The Royal Bank Ghost
The Royal Bank in Annapolis Royal, NS
Sitting on the corner of St. George Street and Victoria Street in Annapolis Royal today is the Royal Bank of Canada building. However before the bank there was a house where Major General Sir Fenwick Williams of Kars was born in 1800. After attending grammar school in Annapolis Royal Williams went on to hold a distinguished reputation during the Crimean War at the battle of Kars, becoming known as the “Hero of Kars”. Sir Fenwick was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia in 1865. The house stood on this corner until 1874 when the Union Bank, predecessor of the Royal Bank acquired the land to build their new bank on. At this time the house was separated into different sections and moved. One of these sections was moved to 167 St. Anthony Street where it still stands today.
Guest would often stay in the Williams house and on one occasion about 1830 – 35 the guest was a young man who was in town visiting his sweetheart. On this particular day the young man was to meet his young lover’s family but as the day wore on he was increasingly late. When he did finally arrive he told of an extraordinary tale. He had seen the Royal Bank Ghost during the night. It seems as he was sleeping in one of the guest rooms when he was startled awake in the early hours of the morning. Someone was trying to get into his room. He was about to go to the door to see who it was when he was shocked to see a soldier coming in the room toward him. The soldier was dressed in a torn and defaced uniform of the Royal Engineers. He wore a helmet that was thrown back and was suspended by the chin strap over his right shoulder. The sound of his spurs could be heard as he approached the bed. When he got close enough the lad could see that the soldier’s face was deathly white and his eyes seemed to bulge out with pain. The soldier seemed to be looking for someone and in his left hand he held an unsheathed cavalry sword. He stopped by the bed and held up his right arm which was cut off above the wrist and dripping with blood. The lad gasped and stared only to have the vision disappear before his eyes. The young man was so frightened he pulled the covers up and would not leave the bed for many hours.
However this young lad was not the only one to have seen this soldier. For forty years after this numerous other people sleeping in this bedroom would often be woken up by the Royal Bank Ghost. Another version of the happenings in this room with the same ghost has a slight variance however the similarities show it to be the same ghost. It just tells a little more of the story of what happened to the Royal Bank Ghost. In this version a guest wakes up again in the middle of the night by the sounds of someone trying to enter the room. The door is locked and he lays there waiting for the person to give up thinking it is someone who is trying the wrong door. He is very shocked to see two soldiers enter the room appearing to walk right through the door. Both are wearing top boots that are turned down, long military coats and tricorn hats with plumes. It is felt that they are uniforms from either the French of English about the time of the 17th or 18th century. The soldiers do not even acknowledge the person in the bed. They take off their coats and draw their swords and proceed to enter into a duel. The duel is quite vicious and last for a long time. It finally ends with one soldier stabbing the other one and then cutting off his right arm between the elbow and wrist. The injured soldier grabs his severed arm and looks up in pain at the guest in the bed. Then the other soldier picks him up and throws him out the window and disappears himself.
Maybe on one account the witness sees the actual duel and act of cutting the arm off of the Royal Bank Ghost. The other account shows the victim ghost returning to the place of battle holding his severed arm. Imagine the excitement that went through town when the house was moved and a skeleton of a man with the right arm cut off above the wrist was uncovered in the ancient drain. With the skeleton were fragments of cloth belonging to an old uniform of the Royal Engineers who were stationed at the Fort Anne. To my knowledge there has never been any report of the Royal Bank Ghost being seen again, not even in the piece of the house that was moved.
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