Excerpt from Ghost Stories of the Great Lakes by Mark Leslie

Gibraltar Point Lighthouse

(Lake Ontario – Toronto Islands, ON)

The Gibraltar Point Lighthouse has stood sentinel on the southwestern edge of the Toronto Islands since 1809. It’s the oldest surviving lighthouse on the Great Lakes, and one of Toronto’s oldest buildings still standing.

But age alone is not what makes it remarkable; it has a darker story that began on a cold January night in 1815.

John Paul Radelmüller was an unlikely lighthouse keeper. Born around 1763 in Anspach, Germany, he’d spent two decades in service to British royalty, working in the households of the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent, before following the latter to Halifax in 1799. By 1809, he’d made his way to York – the muddy colonial outpost that would become Toronto – and accepted the position of keeper at Gibraltar Point on July 24 of that year.

The peninsula was desperately remote. Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe had named the spot after the famous rock, believing it could be fortified to guard the harbour. During the long Canadian winters, Radelmüller found himself virtually alone, the frozen lake stretching endlessly before him. He supplemented his modest income by brewing beer from a German recipe, and soldiers from nearby Fort York became regular customers.

On the evening of January 2, 1815, some of those soldiers came calling. What happened next remains one of Toronto’s oldest unsolved mysteries.

The York Gazette reported: “Died on the evening of the 2nd of January, J.P. Rademuller, keeper of the lighthouse on Gibraltar Point. From circumstances there is moral proof of his having been murdered. If the horrid crime admits of aggravation when the inoffensive and benevolent character of the unfortunate sufferer are considered, his murder will be pronounced most barbarous and inhuman.”

The traditional tale claims the soldiers, already filled with alcohol, flew into a rage when Radelmüller refused them more beer. They chased him up the narrow spiral staircase and killed him at the top of the tower. Two soldiers – John Henry and John Blueman of the Glengarry Light Infantry – were charged with murder and tried at Jordan’s York Hotel that March. By April, both were acquitted. The York Gazette announced simply: “No conviction of the supposed murderers of the late J.P. Raddelmuller.”

The legend grew darker with each retelling. The soldiers, desperate to conceal their crime, supposedly dismembered the corpse and scattered the pieces across the island. However, historian Eamonn O’Keeffe’s 2015 research suggests this grisly detail was likely an embellishment added over time – contemporary accounts simply reference Radelmüller’s “unfortunate death” without any uncertainty about locating remains.

Still, in 1893, lighthouse keeper George Durnan reported discovering bone fragments, including part of a jawbone, along with coffin pieces about 150 metres (492 feet) west of the lighthouse. His nephew John later shared this account with CBC reporters in 1958. Whether these belonged to the murdered keeper has never been confirmed.

Reports of paranormal activity have persisted for generations. Visitors describe unexplained lights glowing from the tower windows when the building stands dark and empty. Some report seeing a shadowy figure crossing the sand in moonlight, or hearing heavy footsteps ascending the spiral stairs when no one else is present. Others speak of sudden cold spots, mysterious bloodstains appearing on the staircase and the sound of something being dragged upward through the tower.

DeeDee Dodds, the last official keeper before the lighthouse was decommissioned in 1958, told CBC she understood why the legend persisted: “The cooing of the pigeons is very eerie on a dark night, and the wind howling through the lighthouse gives you the shivers.” She recalled being startled one spring evening when she spotted a light at the top of the tower during the closed navigation season – only to realize the full moon was reflecting off the glass. “It gave me a startle,” she admitted.

But not every report has such a rational explanation.

The lighthouse’s haunted reputation eventually earned official recognition. When the Ontario Archaeological and Historical Sites Advisory Board erected a commemorative plaque in the late 1950s, they acknowledged the ghost story directly. The final sentence reads: “The mysterious disappearance of its first keeper, J.P. Rademuller, in 1815 and the subsequent discovery nearby of part of a human skeleton enhanced its reputation as a haunted building.”

Today, the lighthouse is maintained by honorary keeper Manuel Cappel – who, like Radelmüller, hails from Germany. When visitors ask if the lighthouse is truly haunted, his answer captures the essence of such questions perfectly: “It is, if you want it to be.”

—Excerpted from Mark Leslie, Ghost Stories of the Great Lakes (Hamilton, ON: James Street North Books, an imprint of Wolsak and Wynn, 2026), 20–22, Page numbers are from the first proof and may shift.)

About Ghost Stories of the Great Lakes:

The unknown is alive in the depths of the great lakes. And it calls to us like the relentless waves lapping the shores.

The great lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world by total area and contain roughly 20 percent of the world’s fresh water – but they also hold six thousand lost ships and tens of thousands of drowned and missing souls. From phantom vessels still sailing their final routes to lighthouse keepers who never abandoned their posts to the Marysburgh Vortex where 270 to 500 ships have disappeared, Mark Leslie maps the supernatural history of North America’s inland seas in this fascinating collection. Charting a clockwise journey through all five lakes, as well as their connecting waterways and bodies of water, including Lake St. Clair, Leslie draws on historical records, newspaper archives, Indigenous oral traditions and firsthand witness accounts in this fascinating mix of maritime history, regional folklore and paranormal nonfiction. Whether you live near the lakes or simply love them, Ghost Stories of the Great Lakes will delight you with the hidden histories, Indigenous traditions and unsolved mysteries embedded in every shoreline.

Mark Leslie has been afraid of the dark his entire life – and has spent most of it writing about what lurks there. A writer, speaker and podcaster with more than thirty years in the Canadian book industry as a bookseller, bookstore manager and publishing representative, he turned his lifelong fascination with ghost stories into a body of paranormal nonfiction that includes Haunted Hamilton, Spooky Sudbury, Creepy Capital and Haunted Hospitals. In fiction he enjoys horror (One Hand Screaming: 20 Haunting Years) and urban fantasy (A Canadian Werewolf in New York). He grew up in Sudbury, Ontario, not far from the shores of Georgian Bay; lived in Hamilton, ON, for twenty years; and currently makes his home in Kitchener-Waterloo. The Great Lakes have never been far from his home, nor his imagination. Visit him at www.markleslie.ca.