Back to Rural Legends
Erie Signs
Transcribed from 'The West Prince Graphic'. February 1998
By: Dr. Allan J. MacRae
Alexander MacKay, called Sandy, was for many years a miller at Woodbrook where he had a water mill on the headwaters of the Foxley River. Sometime before 1880 he moved his family down to Freeland on a large property near Frederick Cove, known locally as "The Creek". When Sandy settled at Freeland, he and his wife, Elizabeth, took with them one of the family's cherished possessions, an old pendulum clock, which, as the years passed, became worn to the extent that it struck only occasionally and at the oddest hours. But such was the family's attachment to the old time piece that it was allowed to remain upon the shelf for many years even though it was no longer relied upon to give the true time of day.
As the worn clock lay resting upon an obscure shelf unused and neglected, its presence became a focal point for a strange story. Gradually, and at first not wanting to believe it, became apparent to Sandy and Elizabeth that the clock seemed only to strike not long before some family member passed away. They consequently gave the old clock a wide berth but its mysterious chimes infrequently rang out a prophetic note. After announcing the death of their son, John, the dusty, old clock grew silent again until some time and all felt that it had finally broken down. Such was not to be. Again its dreaded chimes foretold the death of their son in-law. Theophilus Ramsay, at an early age. The old clock feel silent again until one day in June, when Sandy was in his nineties, it struck suddenly. In solemn resignation he announced to Elizabeth that his hour of death had arrived at last. Death, indeed, again visited the family but it was not the old man who died but rather his young granddaughter, Ada Ramsay, daughter of Theophilus. On a cold day in January in the following winter of 1902, the chimes were heard once more and soon after Sandy passed from this world. After his funeral, Elizabeth, grief-stricken, took the clock down from its resting place and removed all the working parts for fear that it would also be the harbinger of her own doom. She lived on in the old homestead for another eight years during which time the chimes were heard no more.
Then one night in the autumn of 1910, Edward Boyle was walking home along the Lot 11 Road and just as he arrived at the bridge, which crossed the head of "The Creek", near the old MacKay house, something very unusual happened. From afar he caught the faint beat of hoofs upon the frozen road. And as he paused to listen they grew louder and louder. Before he realized what was happening, the sound of runaway horse and wagon advanced along the road ahead of him so quickly that he feared for his very own life. He threw one leg over the wooden railing by the bridge and prepared to jump off the roadway in order to avoid being trampled. Almost as he did so the racket ceased and the frosty night grew tranquil once more. He continued home, shaken up, and went to bed. Early the next morning he heard in the village that Elizabeth MacKay had passed away the night before.
Mr. Boyle, a year before his death, in 1980, solemnly declared that the forerunner that he experienced 70 years earlier had really taken place. The old clock, unable to chime out, had somehow been mysteriously assisted by a phantom nightrider. After Elizabeth's death the clock was put out in a shop behind the house where it could be seen for many years.
From: Along the North Shore A History of Lot 11 by Clint Morrison, Jr.