Did the Right Honorable William Lyon Mackenzie King, the tenth prime minister of Canada, visit the Keyhole House? We are not sure. However, we know that he had his fortune told right around the corner. By 1919, former Keyhole House owner Robert Brodie had befriended Sir Wilfred Laurier and Mackenzie King. That same year, Robert […]

If you like spine tingling tales and spectacular magic, you are going to love this. My wife, Marion, and I are now sharing our adventures unlocking secrets and living amongst ghostly manifestations at the Keyhole House, live onstage. The Ottawa Valley is now being papered with posters, rack cards, and a few 16-foot billboards. Lisa […]

Evening strolls through Victoria Park often lead to a large stone adorned with a bronze marker laid in 1923. The marker reads “This swimming pool erected by the corporation and citizens of Smiths Falls under the auspices of the Rotary Club”. Antique postcards featuring beautiful images of the Rotary Pool are relatively common. An old […]

Agnes woke up in pitch black darkness—she was shivering uncontrollably and drenched in sweat. By morning she was coughing to the point of choking. The 60-year-old could no longer ignore the inevitable. Agnes picked up the telephone receiver and cranked the handle. “Operator, it’s Agnes Lamb, please connect me with 114,” she requested. This was […]

Several years ago, I unearthed a strange object in our backyard. It was a disc of pale green glass with the markings “F & G.”  My efforts to research this artifact proved unsuccessful until recently, when I spotted an old, pale green bottle at a local collectable store. The quart sized vessel had the markings […]

In 1884, at the age of twenty-two, Alice Maude Butler (1866-1935) found herself in a United States courtroom with her fifty-four-year-old mother, Hannah Cordelia (Friar) Butler. The courageous mother-daughter duo testified against a man who called himself Dr. Richmond. The man was in fact Ira Richmond Butler, who had deserted his lawfully wedded wife, Hannah, […]

In 1873 McGill University granted its first Engineering degrees which at the time were known as Applied Science. Robert James Brodie (1851-1938) was one of only six scholars to be awarded this recognition. To this day he remains a McGill posterboy. Photographs of the bearded, Chateauguay-born, Fenian Raid veteran, grace the walls and website of […]

When Reginald Burroughs moved into the Keyhole House, he left his mark by signing his name, his son Nelson’s name, and the year “1907” into the wet concrete of a basement windowsill. The family’s new three-digit phone number was 218, and they were listed in the Smiths Falls Telephone Directory as R. E. G. Burroughs […]

Agnes Lamb was a wealthy woman when she died of tuberculosis in 1903 at the Keyhole House. The 60-year-old spinster left executors of her estate with some very clear instructions. In her will, Agnes set aside $1,000 as an investment with the Molsons Bank. She asked that the interest be used to maintain the Wood […]