The Lady Of Knapp's Island

This story will be a quickie. There is not much to this event and worse yet there is not much known history.

As with my other stories I will begin with a quick introduction. I grew up in a small town south of Windsor Ontario. The lands around me were mostly farm fields and marsh. Town was a simple few minute drive after you turned left at the end of my street. If you turn right you head out further into the sticks and are subjected to the "back roads." These roads passed through the marshes and consisted of several land bridges with a few of them low square-form cement style. Regardless there were a lot of deep ditches, washouts, flood lands, swamps and brushes before you started back into solid farm lands.

As a young adult I was into a lot of the ghost activities of the area and for a time did a lot of research. Many of the events in my life were self inflicted in one way or another, this one was not. It occurred by sheer happenstance.

Before I get into the details you will need to know a little bit of the troubles young adults have of buying alcohol in Canada as it is not readily available. Alcohol in Canada is sold from 2 different stores only. You have the Beer Store that sells anything to do with beer. Then you have the LCBO that sells all the hard stuff, wine and imported/exotic coolers & beers. The Beer Store always seemed closed when a party was on. I think it closes at 6pm (Insane time considering we are Canadian... Beer is practically our national mascot!) The LCBO stays open until 9pm... And one location in Windsor stayed open until 12pm... So Imported crappy "who made this crap?" beer was always our closers on a late party night.

The first occurrence was after a crazy night of partying. We had a barn party and we had been all over the county looking for beer and/or alcohol as it was not readily available at that time of night so we made a trip into the city and to a known hillbilly farm that brewed white lighting. (This part was a crazy messed up story unto itself... But sadly has no ghosts or paranormal activities.)

So there we were barrelling down the dark foggy road in the twilight hours. We were 18 and wild on an autumn night. It was probably about 3am and I was with a buddy of mine and our girlfriends in my car. We were returning to the barn to finish the night out with our girlfriends in the hay. We had scored some moonshine and a few imported beers that would make the night go off smoothly. This night was a calm night. It was dark and foggy. I had a 1974 Black on Black Dodge Dart muscle car with a V8 that growled down the highway. (I loved this car and drove it everywhere!... Until gas hit $1/L) The headlights were incandescent bulbs... If you are old enough you will remember them they were a yellowish light and were not very bright; they did give off a very ominous luminous glow.

Of course the party barn was on the far side of the swamps and in the fog one was always cautious of animals running out in front of you. So I was paying attention to the outer-spectrum of my headlight range looking for motion and shadows. What we were talking about at the time I cannot remember but I am sure it was something stupid. We were passing a swamp area with water on both sides when I saw a faint light. At first I thought it was a reflection from a no trespassing or hunting sign (as they were posted out in the water) but the light was moving towards the roadside ahead in a slow but steady manner. Then I realized I could make out a person. I immediately thought it was a person standing up on a small boat. But I could not see the boat and the person was actually moving kind of quick. As my car continued and started to pass over the land bridge the person came into view. I slowed as to be cautious that I might hit them if they crossed in front of me. But it was not making much sense in my head as there was water where they were and surely they could not reach the land without stopping. So I continued to drive and told the other passengers to look.

As I approached what seemed to be our intersecting paths. A lady became clear. She was dressed in an old long jacket with a doily style large collar fringe and I think a white bonnet hat that looked like a muffin top. (1800's style clothing I think.) She was carrying a lantern (something like a stage coach lamp.) She was perfectly visible yet always somewhat foggy. She had an implied detail about her that left specific impressions of what she looked like, without actually being able to focus on her... (weird) She glided across the road from one waterside to the other in front of my car. She passed very close probably 15-20ft. She moved rather quickly and I distinctly remember that she did not have any feet but her legs moved as if she was walking under her coat. She was lifted above the road what looked to be a foot higher than she should have been. We all saw her as she moved back out over the water on the other side and faded into the fog. We were all stunned for a moment. I pulled the car off to the side of the road about a mile up the road. The car was silent with awe. I could not believe what I saw. I asked everyone else and they said they seen her too. We all agreed that she looked as if she was looking for something. Regardless this was an amazing experience and we were now completely filled with energy and amazement.

When we got back to the party we met up with some other friends and told them what had happened. One of the older farm kids (that was a friend of a friend... Or something) said it was the Lady of Knapps Island. I had never heard of her and I lived only a few minutes from Knapps Island! I asked him who she was or why she was haunting the area. He did not know anything other than she shows up on random foggy nights, crosses the road and disappears.

So of course this got my attention and for the next little while I asked around about this ghost. It seems that many of the older generation folks (Older I mean 40s-50s at the time) all knew of her. But no one knew anything about her. She was called the Lady of Knapps Island, because she has been seen at the water crossing just a quarter mile north of the Island. I had never been to the island, nor had I ever really looked for it. So a few days later we took a drive out to see the island.

It is not much of an island. You depart from the main road down a gravel road following the edge of the swamp. There were only one or two old houses on the road back then and you travel to the end of the road. The road is only about a mile long and has a large bend in the road before you arrive at a farm that ends the road. At the bend is a small rotted plank bridge that spans about 50ft out into the swamp where it lands on a small island of land covered in swamp trees. The island is only about 50-60 ft wide and maybe 200 ft long. It narrows significantly at the north end. The whole area looks to be a flood land that remains wet for most of the year. On the island is a rundown very rotted and old little cabin. It looks as if it was a hunting cabin at one time but has long since been abandoned and partially overgrown. We never crossed the bridge to get a closer look at the cabin as the wood was too rotted.

One telling of the ghost said that she had also been seen in and around the cabin on foggy nights. I thought about checking it out on the next foggy night... But even I was not that crazy.

I never discovered any further information about her. But I did see her again years later. I was coming home very late at night (1am-ish) and I saw her. This time I was traveling in the opposite direction as I was many years before. I saw her further out and she crossed the road about 200ft in front of my car. I was amazed and reflected on my past experience for the rest of the ride home.

About 2yrs after that my wife (who worked midnights at the time) came home all in a fluster and woke me up to tell me she had seen a woman crossing the road with a lamp. I asked her where she seen her. She told me in the swamps. I continued to describe to my wife how she looked and how she moved and disappeared on the other side. She was amazed that I knew. I told her she had seen the Lady of Knapp's Island. My wife was beside herself at the time as she had never seen a ghost and I had never told her any of my stories.

Since then I have never heard anything about the Lady... Maybe someday someone will figure her out.