The Mutchmor Ghost

I am a grade six student at Mutchmor Public School. Most people at my school have heard of 'the ghost of Mr. Mutchmor', and, as well, everybody has their own version of the story about how he/it came to be. Here is the most common version of the story. Please tell me if any or all of it is true.

In around 1885, there was a man, James Mutchmor, who owned most of the Glebe. One day, another man came and asked if he could build a school on Mutchmor's property. Mutchmor said it was OK, but warned him not to disturb his grandfather's grave, which was on the lot. So, the next day, workers went out and started building. Things were going pretty well, but after a month or so, one of the workers accidentally dug up the tombstone and put it in a huge pile along with some other big stones. He and three other workers went through the pile, but couldn't find it. They then decided to simply carve a new stone. They finished the new stone within a few hours. That night, just as the three were leaving they heard music coming form the grave. They walked towards the grave . . . That night the four workers didn't go home, in fact, nobody ever heard from them again, and when Mr. Mutchmor went to check the worksite, he saw the original headstone back in place, and the three workers' tools spread out in a circle around the grave.

To this day, if you are in the basement after dark, you can hear music coming form the room where the body is sealed off. You can see the ghost. I know. I have. And that room, though the heating systems have been checked many times over, is cold as ice, even on the hottest summer days.

That's my story. Is it fact or fiction?

This is a really interesting ghost story! Thanks for going to the trouble of putting it down in words. Here is what I found out.

The Mutchmor family never ownd the land on which Mutchmor School is built. Fifth Avenue was called Mutchmor Street until 1909, and the school was named for the street it was on, a common practice in Ottawa. That is how First Avenue Public School and Hopewell Public School got their names as well.

The Mutchmor farm extended from the south side of Fifth Avenue to about Broadway, and from Bronson Avenue east across the canal to Main Street. Fifth Avenue (Mutchmor Street) was the road allowance between the Mutchmor farm and the Glebe lands that were owned by St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church downtown.

The word 'glebe' means land belonging to the church. St. Andrew's owned about 200 acres of land between Fifth Avenue and Glebe Avenue, from Bronson east to Main Street. In the 1890's, the church began to subdivide their Glebe lands west of the canal for housing. They sold eight house lots to the Ottawa Public School Board to build Mutchmor School and provide a play ground.

Mutchmor Public School faces south because this is the direction the first students came from. The Mutchmor's began to subdivide and sell their farm for housing in the 1880's. Girls and boys living in these houses were the first students of Mutchmor Public School. When Mutchmor Public School opened in 1895, there were almost no houses west of Bank Street north from Fifth Avenue to the railway tracks (where the Queensway is now).

So the Mutchmors did not give the land for the school. I can find no record of anyone ever being buried in the Glebe. If the Mutchmors did bury anyone, and it was never officially recorded, they would very likely have had the grave site on their own property, south of Fifth Avenue.

I was unable to find out if any workman were killed in the construction of Mutchmor Public School. This is possible, and the ghost may be the ghost of a workman. Also in 1919, the terrible Spanish Flu swept through the Glebe. It killed tens of thousands of people around the world. Students and teachers from Mutchmor surely would have been killed by it. Maybe some of them play their music to remind students and teachers how lucky they are to be able to attend Mutchmor, the oldest public school still in use in the city of Ottawa.