Blue Ghost Tunnel

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
In 1876, an arched, stone tunnel was built under the Grand Trunk railroad tracks in Niagara Falls. So how did something built as a drainage passage become known as the "Screaming Tunnel" or the "Blue Ghost Tunnel"?

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Merritton Tunnel with guard shack to the right c.1890s

The Merritton Tunnel was completed in 1876, and opened in 1881. Using limestone, about 1,000 Irish immigrants worked on the project that spanned over 700 feet. Allowing traffic to cross the Welland Canal in St. Catherines, Ontario was the original purpose of the tunnel. The canal acted as a highway for boats travelling between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

Due to the threat of cows and other farm animals entering the tunnel and causing a derailment, guards were posted at either end of the tunnel. ​

As if presaging what would happen a few days later, in December, 1902, Angelo Dicesare was a trackman employed on the GTR track. He was hit by No. 4 Express just east of the Merritton Tunnel. He was walking eastward along the tracks when struck. His left arm was broken and he had a concussion, but survived.​

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G.T.R. Engine No. 4 c.1904

In the first days of January, 1903, No. 4 Express collided with a light Mogul. Both engines were in a deep gully, and on a sharp curve, so that neither engineer could see the other engine until they were 200 feet apart.​

Both firemen on each engine were killed. Charles Warning 22, and Abraham Desault were killed. One of them "was jammed between the tender and the boiler, and so horribly mangled that when the remains were taken away his overalls still remained so tightly wedged between the tender and boiler they could not be pulled out, and one of the wrecking crew removed his watch (which was still going) and money from the pockets of the overall without being able to extricate the garment itself." Other crewmen were seriously injured.

In 1915, was the last time a train ran through the tunnel. From then on it was used only by farmers to transport cattle, or shelter from inclement weather. It was replaced by a swing bridge just south of the Old Lock 17.

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A memorial was unveiled in 2017 to commemorate the workers killed during the construction of the Welland Canal

The construction of Welland Canal lasted for 21 years; 137 workers of different nationalities lost their lives. Of this number, 58 were under the age of 30 and had been working on the canal for a short amount of time. The Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial was unveiled in St. Catharines on November 12, 2017. 

One of those listed is Antonio Montemurro, one of 14 children who immigrated to Canada with a brother and uncle. He had been working only two weeks on the project when he was electrocuted at a drilling machine in 1915, at the age of 23. His brother Michael was so distraught the he moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin and raised a family there, never to return to Canada.

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Merritton Tunnel after it was bricked up c.post 2007

Perhaps the peculiar happenings at the tunnel are due to its proximity to the Lakeview Cemetery established in 1886. It lies in a wooded farmland on the east side of the Welland Canal, close to the Niagara Escarpment.

The old section of the graveyard had a view of St. Catherines and the old Welland Canal Seaway property. It was a cemetery for a Lutheran and Presbyterian church, a.k.a. The Old German Church Burying Ground established in 1802. It was replaced by St. Peter's Anglican Church in 1838. In 1886, the cemetery was closed when the new section of Lakeview Cemetery was opened.

In 1923, the land changed hands and was selected to be used as a reservoir for the fourth Welland Canal. It was reported that there were about 900 graves from the Old German / St. Peter's Anglican cemetery, and it's believed not all the remains were moved. Only those who had family to request the exhumation, which numbered about 300, were reinterred in the new cemetery. It would have been a difficult task since most of the coffins were made of wood, and had probably disintegrated through the years. The graves left behind were flooded over.

The new section mirrors the old one due to a planned expansion during the 1960s, where graves were to be moved again. The expansion didn't happen, and the cemetery is closed to new burials. 

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There are several stories to account for the weird happenings at the tunnel. Most of them seem to be mostly urban myth, since there is no historical reference to confirm them, unlike the train crash in 1903. So take the following tidbits of history with a grain of salt:
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• In 1875, a 14-year-old boy was crushed by a rock. 
• This story involves a girl who ran from an old farmhouse that stood just behind the south side of the tunnel. With her clothing on fire she collapsed inside the tunnel. In another version she was burned to death by her father. Her spirit will be summoned if a match is lit off the tunnel wall around midnight, and she will scream which might also be a night train passing through. This is how it earned the name of the "screaming tunnel." 

The tunnel was used in the 1983 film The Dead Zone.

​Present day the tunnel is falling apart, and sinking into the ground. One end of it is flooded and submerged, which doesn't make it the safest place to visit.

There are also tales of a haunting by an elemental, and the sighting of a ghost dog.

Perhaps it's just those who were left behind at the Old German Church Burying Ground, who were covered by water, forgotten and mostly unnamed.

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