The Roselawn – Mary Scholfield

This case file begins in October, 2016 when myself, and my husband first moved to Port Colborne, Ontario.

Port Colborne is best known for its annual Canal Days celebration in August and sees many tourists and seasonal cottage owners May to September. The region also boasts great beaches, fishing, hiking trails, unique rock formations, ships, bridges and the canal.

Our home is close to Bridge 19, and a few minutes walk from Lock 8, the last lock on the canal before Lake Erie. Unbeknownst to many, Lock 8 is also the master operations location for all other locks in the Welland Canal system.

Tucked up against what was the first canal our home (the original solid concrete bunker for storing blasting powder and tools) sits atop a levy that runs along a length of the old canal. All that lies between us and the water is a tow path (now a narrow unlit road) where horses, mules and oxen would have pulled the original flat bottom barges along to the lake. A short walk from the house one can catch a glimpse of the original lumber shoring that ran the length of the old canal. The first canal was narrow and not very deep. It didn’t need to be as the boats moving through were poled or pulled and had no power outside of human or animal to propel them.

Today, almost two hundred years after the first canal was built the success of our town is based on the movement of goods through this vital channel. Water is the very life blood of the community. Even our local cemetery guarantees eternity is accompanied by a beautiful view of the lake.

Being new to the area we decided to take a drive one windy October afternoon. The sky was heavily tinted with red as the sun was beginning to drop toward the horizon. Tree limbs whipped about in the wind as burnished copper leaves spun across the ground gleefully gathering one moment, and rushing off in different directions the next. It was the perfect time of year and just the right hour of the day in which to set a ghost story. As we drove slowly around the oldest neighbourhood we commented on some of the remarkable older homes and their manicured lawns. Bags of freshly raked leaves arranged neatly at the ends of the driveways awaiting pick up.

There are many beautiful homes here in town, but one of my favourites is a large Addams Family style home surrounded by an old iron fence. It certainly stands out from the other homes others around it. Not only is it visually interesting but the fact that it speaks to those who can hear it is very intriguing. On that day it caught my attention as I heard a soft voice emanate from the grounds whispering “Find me!” I made a mental note to investigate the home further at some point in time.

As luck would have it, a few days later I serendipitously came across an article in the local paper announcing a public paranormal investigation just before Halloween at the home. Apparently the house was city owned and operated. I figured this was our opportunity to get inside for a look and find out who was whispering to me that day we slowly drove by.

Tickets for the event were available at box office of the local theatre which also happened to be a part of the same property. Picking up our tickets we headed back to the car which was parked directly behind the house. As I put the key in the ignition I once again heard the voice whisper “Find me” . Now, I was keenly interested in what the house had to offer.

The following week we headed to the home for the paranormal investigation. Running a bit late (which is kind of the norm for me) we arrived and quietly slipped into the banquet room as one of the paranormal investigators began to discuss their previous findings during past investigations.

As we sat at the back of the room trying to be as inconspicuous as possible a female spirit made her presence known to me. When I say known it wasn’t a physical presence, more of a glimpse of the spirit. I can see i, I can describe it, but if I turn my head to look directly at it, it is gone. This is how spirits make themselves known to me, always on my right, and only in my peripheral vision. Other people may experience their perception in a very different way.

The spirit who presented herself to me appeared to be in her late fifties or early sixties. Dressed in a Victorian style blouse with a moss coloured long skirt. Her appearance wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. She was unassuming in her appearance and quite typical for the late nineteenth century.

She slipped up beside me and said nothing I could hear aloud. In my head the name Mary Scholfield came forward, but nothing else was given. She remained beside me and followed me as I got up to move into the main house with everyone else. At this point there may have been fourteen or fifteen people including two investigators.

The group was split into two and given instructions on how the evening would play out. Our group was to remain on the main floor and spend time investigating the dining room, men’s smoking room and what would have been the receiving parlour. Today these rooms had become a boardroom, a lounge and a catering kitchen.

