Leslie Mark - Spooky Sudbury/Haunted Hamilton/Tomes of Terror

A Look at the People Behind Haunted Hamilton Ghost Walks & Events

I knew that when I first began writing a book involving ghosts in the Hamilton area, I would be consulting with the folks from Haunted Hamilton Ghost Walks & Events. Founders Daniel Cumerlato and Stephanie Lechniak have been very generous with their time, resources, and the more than ten years of in-depth research they have conducted as part of their business.

The whole way through my journey of compiling information and collecting tales, they have shared personal accounts, detailed articles, suggestions for people I should talk to, and have welcomed me with open arms and friendly smiles. They have also been generous with their time, responding to my phone calls and emails as well as sitting down with me at length to be interviewed about what they do and some of the legends they have investigated.

For this reason, I thought it would be important to share a little bit of detail about their group and all that they offer to Hamilton, not just from an intriguing and paranormal viewpoint, but from a historical perspective.

Dan and Stephanie have been running Haunted Hamilton since 1999.

It all started when the couple, who were both born and raised in Hamilton, were living in Toronto. They had always been intrigued by supernatural events and, one evening were conducting an Ouija board session in their apartment with a microcassette recorder. They had had done the usual things one does when playing with an Ouija board and asked if there was a spirit presence. Eventually, the pointer on the board moved to YES and occasionally moved around providing non-descript responses to their question, but nothing much really happened.

It wasnt until they were done the session, which was held in an apartment lit only by the atmospheric light of candles, that they discovered something eerie had happened and which neither of them had noticed. When they were done and listened to the tape they could hear their voices in the background, somewhat muted and distant because the recorder was sitting a few feet away from them. But after they had said: Spirit, are you there? a very clear, breathy voice could be heard right up at the microphone, saying, Yesss!

We slept with the lights on that night! Daniel joked.

But that incident was the genesis of it all. Daniel and Stephanie went to a local Toronto paranormal group with their story but didnt hear anything back. So they posted about their experience on the Internet, and among the website hits they received, they heard from a couple of guys who were planning on doing a paranormal television show. Stephanie and Daniel met with them and the guys listened to the EVP. They were quite intrigued and spent a long time discussing the event the couple had experienced as well as sharing other stories. Nothing ever happened with them or the television show, but Daniel and Stephanies interest in the paranormal had been piqued. During the discussion, the guys who were working on the television show had mentioned something they called the murder house in Hamilton.

Afterwards, Stephanie and Daniel learned they were speaking about the Bellevue Mansion in Hamilton and they spent a great deal of time doing research on this building, discovering the tales surrounding it were akin to the legends associated with The Amityville Horror .

The two visited the mansion during the day. Mostly because we were too frightened to visit the home in the middle of the night, Stephanie joked. Stephanie also went to her parents home in Hamilton, snuck into her fathers closet, and borrowed her fathers rather expensive 35mm camera.

They entered the Bellevue Mansion, which was wide open, and marvelled at the sights, such as pieces of the stairwell missing and a tree growing up through the dumbwaiter area, and spent about an hour taking notes about and pictures of this historic building. Their visit wouldnt be complete, however, without checking out the Widows Walk, where they saw the most beautiful view of the city.

They felt a connection to the house the second they stepped into it. The controversy about the house interested them so much that they started a website called Disappearing History as well as a site dedicated to ghosts and the supernatural. They wanted the stories of the disappearing history of the Hamilton area and these beautiful landmarks to be heard.

The ghostly tales, however, are what drew most visitors to their website, so they evolved the historically focused articles to include a supernatural flavour. Haunted Hamilton isnt there for the shock factor but instead to document and report. Yes, there is entertainment in the telling of their ghost stories, but never at the expense of the history.

Theres a respect that is given to the story, Daniel said. Respect for the persons legitimate story is what Stephanie, Daniel, and their team are all about. And while they prefer the term Paranormal Investigators to ones such as Ghostbusters , theyre flexible in how people refer to them.

We used the hate the term Ghost Hunters , Daniel said. But youve got to have a sense of humour and learn to go with the flow. Both Stephanie and Daniel have taught themselves to roll with the terms that become popular for people describing their theatrical approach to sharing Hamiltons spooky history.

In 2003, the same year that they started the ghost walks, a tour of various haunted locations in Hamiltons downtown core, they won two Tourism Hamilton awards: one for the best rookie of the year and another for the best new tourism idea. At a time when attracting people to the downtown core of Hamilton was a critical venture for the city, Haunted Hamilton managed to host huge groups of walking tours that celebrated Hamiltons historic buildings and people. It was ironic that their walks and tales of scary things going bump in the night were leading toward people feeling less scared to be downtown.