The ghosts of Mackenzie House and haunted Dundee

Both Mackenzie House and Dundee have haunting tales to tell.

As we continue to explore the shared history between Dundee and Toronto, we step beyond the surface and into their shadows — places where the past lingers not just in bricks and stone, but in whispers, chills, and eerie encounters that refuse to be forgotten.

Mackenzie House’s unnerving tales

We return to Mackenzie House, which we met earlier in our journey. This unassuming brick building, once home to Dundee-born William Lyon Mackenzie, is no ordinary museum.

Widely considered one of Toronto’s most haunted sites, the house holds stories that chill even the most sceptical visitor.

Mackenzie House is considered Toronto’s most haunted house.

Footsteps echo down empty corridors, the old printing press mysteriously grinds to life in the stillness of night, and an icy chill follows you from room to room.

Some say Mackenzie himself still roams the halls, his restless spirit bound to the place where he spent his final days.

Caretakers over the years have told their own unnerving tales: Mrs Edmund, a live-in caretaker, famously reported being slapped awake by the apparition of a stern-faced woman, thought to be Mackenzie’s wife, Isabel.

The site of Mackenzie’s deathbed where Mrs Edmund was said to have been slapped by Mackenzie’s wife.

Even the city’s inventory of the house included “one ghost” when it was bequeathed to Toronto.

Dundee’s haunted mysteries

It’s a story that feels remarkably familiar on the other side of the Atlantic.

Dundee, too, is a city with its own spectral echoes. Take the haunting legends of Coffin Mill, a relic of the city’s jute empire. Long since fallen silent, locals whisper of shadowy figures still glimpsed among the dust and decaying machinery.

Coffin Mill is one of the most haunted sites in Dundee.

One tale speaks of a young jute worker, fatally entangled in the relentless machines of the mill — her spirit said to linger, a haunting reminder of the human cost behind Dundee’s industrial triumphs.

Or consider Claypotts Castle, where the Green Lady — a spectral figure clad in emerald — is said to drift past its ancient windows.

Claypotts Castle is said to be haunted by the Green Lady. (Picture: Wikimedia Commons)

Her story is shrouded in mystery, but her presence feels as enduring as the stones of the castle itself, much like the apparitions that haunt the Mackenzie home.

And then there is the White Lady of Balgay Bridge, whose story has been passed down through generations of Dundonians.

She is said to cross the bridge at night, her pale form fleeting but unforgettable.

Everyone had their own version of her story — a testament to how folklore weaves itself into the identity of a place.

---

What binds these tales together is more than just coincidence.

Both Dundee and Toronto, across an ocean from one another, are cities where history refuses to rest quietly. Mackenzie’s spirit, so deeply connected to both places, feels almost like a guide between them — a bridge not just of history, but of haunting.

The echoes in the halls of Mackenzie House mirror the restless spirits of Dundee’s own landmarks, from the mills to the bridges and castles of our city.

These shared shadows remind us that our histories are never just stories on a page or plaques on a wall.

They live on in the places we inhabit, in the footsteps we think we hear behind us, and in the chill that raises the hairs on the back of our necks.

In both Dundee and Toronto, the past lingers — not always seen, but always felt.