It was a late night in the early fall of 1794 where on the side of Citadel Hill which at the top of it existed the third version of the Halifax Citadel, was a small, poorly put together wooden building, one that was hastily put together in the matter of a few weeks and not meant to last any more than a few years. It was being used as a supplementary barracks within the grounds of the Citadel and at this time this building was being used as an officer’s quarters.

As officers at this moment in history bought their commissions into the army, they didn’t have to work to become officers, rather commissions were something that you could buy and sell almost like stocks nowadays where the commission was dependent on not just the rank but also the regiment that you were with. The higher the standing: the more victories and better reputation a regiment had, the costlier it was to get a commission for that regiment. Even in some of the lowest-ranked-reputation regiments buying a commission to be an officer would have been the equivalent of several hundreds of thousands of dollars nowadays and that’s just for the lowest ranks. You can buy a commission for any rank and have the price increasingly go up or down. On top of that you were also able to sell your commission back to someone else if they wanted to join the army and take your rank as you retired. All this to say that the guys who were officers for this time were either filthy stinking rich themselves or they came from filthy stinking rich families. Most of the time an officer within the army, whenever they entered a new spot, would buy their own house within the dwellings themselves and then just sell it back to the highest bidder when they were going to leave and go to a new spot. However, this wasn’t mandatory; in fact, many officers didn’t end up doing this and the ones that didn’t were given their own form of quarters where they’d get a large room to themselves and a steward that would come and attend to their every need.

It was in this officer’s quarters where two men had lived: two men by the names of General George Wynyard and Colonel Sherbrooke. Both men were very high ranked officers within the British Army but had also spent quite a few years together within the regiment and as a result had quite a bit of a camaraderie. These are guys that were normally shut-ins that didn’t like to attend any sort of social events or gatherings; they liked to spend as much time with themselves as possible, but because of their development side by side within the army they did make an exception to spend a bit of time with each other.

It was on this particular night when General Wynyard wasn’t feeling too well and Colonel Sherbrooke had offered to spend the night with him instead, rather than being in the officer’s mess where they could relax, have a few bottles of wine and chat and share stories amongst each other. This was quite easy to do as an officer would get two bottles of wine every single day on top of their normal rations. Trust me, they had plenty! It wasn’t just the rank-and-file guys who were going down to the bars and partying their hearts out. The officers, even though they had a lot more composure to keep were doing just as much if not more drinking than the guys beneath them.

But that aside, this particular night leads into a set of strange, borderline unexplainable circumstances which if you were to tell it to anyone nowadays, they’d look at you and consider you crazy and not believe anything you say whatsoever. Due to the circumstances that surround both the events of this night and the events that happen after, this seemingly unbelievable story not only gains a substantial amount of credibility, but seemingly overnight in just a span of a few weeks, skyrockets in popularity and at one point even becomes the most popular ghost story within the entirety of the British Empire.

