The Ku Klux Klan came to Canada in 1924. By the time it collapsed 6 years later, it had enlisted thousands of Canadians, stirred up ethnic and religious hatred and helped defeat Saskatchewan's Liberal government.
The Klan began in Tennessee, USA in 1866. It was a violent group of white vigilantes dedicated to oppressing Negroes. In Canada, the Klan's preference was Jews, Roman Catholics and Immigrants.
The Canadian Klan held outdoor meetings with burning crosses. Its leaders wore pointed white hoods with white or red robes emblazoned with a circled cross and a maple leaf.
Canada's first Klan known as Klavern (a local chapter) was reported started in Vancouver in 1924.
The press soon criticized it so much, the Klan disbanded becoming no longer a threat. The same year, fire bombs exploded in some Catholic Churches in Quebec, the police blamed it on the Klan. It wasn't until a year later in 1925, that 2 American's came to Toronto and formally organized
the Ku Klux Klan of Kanada. For a short time, the Klan was becoming popular until RCMP agents attended meetings and broke up the Ontario based group. One of the American's, J.H. Hawkins fled to Saskatchewan.
In the 1920's, Saskatchewan really had greener pastures since it was a booming province with wheat crops giving it the highest per capita income of any province.
When Hawkins arrived, 3 Klansmen from Indiana were already enrolling members at $13.00 each to join. Their founding meeting
at Moose Jaw had attracted some 8,000 interested people willing to join. At the end of 1927, tragedy again struck within the Klan, as one of the Indiana Organizers had run off with all the Klan's money. Determined to re-group the Klan, Hawkins joined up with J. J. Maloney, anti-Catholic
preacher from Hamilton. The 2 men roamed Saskatchewan looking for new members and lecturing to the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant majority. The Klan preached, "the Klan believes in Protest-antism, Racial Purity, Economic Freedom, Just Laws, Seperatism from Church and State, Restrictive/
Selective Immigration, Fredom of Speech, Higher Moral Standards, Freedom and Protection from Mob Violence and White Supremacy.
By the start of the provincial election campaign of 1929, the Klan had close to 10,000 members! listed in 119 Klaverns throughout the province. The members were filled with Klan propoganda about the immigrants and Catholics taking over the province with the encouragement of the Liberal
government. This is what they believed and helped form a relationship with the Conservative Party at the time. Liberal Premier criticized the Klan and tried to stop it's propoganda, but Conservative leader Dr. J.T.M.Anderson wouldn't hear of it. Hawkins and other Klan leaders had attended the last Conservative party, while Maloney was engaged to the daughter of the Conservative Candidate
in Biggar. The Klan and the Conservatives joined together to defeat the Liberals. It would have worked if not for the fact that drought and Depression soured Maloney on Saskatchewan.
The Klan died out within a year, with little members still remaining. In 1934, the Conservatives didn't win a
single seat in the election due to the Klan's involvement with the Conservatives. The Ku Kux Klan gave it's last Canadian gasp in 1930 in Oakville, at the corner of John and Kerr when it burned a cross on the downtown main street to protest a proposed marriage between a white girl and a Negro (it turned out it was a Canadian
Indian and not a Negro at all!).(Cross burnings were still going in the USA for racial protests into the late 1960's)
Ontario's Crown Attorney charged 4 of the local Klan leaders with "going abroad at night in white masks, setting fires and defacing property". One leader was sentenced to 3 months in jail, yet all records of the burning cross demonstration are erased from Oakville's history books!
Oakville went on to became known as rich, conservative town in pleasant surroundings by the lake with no history of violence or disruptions ever! Just another mysterious story that has been mysteriously erased from the Local Canadian History Books.
(Research and story by: Patrick Cross - from articles in newspapers, court journals dated 1878, 1905, 1924, 1929, 1934, and the Toronto Star-March 1972, May 1993)
The Mysterious Body That Never Was!