Some of the group had moved into the “boardroom” as I heard one of the investigators and another woman chatting about mirrors. The investigator was telling a story about Victorians hanging dark cloth over their mirrors after someone died so the deceased spirit wouldn’t return into the space. They then went on about other notions of the spirit world that I find to be nothing but nonsense. I think that the investigator was trying to up the ante on the scare factor. Agree or disagree with me, but, I have always found sensationalizing stories for the sake of added hype is a disservice to those in attendance and takes away from the experience.
As the investigator was talking my husband, and I sat down on a little bench in the main hallway waiting for the some of the commotion going on in the rooms to settle down. It is amazing how excited people get not realizing their energy may affect the spirits that reside within a building or on the grounds. The living can be quite forgetful that way.

At this point Mary was still very much with me and becoming highly agitated by the presence of so many people. She was not happy about the disturbance in the home and she was especially unhappy with the investigator that was with our group. I could hear Mary repeating over and over “She talks too much, she talks too much.” I recall telling my husband I too, like Mary felt very anxious and not quite right. I am of course alluding to how I was feeling in that moment; confused, disoriented, anxious and not able to comprehend the commotion.

Once the boardroom had cleared of the other people we both got up and walked into the space. I spent some time looking at the features of the room, the height of the ceiling, the mouldings, trim work, fireplace mantel and the beautiful wooden pocket doors used to divide the original smoking room and parlour. So many investigators don’t spend time really soaking in the atmosphere of their surroundings. A building holds a great deal of energy, and its features, and layout can assist us in figuring out what may have happened within its walls.

At this point in the investigation the upstairs group had returned to join our group in the front hall at the bottom of a stairs. The energy in the space was palpable and we were now going to switch locations and continue on the second floor. We lagged back until the last person in our group had reached the top of the stairs.

I wanted to take my time as Mary was not fast moving, and I in turn was following her lead. The staircase to the second floor could be described as an L shape with approximately eight stairs leading straight ahead to a landing before taking a sharp bend to the left where another eight stairs ascended to the second floor.

Everyone from our group was now upstairs except for us. As I started to place my foot on the first stair I immediately needed to reach out for support, not the banister however, which would seemed logical. Instead I found myself groping in the direction of the wall on the right hand side of the staircase. I will note the lights were on in the house but as it was Mary who was guiding me at this point she was clearly looking to touch the wall. Running my right hand along the wall with my left held out in front of me I made my way up the stairs to the landing.

Here I began reaching out trying to get my bearings. Something just wasn’t right about all of this. It felt as though Mary was struggling not only physically, but mentally as well.

I am only hypothesizing based on what I was feeling in that moment but in Mary’s time this mental struggle which may have been depression, dementia, Alzheimer or mental illness was something that had women locked away from the public eye. Anything that affected the brain was lumped under “madness” and women were placed into asylums based on the word of their husband, father or male guardian, even if there was nothing wrong.
Things like melancholy and wandering womb syndrome were common catch phrases and a reason for one being committed.

Mary continued to reach out through me with my hand on the wall and my wits anything but about me. I knew the staircase was narrow and the banister low but Mary seemed terrified to make her way up the stairs. It was a frightening experience to say the least. I continued brushing my hand against the wall to guide me up the stairs to the top and realized Mary was not able to see clearly. Her dim vision alluded to cataracts or glaucoma. Finally reaching the top of the stairs we stepped into a T-shaped hallway that would have originally led to a number of bedrooms. Directly in front of us was a large room that may have once been two bedrooms or perhaps a main bedroom and a nursery. The dividing wall had been removed and at the back of the room was a lovely conservatory area with a large French pane bow window. As I walked through the original bedroom and into the conservatory I lost Mary.

I’ve experienced this before in places that have changed over the years and the residing spirit may not be aware of the changes which were made after their lifetime. The most notable thing outside of Mary not being with me was my eyesight had also returned. It was quite clear that the conservatory had been built sometime in the 1930’s after Mary’s time. We moved back into the main space and Mary returned to my side. At this point she was looking for a door. She kept moving me to one particular place in the hallway adamant about a door being there.

