From the shores of Lake Ontario, I bring you a ghost story. It’s the legend of a long-lost ship whose spectral image (some say) can still occasionally be seen sailing under a blue moon.
The story hails from 1835, the heyday of lake-sailing cargo schooners. Nine-Mile Point was a natural stopping point for local shippers; the large sand bluff poked out into the lake and had a tree at the point’s end, making it easy to identify.
Angus McClone and Dirk VanWesterly were two tight-fisted farmers who had large farms near Nine Mile Point. Ship captains who docked there knew both farmers well, especially their penchant for haggling over shipping rates. Successful ship captains refused to deal with them, but there were always others who needed the money and had no choice but to agree to a bad deal.
One such captain was Hugh Bowe. His ship was called the Nilfred, and it was in very bad condition. McClone was on shore when it pulled into harbor, and – sensing that the ship’s captain would be desperate for funds – McClure negotiated a very unfair rate to have his goods shipped to Charlotte.
Adding insult to injury, McClone and VanWesterly demanded free passage to Charlotte, where they made a good profit selling the cargo. Then they demanded a free ride home. Since he’d not yet been fully paid, Bowe agreed, setting sail under a blue moon back to Nine Mile Point, furious about how these country farmers had gotten the better of him.
On the way back to Nine Mile Point, McClone and VanWesterly tucked into a bottle of whiskey to celebrate their good fortune, and soon started talking too much about how much money they’d made. Hearing this, Bowe and his crew hatched a plan. Why not kill the farmers, take their money, set the Nilfred on fire and row away in a lifeboat? The people on shore would see the fire and assume that all on board had died.
The plan went off without a hitch. The crew dispatched the farmers, found the money, and when the ship arrived back at the mouth of Four Mile Creek, the sailors set it afire, boarded a lifeboat and started paddling to shore. The schooner sailed away slowly toward the middle of the lake.
But the winds at Nine Mile Point can be capricious. They turned the schooner completely around and it started sailing back to shore, heading straight towards the lifeboat. Unable to get out of the way in time, the Nilfred crashed into the lifeboat, killing Bowe and his crew.
Then the winds changed again, turning the Nilfred completely around once more. It was last seen sailing away over the horizon, a blazing torch under a blue moon.
It’s said that sometimes, on nights of a blue moon, a ghostly apparition of a burning ship appears far out on the lake off Nine Mile Point. It moves towards the shore, and then suddenly turns around and disappears over the horizon.
Perhaps the farmers’ ghosts are trying to get back to reclaim their lands.
This story, and the image above, were pulled from The Burning Ship and other Legends: Tales and Lore of Western New York (1994) by C. Benn Forsyth, still available on Amazon.com.
Discover more fascinating Webster history at the Webster Museum, 18 Lapham Park. It’s open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Find out more at webstermuseum.org.
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(posted 10/19/2024)