Barton Murder-1905 Hamilton, Ontario. Victim Without a Name - The Barton Murder In the late afternoon of Tuesday, Oct. 10, 1905, three young lads from Hamilton's north-end hiked up the Mountain to search the farmlands south of the brow for chestnuts. For Mike Simms, Harry Capelle, and Eddie Dobbs who had followed a side road (Upper Wellington Street south to the Seventh Concession (Limeridge Road East), it was the opening chapter in a murder mystery that remains unsolved today. At Limestone Ridge, a farm owned by Harry Marshall, which fronted onto the stone road to Caledonia (now Upper James Street), the boys discovered the body of a woman, her head lying in a pool of blood.There was no question that woman had been murdered. Running across the road to a cornfield where James Johnston and his two sons were working, the boys breathlessly broke the news. Mr. Johnston had a look himself, then called the police from Mr. Marshall's house. The body was taken to the morgue at the Blachard and Son Undertaking parlor on King Street West in downtown Hamilton. It was found the woman had been shot in the head, but there were no clues as to her identity. After the body had been properly prepared, it was put on display in the hope someone would identify the unfortunate woman. More than 1.200 people passed through the funeral parlor on the first day, but no positive identification was made. All three Hamilton daily newspapers, The Herald, The Times and The Spectator splashed news of the murder in bold type across their front pages. The Times featured a drawing of the unknown woman, done from a photograph of the murder victim after the embalmers had done their work. The Spectator featured a large, hand-drawn map of the murder scene which was used by thousands who visited the scene of the crime from dawn until dusk the next day. Souvenir hunters took home parts of the bush used to hide the body. Before the woman was finally buried, an estimated 10,000 pepole viewed the body, but none know who she was. The case, which came to be known as the Barton Murder, was widely covered in newspapers throughout Canada and the United States. Several people confessed to the killing but none of their stories proved to be true. A spiritualist and mind-reader, Miss Ann Eva Fay, declared with great flair, she would reveal the name of the murdered woman and her assailant on stage at one of her Hamilton performances. She was unable to match her boasts and the Barton Murder remained a mystery. After an investigation lasting more than seven months, a coroner's jury on May 1, 1906, ruled that nothing more was to be determined about the identity of the murdered woman or about the person responsible for her death. The murderer or the real body was never found...the Hamilton mystery continues to this day.
Prime Minister Trudeau believed in Ghosts and Conducted Seances for Political Advice!
It's true, the private life of former Canada's Prime Minister Trudeau had a private licence plate for his personal limousine using the numbers 666 displayed on the plate, he was also know to conduct seances and contact the dead
for political advice and get regular psychic readings. The Prime Minister's car was rarely seen publicized on tv, yet several news tv stations in Ottawa had filmed the car with licence plate on several Parliament
appearances. Asked what the licence plate meant, Pierre Trudeau responded simply by saying, "You Figure It Out!" It's still a puzzling mystery to this day!
Shopping With The Dead In Toronto's Yorkville District
Just visit Toronto's upscale Yorkville District and you will find expensive stores, salons and fine dining but you just might be shopping with the dead.
This was also known as Old York and many believe that human remains are still buried in the area under fine restaurants and stores.
Also known as the city's original Potter's Field. The area served as a mass grave when thousands of Upper Canada settlers perished in the cholera epidemic of 1832 and 1834.
The city officials not knowing what to do with so many bodies, buried the dead under mud and water in shallow graves in Potter's Field. Although most of the bodies were relocated in 1870, skeletal remains have still been popping up.
In 1929, human remains were found when workers were excavating what is now the site of Holt Renfrew at Yonge and Bloor Street. The corner of Bay and Bloor had similar human remains also found piled upon each as new stores and high risers
were being built.Historians also believe, several posh restaurants in Yorkville have bodies buried in or under the basement.Today, the district has no articles about this tragedy or any record in recent history books of Yorkville.
They want it to remain posh and rich and don't want the history to be known that may tarnish Yorkville's Image. So if you are eating out in Yorkville, just remember you may be dining on top of human bones and the dead.Bon Appetite!
Evelyn Dick - Black Dahlia Murderer In Hamilon
In 1946 she was arrested for murder after local children in Hamilton, Ontario found the torso of her missing estranged husband.
The head and limbs had been sawn from his body and evidence that they had been burned in the furnace of her home later surfaced.
She was convicted of the murder in 1946 and sentenced to hang. However, lawyer J.J. Robinette appealed her case and won an eventual acquittal.
However, in the meantime, the decayed remains of Evelyn's baby boy were found encased in cement under the floor boards of her home. She was convicted of the murder in 1947 and sentenced to 11 years in prison. Evelyn was released from prison in 1958
and quickly disappeared from public view. A series of serial murders started again shortly after her release where torso's of bodies were showing up in fields in different parts of Hamilton. No suspects could ever be found of the murders
and the victims were never identified due to the heads and arms were missing. To this day, the mysterious murders are still unsolved.
Did You Know!
TRUE CANADIAN NORTH - The Reference Point of True Geographic Canadian North is the North Pole
For Magnetic North and Magnetic South to make one complete orbit as the earth turns, it takes 900 years!
Most Ghost Activity is measured by magnetic instruments which start out as pointing true magnetic north.
Ghosts or Orbs Do Not travel in straight lines as once thought, and have been seen to travel at 45 degrees.
The same precise angle in which the Pyramids in Egypt are constructed.
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