I want to note I find this interesting because as I mentioned I had lost Mary in the new part of the house and at this point she is clearly aware of the missing door. Perhaps because this was the original home, not an addition, she knew the door should have been there in the hallway.

While I was listening to Mary the rest of the group had now moved to the end of the second floor hallway where a narrow staircase lead up to the third-story attic.

I listened to the investigator tell a story that claims a young woman perhaps a daughter of a former resident had a baby out of wedlock. Due to the embarrassing situation the young woman had been locked up in the attic and the baby died from neglect.

To this date I have found no actual historical reference to such a story and I’ve not been able to pick up on anything that would allude to a young woman having been confined to the attic. Once again another “story” surrounding the house that has yet to be confirmed.

The group was on the move again and we stepped aside to let them pass. When the last person was off the stairs we started down. Mary stopped me in my tracks adamant that I sit down and take the flight of stairs on my backside.

Sometimes spirits ask or want us to do things that seem ridiculous, but in order to get the most information depending on the request I may oblige. I sat down and did the first few steps in this manner then decided that was enough and got up and headed down the stairs of my own volition.

Both groups had now converged in the main hallway and with the investigation concluded we all followed the investigators through to the banquet room and out into the adjoining hallway to the attached theatre space.

At that point I once again disconnected with Mary. We entered the theatre space and were instructed that we could now investigate this space or the hallway that attached the two buildings. Most of the group moved into hallway where one of the investigators claimed a little girl has been seen running and playing.

We decided to stay in theatre choosing a seat near the back. Edd took out his spirit box. I don’t use devices, but I do find they sometimes help corroborate the information I am receiving. A few other people that had decided to stay sat up front closer to the stage.

The space was strangely quiet and devoid of sound in that moment outside of the people up front talking and laughing. I focused on the darkness as I quietly asked questions poised at the great beyond.

Edd’s device began to spit out the words. FIND ME, it repeated three times. It sounded like Mary reaching out again. It was the same voice pattern I had been hearing all night. Over the years I have trained myself to pick up on speech patterns and intonation that appear in people’s voices. Just as you and I speak in a very distinct way, spirits often retain their way of communicating, speaking or acting. Mary seems to repeat things three times when she wants to make a point.

As I spoke to her asking more questions Edd received the name Adam and then the name Thomas. About a half hour into our time in the theatre the messages stopped coming through and the rest of the group came back into the space. One of the investigators switched on the house lights (theatre speak for main lights) and thanked us for coming out for the evening.

People started to leave and we lingered a little bit longer in the theatre to pick up on the building itself. At this point I was releasing any energies that may have tagged along for the ride that evening.

We made our way to the main door and were greeted by a lovely woman who waiting there to lock up. As we said good night she asked if anything interesting happened. We stood and chatted for a few moments and I mentioned the name Mary Scholfield. Unfortunately it was not a name that was familiar to her but she did mention the little girl’s spirit, and remarked that it was possible that Mary was her name.

I definitely knew Mary Scholfield was not the little girl associated with the building.

Mary proved to be an interesting spirit. I had received a wealth of information from her and was eager to find out more. Once home I Googled her name and discovered there were at least four various spellings of the name Scholfield. After a bit of digging online the name came up in an old record dating to 1901. The record was from the Hamilton Insane Asylum aka Psychiatric Hospital. An old patient registry listed one Mary Scholfield admitted in 1901, no mention of her aliment outside of mentally unfit. The admission record was followed by her death record at the hospital in 1902 at the age of 59. I was fairly certain this was indeed the Mary Scholfield I had spent time with at the Roselawn.

Sometime later we took the information from the asylum record along with other information Mary had presented to our local archive. The archive here in town is attached to the local museum and they were very open to hearing what I had to say. When I broached the subject of the paranormal I was assured I wasn’t the first to come to them with this type of information.

