated to its current address, some of the belongings of the Moore family were moved here. These belongings are thought to carry spirits with them. In one particular occurrence relayed by one of our staff, a green jacquard blanket had gone missing. It had been in storage on the upper floor but when she went to retrieve it for use in a display, it could not be found. She and other staff members looked for the blanket for weeks only to find it downstairs amongst general non-archival items, somewhere no member of staff would have placed it.

Another possible explanation for paranormal activity in the building could be due to a property that existed here in late 1800s and early 1900s.

The museum is built on land that once housed Welland’s first hospital. Dr. H. D. Cowper donated his home to be converted into a hospital which opened in 1906. The hospital consisted of 2 wards (one for children), 4 private rooms, an operating room, sterilization room, and a physician’s consulting room. It can be assumed that many deaths would have occurred over the time that the hospital was here.

Other sightings at the museum include a little girl seen by staff and guests of the museum running down a hallway on the lower level, and on the main floor staff room. She does not seem unhappy or by any means up to no good, however, she does have a tendency to come up close to the viewer with a finger over her mouth saying “Shush”.