Haunted Harbours Read Free Page B

was fairly common in that day and age, but some folks claimed that the Henneberrys were cursed because they lived on Devil’s Island. Their house was later rumoured to be haunted by the sounds of a baby crying, loud and eerie in the middle of the night. Worn to weariness by grief and terror, the family eventually tore down the house. Wood, being in short supply, quickly found a use; the lumber of the old Henneberry house was scavenged and recycled by kin and neighbours alike.
    But those who used the wood soon learned to rue their Scotian frugality. Every house that laid a plank of Henneberry wood in its framing was reported to be haunted either by the sound of Henneberry’s sloshing rubber boots or the weeping wail of a dying infant. Those who burned the wood swore they heard the sound of a baby screaming in the heart of the flames.
    To this day it is said that the descendants of the Henneberry family refuse to set foot on the shores of Devil’s Island. Passing fishermen have sometimes seen a baby’s cradle floating in the water but as soon as they move their boats close enough to see it clearly, the cradle seems to slide into the water and quickly vanish.

3

THE TALE OF THE
YOUNG TEAZER

MAHONE BAY

    Nova Scotia is a peninsula and there are very few locations within its borders where you can stand more than fifty miles from the ocean, so what book of Nova Scotian ghost stories would be complete without a tale of a phantom ship?
    There are quite a few ghost ship stories to be found in Nova Scotia, so many that one wonders why all of these fabled ghost ships haven’t been written up by the Coast Guard as a maritime traffic hazard.
    There is the well-reported phantom ship that sails up and down the Northumberland Strait, the empty drifting Mary Celeste , and Captain Kidd’s famous treasure ship. Yet the Mahone Bay tale of the Young Teazer has long been a favourite of mine.
    Back in the early 1800s privateering was a profitable but dangerous profession. Privateering was a barely legal form of piracy. A captain would apply for a letter of commission from his monarch and/or ruler, and then would set out to capture every enemy vessel he could.
    Every captured vessel and sometimes its crew, if they could be easily taken, were brought in to the naval commission of the pirate’s home country for a suitable reward. These captured ships would be converted and put to use in the fleet, sometimes as privateers themselves. Ships were swapped back and forth like bubble gum baseball trading cards.
    Such was the case of the Young Teazer . Originally the property of a Spanish slaver, she was captured and sold at Halifax in 1811. She was refitted and then served as a packet vessel, sailing between Liverpool and London, under the very practical name of the Liverpool Packet .
    When the War of 1812 broke out, the Liverpool Packet was refitted yet again and received a privateer’s commission from the British government. As a privateer, this small, fast fifty-four by eighteen-and-a-half foot vessel was very successful. She single-handedly captured more than a dozen enemy vessels with the help of five cannon and a crew of forty-five. Eventually, though, she was captured by the American vessel, Thomas . She was sold at auction again and renamed the Young Teazer .
    Are you keeping score? So far the Young Teazer has been a Spanish ship, a British commercial vessel, a British privateer, and now an American privateer.
    Her new master, young lieutenant Frederick Johnson, took command of her in 1813, directly following his capture and release by the British forces, and therein lies the heart of the tale. You see, Lieutenant Johnson was captured by the British with his previous vessel and had signed a parole note promising that he would return to his home town and never take up arms against the British forces again. Yet no sooner had he returned to Maine than he signed on as the master of the Young Teazer .
    Some might think