Lifting the lid on history
In mid-November 1898 a ghost began haunting the Cannington cemetery at midnight on successive nights. The “ghost” was clearly a man and on 13 November concerned residents lodged a report with Perth police. They noted that he appeared to be wearing dark tights, was covered with a white cloth and had “large glaring eyes.“
Practical jokers come and go, but the ghost joker seems to go on forever.
Have you seen the ghost! is the latest query under the verandah. Dark rumors have been for some time circulated, of a mysterious apparition which at uncanny hours, haunts the solitudes of Francis street.
According to the Victorian Express, in 1882 numerous Geraldtonians had indeed seen the spectre, dressed in black and walking along Francis Street in the middle of the night. While the reporter was no doubt taking a little creative liberty, they stated that when it was approached it vanished “…into thin air, with a mocking laugh, a flare of blue light, and a smell of sulfur.“
In the early 1870s a man by the name of Thomas Scott visited Western Australia and in particular Pinjarra. He was there for about three days when he mentioned that he had passed an elderly woman dressed in a light dress standing on the Pinjarra Bridge. He did not know it at the time but what he had seen was the Pinjarra ghost who was said to haunt the bridge over the Murray River.
The Dusty Box 