BOOK EXCERPT: The Ottawa International Hostel & Carleton County Gaol
Written by Terry Boyle - author, Haunted Ontario

Out of the shower and into the change room. The clothes have vanished. In a hallway a sock appears, a shirt? pants? belt? underwear, scattered down the hall like stepping-stones. Where is the watch!?!? The search begins in another room or, more accurately put another cell. No longer ticking, the watch lies upside down on a cold concrete floor. The searcher flees to his room. What on earth just took place? There are common occurrences for this who stays in the Ottawa International Hostel, once the Carleton County Gaol. Time stops on Death Row.

In this building, literally hundreds of lost souls wander the corridors, up and down the stairwells, occupying cells, remaining on death row, waiting, waiting, and waiting. A noose was always hanging from the gallows, swinging like a pendulum, marking time. Each time it stopped, another unmarked grave was dug in the dusty courtyard. Reports written by the Inspector of Jails in the 1870s bares witness to the atrocities.

Children cried out. Women wept. Men prayed for their souls as he jailor turned the key. Darkness would blanket the lost and forsaken and smother their torment. A women dragged into a secret passageway was assaulted. Her cries were muffle. She prayed for it to end. In total darkness naked people were sentenced to six month ?in the hole?, spread-eagled and chained to a cell floor to die without seeing daylight again. What prompted such cruelty?

In 1862 the Carleton County Gaol, opened as a maximum security holding facility. Many people were actually innocent victims, men, women and children. Once incarcerated, they were seldom allowed to shower, never given more than one meal a day, never saw daylight and died in filthy unlit quarters in the basement, known as the quarantine area. When they died, there bodies were buried in the courtyard. Other victims were illegally hung inside the building, far from the view of any governing officials.

Many people died here as a result of social prejudice against the mentally ill and the poor, and methods of treatment that resulted from this prejudice. To declare a person was one such method. The fate of many unfortunate victims rested in the hands of jailers and inspectors of jails. In August of 1876 Inspector Christie observed the following, ?I found 58 prisoners of custody, 31 males and 27 females. Of the women, 25 were under sentence, one waiting trial and one, Mary McLoughlin was insane. She appeared to be a fit subject for asylum treatment.?

A common example of punishment is recorded in Inspector J. W. Langmuir's report dated September 24, 1877, ?Reference has again to be made to the case of Margaret Dougherty, who, owing to outrageous conduct, has constantly to be kept under punishment, being at this time tied to the cell door. Although properly speaking, the women may not be insane, there is no doubt she is a fit subject an asylum. Sarah Jane Thomas has not been certified to be a lunatic and at the time of my visit appeared to be quite sane, although was evidently of weak intelligence.?

The Carleton Count Gaol closed in 1972 because of lack of sanitation, poor lighting and unsavoury conditions. In 1973, the building became the Ottawa International Hostel. Portions of the interior were renovated to accommodate overnight guests but much of the jail remains as it was, including the cellblocks, the gallows, the hole, the stairwells, the secret tunnels and death row.

Wade Kirkpatrick is the friendly Operations Manager of the Hostel. Although Wade has never seen a ghost, he has experienced unexplained activity. ?My wife, Crystal, and I lived here for four months before we bought our first house. We lived in an apartment of the seventh floor. We often heard voices and banging on the pipes, although no one was to be seen. People often claim to hear cell doors closing behind them as they walk down death row, which is on the floor above the apartment. One time we want away for the week and shut the water off to our apartment. When we returned from our holiday the water was turned on the hot water was now coming out of the cold water tap.?