The Oban Inn is turning 200 years old this year, and no history of the buildings of NOTL would be complete without mentioning its ghostly inhabitants.
The Local talked with head ghost guide manager, Daniel, who for the past 20 years, has operated Ghost Walks in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and also has a podcast about local ghosts. Daniel says he was a paranormal investigator in the late '90s and “really got into collecting ghost stories and telling ghost stories.”
Referencing the book Mysteries of Ontario by John Robert Colombo, Daniel said that Cpt. Duncan Milloy is the resident ghost in the Oban Inn. “The legend states that he haunts his son,” explained Daniel. Evidently Cpt. Milloy “didn’t like the way (his son William) was running things, so he would torment him in his dreams.”
Son Bill took more of a business-like approach to running the inn, said Daniel, tearing down part of the building and renovating in order to grab tourist dollars. “But Bill Malloy dies, and Captain Malloy’s still in the building,” and now “he can be heard pacing the third floor,” Daniel explains. “With the soundproofing technology, it shouldn't happen, but people still hear it.”
Daniel said that there are other energies in the inn. “A woman’s spirit has been seen in there, in a white shirt or a white coat."
Just as recently as this spring, Daniel received an email describing a recent ghostly experience at the Oban Inn. Celebrating their 34th wedding anniversary, William Pollard and his wife stayed at the Oban at the end of March, 2024, just before the solar eclipse, “which may have stirred things up,” said Daniel. Their toilet had flushed normally up until the time that Pollard got a nosebleed, then, after the third or fourth flush of bloody tissue, the flapper had come off the chain and the toilet would no longer flush.
Pollard removed the lid off the toilet, looked inside and saw that the chain had come off the hook and was coiled up at the bottom of the toilet. He looked for the hook that normally attaches the chain to the metal arm, and noticed it was missing. Pollard replaced the lid and thought about calling maintenance, but with bloody toilet paper in the bowl, he wanted to flush it first. He devised a fix with a teabag string, opened the lid, and was absolutely shocked to see the hook was back on the end of the chain.
The toilet worked fine.
“Something reached out to try and freak out his wife too,” said Daniel. On the final night of their trip, they’re back in the room just trying to relax and Mrs. Pollard decides to take a bath. The bath was separate from the stand up shower. As Pollard was falling asleep, he heard his wife shouting “get out,” several times.
She had seen a man standing in the shower, staring at her, but when Pollard went into the bathroom, no one was there, and there was no other exit. The Pollards aren’t sure they would ever stay in that room again.
Only a month ago, MsSmudge14 posted under Hans Last’s Youtube video chronicling the great fire at the Oban Inn in 1992. She said she had an encounter she will never forget.
“I was there for lunch that year, and felt an energy guide me to the bottom of the stairs. I told people something was wrong, and what’s upstairs. People looked at me strangely. There is a male spirit upstairs and another one downstairs. I had no idea when I was there about the history. After the fire, the bus tour driver didn’t know what to think when I saw him again. I have never forgotten this feeling.”
