A True Ghost Story

The Everett Ghost story first turned up in the form of an old yellowing cutting from a newspaper. Nibbled by silverfish or such, it looked as if it should have been thrown out years ago. The paper was dated 1880 and only a family history nut would give it a second look.

Well, I was researching family history at the time, looking for background information, among other things, that might help me to understand how and why, earlier generations decided to leave home and family in England, to emigrate to Australia.

We all know that many of our first immigrants came out after losing some court case or other in England, but this was different.

Under the title "A Haunted Castle" the article in the old Echo Newspaper told the curious story of a haunted house and gave it as the reason the family left England, before emigrating to Australia.

Arundel Everett from Bruton, Somerset, married Georgiana Dunkerton who appears to have been born at near-by Castle Cary. She was about five years his senior. In those days it was probably considered inappropriate for a man to marry a woman who was older than himself, so the difference in their ages might have been the reason for their daughter Amelia's comment, many years later, that so few family records had been kept, prior to them coming to Australia. In one of her letters, Amelia revealed that Arundel Everett came out to Australia about 1857. This was his second attempt. It appears that his first attempt ended when he was shipwrecked on the coast of Ireland. Georgiana and the girls followed two years later. Georgiana and their six daughters are said to have arrived in Australia on the "Esmirelda" in time to see the spectacle of the Burke and Wills expedition depart from Melbourne with all the razz-a-matazz of a circus carnival. That would place their arrival during the early part of 1860.

Our link to the Everett family stems from the marriage of Christopher, the eldest son of Henry and Mary Ann Francis, to Emilie Jane Everett at All Saints, Wickham Terrace, Brisbane on 27th December 1870. Emilie was the daughter of Arundel Everett and his wife Georgiana, nee Dunkerton. She was the youngest of the five daughters of Arundel and Georgiana, at the time of the strange events that were related in the ghost story.

Family legend surrounds the Everett family as a result of the curious story of the Everett Ghost. Curious, not just because the story itself is remarkable, but because there were those who said it was true. The story was written by one of Emilie's sisters and printed in Melbourne by the Echo Newspaper in 1880.

The story tells how the girls' father bought a large house in a village on the outskirts of London. It was named "Rose Cottage", but was known locally as "Hayes' Castle". The house was of three stories, with vaults underneath, as they subsequently found out. It had been unoccupied for some time, and the family decided to occupy just one wing, with a handsomely carved marble porch and broad marble steps. The rooms on the ground floor were very large and stately, as was the flight of stairs leading to the upper premises. There were some twenty-five rooms in the part of the house they occupied.

After some alterations were carried out, the family moved in, and from day one they were disturbed by ghostly apparitions. The story tells how Uncle William and Aunt Mary came to visit and spent the night, but refused to stay longer as they believed the house was haunted. Aunt was sure someone had come into her room during the night, but she saw no one, and none present had entered her room. Another Aunt, Etta, fled her room in the middle of the night, in the belief that a strange presence had entered. Emilie, who was the baby at the time, saw a strange man on the stairs, and the older children also saw strange things that could not be accounted for.

If all that wasn't enough, the renovations that were continuing uncovered a secret door in what was to be the children's schoolroom. When forced open, stairs were uncovered, leading down to a large vault, which contained human bones, and a second locked room, which appeared to be some sort of crypt, marble lined, with, of course, more human remains.

The author concludes, "Of course, after this discovery we gave up all idea of continuing in the house" - and who could blame them?

I thought it odd, that the author, who wrote in the first person, mentions her sisters, and other family members, by their christian names. One would think that if it was just a piece of fiction she would have selected different names. Then, when I mentioned the ghost story to one of Emilie's grand-daughters, she told me that she knew the story and that her mother had said the story was true.

Could it really be a true ghost story?

Another perplexing reference to the story came in a letter from Mary Ann Francis to Mary Suttor dated 22nd June 1880. Mary Ann wrote - "also in the parcel is a short Ghost story entitled "Hayes' Castle", written by a sister of my daughter-in-law, all she writes in it is true and happened to the Everett family".

Shortly after I placed details of the Everett Ghost Story on my family website, I received a message from another one of Emilie's grand- daughters, who told me that she had a watercolour of the Rose Cottage, or Hayes' Castle, painted by one of the other Everett sisters.
A photo of the painting appears above.

There is more to this story, and you can read the complete ghost story as it appeared in the Echo Newspaper in 1880, on our Family website. You are welcome to visit if you would like to find out more, but there is one more curious happening that I will mention here, concerning the death of Arundel Everett.

Arundel Everett did not live to see his daughters married. His body was found on the road from Nanango to Toromeo, Queensland, on 23rd April 1867. The place where his body was found was about seven miles from Toromeo. The inquest held the next day described Duncan Simon Everett, contractor, as 5ft 4in, light hair with grey beard. He had been staying for a day or two at a hotel at Nanango and had told one of the witnesses that he had fallen off the roof of a house he had been building. He was walking from Nanango to Toromeo, and stopped for a short time with James Holt, a miner, and six men in his company, who were resting beside the road. Everett proceeded his journey and was found dead or dying some time later, when Holt's party caught up with him.

Some injuries on the body were attributed to his supposed fall from the roof. Cause of death was unknown, possibly exhaustion or heart disease. No person suspected. No one accused. No suspicious circumstances.

Is it possible that the disturbed Ghost of Hayes' Castle finally caught up with Arundel Everett on that lonely stretch of Queensland road?

He was buried at the Burnett Cemetery at Nanango. It is not known whether the name Duncan was one of Everett's christian names, was assumed, or was recorded in error at the inquest. A Brisbane newspaper at the time recorded the Obituary of Arundel Everett at Nanango.

Oh! There's one more thing. Family History is a boring hobby ... just recording a lot of dates and things, right? ... Wrong! You never know what you are going to turn up in some dusty old cupboard.