We were allowed access to the archives and the archivist pulled the file they had on the Scholfield family. There is even a street in town named after the family. We spent about an hour going through all the documentation, genealogy reports, family tree, obituaries and newspaper articles that were contained in the folder.

As luck would have it we discovered an obituary that verified the name Adam Scholfield. The obituary stated Adam had passed away and his wife had predeceased him. There was no mention of his wife’s name in the obituary.

A frustrating situation to say the least, but not unexpected as Victorian era women were not mentioned at all or only mentioned by their first names in relation to the husband. Their last name so often is lost to time.

Thankfully, in the file was a handwritten genealogy chart that listed the Scholfield family and their spouses covering a period of about eighty years. According the records Adam Scholfield had been married more than once. Three times in total. Both his first and second wives first names and surnames appeared, however his third wife showed no name ay all only a question mark.

From every indication I had been given at Roselawn Mary was the last woman married to Adam Scholfield. She was older when they married, likely in her early forties. Given the ages of the previous wives it would appear they died young and quite possibly in childbirth.

After explaining the whole story of the Roselawn investigation I asked the archivist if could I write Mary’s name where the question mark was on the document. She agreed and I added Mary’s name.

Going through further documentation we discovered Mary’s obituary. It showed her place of rest as the Oakwood Cemetery. She was interred along side her husband Adam and their son Thomas (who not even a year old when he died). Adam and Thomas were the additional names we received during the investigation. Mary was now verified as Adam’s wife and mother to young Thomas.

Mary’s words “FIND ME” made sense now. I hoped that by adding her name to the family tree and acknowledging her existence this might give her some closure.

The question is…Was she aware that her name was missing from the archive information or that she may have been excluded because she was committed to an asylum?

In order to offer Mary further closure we took a drive out to Oakwood Cemetery several months later. Dressed in our Victorian finery we took the time to visit Mary/Adam/Thomas and place a coin of remembrance on the top of their large headstone. We wanted to let her know that we did find her.

I now speak about Mary. Her story has been incorporated into our Haunted History tours so that she is no longer forgotten.

Moving forward my continued research uncovered that Mary nor Adam ever lived in the house known as Roselawn. Adam and Mary owned a modest but pretty 2 storey stucco house on a lot that would have offered a beautiful view of the lake along Sugarloaf St. Adam’s name appears several times in Port Colborne records in relation to his construction work. He was a consultant of architecture and worked alongside a well known architect of the era John Latshaw.

Latshaw is responsible for numerous prestigious homes and city buildings in the Niagara and Haldimand regions. Both Latshaw and Schofield designs include Ruthven (York, ON), Bertie Hall (Bridgeburg, ON) as well as the Humberstone and Thorold Town Halls. The Chamber of Commerce building in Port Colborne is also one of Adam and Latshaw’s buildings. Today it serves as our Visitors Centre.

While Adam’s family does not show any direct connection to the Roselawn itself, records show that Adam’s sister was likely married to Lewis Carter who lived in the home in the mid 1800’s.

So how did Mary end up at the Roselawn and why is her spirit still there?
My belief is that Mary may have suffered severe depression after Thomas died. Perhaps because Adam’s sister was residing in the home, Mary spent time there so that Adam’s sister and the family were able to care for her.

We may never know the truth, but at least Mary is acknowledged as a part of the family.

In addition to my original research several years later I found myself working at the Roselawn in a different capacity. After speaking to a city employee who had their office in that very room he verified that in order to meet fire code the original door that led in from the hallway had been walled up and a new fire door had been installed with access to the top of the stairs. He also verified the room itself was the ladies parlour. This would have been a room where the women of the house would have gathered to enjoy stitching, daily gossip and afternoon tea.

For Mary this room would have been where she felt comfortable and safe. I can only hope that when she was moved to the asylum she was unaware of what was happening to her, although her death shortly after may imply otherwise.