This story is called the Wynyard Story named after one of our two titular characters that it happens to take place with. It was on this night when Sherbrooke and Wynyard were talking with each other, having a good time, sharing laughs when suddenly at around 10:45 maybe 10:50 at night or so (some of the details are a little conflicting), but suddenly there was a small knock that comes at Wynyard’s door. Just as naturally as he breathes, without even taking a pause in his conversation, he walks up and proceeds to open the door as this is something Wynyard has had to deal quite a bit with. To provide a bit of context for the building that they’re situated in, this officer’s quarters has a front door that faces out towards the street in front of them but it’s also a two-storey building, one that’s got rooms on the first floor and second floor where, if you walk through the main door, you have a room in front of you and a long hallway that spans to both your left and your right in front of that room that will connect all of the rooms on one floor together. And then on either side of that hallway is a staircase that will lead you up to the porch of the second floor of this officer’s quarters. It just so happens that poor General Wynyard gets the room that is directly in front of the main entrance to the officer’s quarters and as a result, anytime that someone comes up and knocks with business for the officers, he must be the one to get up, go answer the door and guide them properly. Just as naturally as the dozens or at this point maybe even hundreds of times that he’s done it, he walks over and opens the door and what does he find? That there is no one outside. The sky is practically pitch black with the exceptions of a few small lanterns hanging a few feet above him dangling over the street providing small bits of illumination onto the streets below. He angrily shuts the door and grumbles to himself as he walks back over to sit back in his chair. Poor Wynyard has just been Ding Dong Ditched! This is not the first time this has happened to him and it’s not going to be the last. In fact he’s so ticked off about this that Colonel Sherbrooke who’s sitting on the other side of the room hears him muttering under his breath not quite clearly but it sounds something like “So help me God, if one more man were to get up and go knock on that blasted door I refuse to get up and go answer it.” Which I’m sure is a promise he meant to keep, but little did he know in not that long it would become practically impossible as about 40 maybe 45 minutes later there is a very small almost indistinguishable knock that comes at that front door. Does Wynyard ignore it on purpose or does he not hear it; it’s hard to say. What we do know is that Wynyard continues with his conversation. Instead of the knocking ceasing it not only slowly grows in speed but it also starts to grow in volume in fact at one point it gets so loud and so irritating that it becomes practically impossible to ignore and in a fury Wynyard springs up out of his chair, runs over to that door and he practically tears the thing off its hinges opening it. From the other side of the room where Sherbrooke has a side profile of Wynyard, he sees him getting ready to tear into whoever’s on the other side of that door. All of a sudden his body drops, everything relaxes and he’s standing there for what might have only been 10 maybe 15 seconds but to both of these men it must have felt like an eternity, when all of a sudden Wynyard quickly steps off to the side of the door as a man proceeds to walk in through the front. One described by Colonel Sherbrooke as a man between 5 foot 10 or 5 foot 11 with extremely white clammy skin. He was extremely frail and looked like he couldn’t be more than 100 lbs soaking wet. Which funny to mention, is that this man that walks through the door is actually soaking wet! He’s got short black scraggly hair that’s completely soaking wet; he’s got unkempt facial hair that looks like several weeks maybe even month’s-worth of it that’s also dripping water down onto the floor below him. You can see the sheen of the water reflecting off his wool tunic and pants, and the water tarnish that’s been done to the brass buttons on front of him. This man also has eyes sunken so far into the back of his head they look like they will pop out of his skull at any moment. He had bags under bags under bags underneath his eyes and looks like he hasn’t slept a wink in months. His pupils were so expanded that Colonel Sherbrooke couldn’t tell what colour his eyes were as they looked like empty black masses in the back of his eye sockets. He looks over at each of these men, gives a small nod and then proceeds to walk all the way into the back of Wynyard’s living area where there exists a small doorway without an actual door on it that leads to general Wynyard’s bedroom. He’s got a bed and nightstand tucked into the back right side of the room and over on the back left corner he’s got a small walk-in closet that contains all his civilian clothing and uniform supplies that he needs to operate throughout his business. This man proceeds to walk into the bedroom, takes a sharp left and disappears around the corner seemingly just as fast as he had walked into the room in the first place, leaving a small water trail almost perfectly tracing the footsteps he had walked. After witnessing this, for lack of a better term, both men are completely stunned by what they see. Sherbrooke is the first one to snap out of that confused daze and looks back over at the door, realizes it’s still open and doesn’t want to let in too much cold air and so of course goes to close it. He looks over at Wynyard who’s got this 1000-yard death stare that looks like it could not only bore a hole through the wall of his room but go through all the others and maybe even out the other side of the quarters itself. Sherbrooke walks over to Wynyard, grabs him by the shoulders starts to give him a light shake and exclaims something to the likes of “snap out of it! Good God man, what is wrong with you? This miscreant has just walked into your quarters uninvited, makes his way into your bedroom, and is likely trying to steal your uniform as we speak! Why won’t you do anything about this?” All Wynyard can say, his gaze still unbreaking, in fact it’s hard to even call it saying anything as he’s more or less grumbling under his breath as he keeps repeating to himself “oh God, oh God, oh God!” Sherbrooke goes “ “oh God” what are you talking about “oh God”?” At that moment Wynyard stares back at Sherbrooke and softly under his breath he says, “I think that man was my brother.”

“What do you mean that’s your brother? What are you talking about?” And it’s at this point that Wynyard proceeds to explain there’s a bit of an urban legend within the Wynyard family; one that seems to get passed down from generation to generation and has over the past several hundred years. One that says that someone that’s close to you whether it’s a family member like a brother, sister, mom, dad, whoever they may be, or maybe a very close friend who’s played a pivotal role in your life, and maybe you’re out going about your business and maybe you see them in a spot where you know for a fact that they shouldn’t be, or you know that they’ve never be in the first place. Maybe they’re wearing something that you know they don’t have, or maybe you pass them in a hallway, or crossing the street and they look at you with a look on their face that you didn’t even know that they were capable of making. If any of this happens to you, then there is a chance that it might not be that person that you’re looking at in the first place, at least not in the physical sense as it could very well be the last vestiges of this person who has oh so recently just passed on and with the last moments they have in the living realm, are going around to all of the people that were important to them in their mortal life and saying their last goodbyes before they move on to whatever comes next.

