There’s something creepy about the Ontario legislature building at Queen’s Park, even now that the Tories are out of office. Could it be…haunted? —Siobhan Mahowny, The Annex

In 1849, the old King’s College (Ontario’s first university) became U of T, and its original pillared marble digs at Queen’s Park were converted into the Auxiliary Female Asylum, an independent institution that, due to its proximity to the school, was popularly referred to as the University Lunatic Asylum. (The name was bemoaned by the school’s vice-chancellor—not out of respect for patients, but because he feared jokes at his colleagues’ expense.) In the late 1860s, the asylum moved to 999 Queen Street West, and its former home was left to crumble until 1886, when it was razed to make way for parliament. The new legislature inherited some marble from the old building, as well as a fabled trio of spectral tenants: a woman in white with streaming hair, another with a checked dress thrown over her head and a third who had hanged herself in the basement. Sightings have decreased over the years. Perhaps the genuine lunacy of provincial politics was too much for them to bear.

• Categories: History