And frankly, as ridiculous as that sounds, at the very least, gets both men into motion for very different reasons. Sherbrooke is more concerned about stopping and detaining this man who just walked in, and Wynyard is more concerned with trying to meet up with this spectre and finding out if it really is his brother or maybe it is just some sort of random intruder. So now both men walk through that doorless doorway into Wynyard’s bedroom, look around, and they don’t see him there of course. However, they do see a small water trail on the floor that goes almost perfectly to the walk-in closet tucked in that back left corner. They walk over, open it up and they find absolutely nothing there; all of the head dresses are still neatly organized on the top shelf as with all of his shoes and boots and socks that are neatly organized and lined up on the bottom section, and hanging up on a pole are all of his tunics and under shirts and trousers still neatly organized by uniform whether they be military or civilian. It looks like not even a small wind has passed through. In fact, upon further inspection, when they leave this closet and look back down at the entrance, that water trail that had led them to the closet in the first place seems to completely cut off as soon as it hits that door. At this point, a lot of the other officers who are in the quarters are hearing this commotion and guys from both the first floor and 2nd floor then come down to see what’s going on. But it is far too late: any signs of this spectre that had disturbed Wynyard and Sherbrooke’s night have completely vanished.

All they can do is take accounts of what happened from both men, which seemed to line up perfectly, detail for detail. They are encouraged to write their experience down in as much detail as they possibly can, not only to help verify their story but because it might be interesting for anyone that’s willing to lend an ear.

Nothing else happens over the rest of the night. However, over the course of the next several weeks, these men, who were quite introverted, suddenly become some of the most social people you’ve ever seen in your life. These men, whether alone or together are going to every single ball or gala, fancy dinner event parade, meetings with socialites and aristocrats or whatever they may be. Everywhere they go, anyone that’s willing to lend an ear, they tell as many people as possible about the strange occurrence that had happened to them. It’s after that few weeks where there’s hardly an ear within the city of Halifax that doesn’t know about the tale of the Wynyard story. It doesn’t break any international boundaries and stays contained within the city.

About three and a half months after the incident occurs it’s getting into the later winter months. The ice has broken in Halifax harbour and it’s a lot easier for ships to cross the ocean. The first packet of mail from overseas has finally made its way into the city of Halifax and of course, not only is there mail for citizens of the city from the empire, but there are also letters for the guys that are stationed within it. Wynyard happens to be no exception, and he receives a letter addressed to him from his mother that is dated the morning after the incident had occurred. Wynyard opens it up and it exclaims that due to some very unfortunate circumstances his brother Jack Wynyard had passed away at the family apartments over in Kensington Palace. Jack Wynyard was also a very high-ranking officer within the British Army and passed away from a very severe case of tuberculosis. It just so happens that his time of death was recorded to be the very hour that this vestige visits Wynyard and Sherbrooke.

With this seemingly newfound evidence, the small bits of skepticism that had surrounded the Wynyard story among the locals had vanished preserving the high reputation that these very high-ranking officers had with both social standing and in the army. This story now breaks out of Halifax and eventually makes its way back to London, spreading throughout the rest of the territories like wildfire.

The Wynyard story was the most popular ghost story of all time but eventually the story dies down, and less people are hearing about it.

Several decades later there is a very famous author that comes to visit the city of Halifax; one who happens, not even a year after his visit to Halifax and hearing about the Wynyard story from some of the locals, proceeds to write his own ghost story. That happens to be called A Christmas Carol and in fact, it’s Charles Dickens that makes his visit over to Halifax in 1842.

While we’re still looking for evidence to suggest that the Wynyard story could be a main inspiration for A Christmas Carol itself, we’re always still looking and if it does happen to be the case then that is how, through two seemingly unrelated stories, one set of events would not only become the most popular ghost story of its time but now many would consider to be the most popular ghost story of all time.

Context: This story was told to me by B.E.W, a Military Interpreter at the Halifax Citadel Canadian National Historic Site. It is commonly recounted to visiting tourists during ghost tours at the site. It tells the story of a military man who is visited at his barracks on Citadel Hill in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada by a man who turns out to be the ghost of his recently deceased brother. This story became famous internationally and may even have inspired Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”.  

Analysis from storyteller: B.E.W. says that he first learned of these stories around 5 years ago when he began working at the fortress and enjoys them the most because they are “not tall tales; there are multiple varied accounts of them happening and they even have some authentic documentation to back them up”. Also, he says that “these are the stories that the people on my tours are always most intrigued by”.

Analysis from myself: This is an interesting part of the history of the city I was born in and a place that I have visited many times. I assumed there were hauntings but not with such specific documentation of historical accuracy. It brings the past to life and makes me appreciate the history of my hometown. It makes me think about ghosts having unfinished business with the living.