Stratford Walking Tours expands to Stonetown with Spirits of St. Marys Walk

Ghost walk takes participants on a stroll through St. Marys’ gruesome past

Stratford Walking Tours owner and St. Marys resident Lauri Leduc, pictured, is launching her Spirits of St. Marys Walk, which features tales of local history with a touch of the macabre told by Leduc along a two-kilometre path beside the Thames River.

By Galen Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A company that offers guided walking tours through Stratford’s past is expanding to St. Marys with a new ghost walk launching in September.

Stratford Walking Tours owner and guide Lauri Leduc, a native of Perth County and a resident of St. Marys for the past two years, recently announced the upcoming launch of her Spirits of St. Marys Walk – a guided walk along the Thames River featuring some of the Stonetown’s most sordid and gruesome historical stories.

“St. Marys has a lot of history, a really rich and diverse background and I thought there’d be an opportunity here to share some of those stories,” Leduc said. “As well, the town’s tourism office actually gave me a little nudge and said, ‘Would you be interested?’ I thought about it, did some research, looked into it and sure enough, there were lots of stories to tell and decided to expand here.

“It’s great to be able to feature my new hometown in one of my walks as well. I grew up in Perth County, I’m familiar with the area, I have family connections here, so it’s nice to be able to showcase St. Marys.”

In Stratford, Leduc offers a variety of tours including her Tour and Tea starting at the Tom Patterson Theatre and winding its way along the Avon River, her Steps to the Stage tour focused on the history of the Stratford Festival, her History and Heritage tours which focuses on the people and events that shaped Stratford, her Local Plants and Local History tour focused on the plants that grow along the Avon River, the history of the waterway and its importance to Stratford, and her Stratford Ghost Walk – the inspiration for her Spirits of St. Marys Walk.

For her ghost walks, Leduc tells stories she has crafted through historical research, original newspaper accounts and local myths and legends passed down through families who have lived in either Stratford or St. Marys for generations, which she then verifies through her own research. For the St. Marys ghost walk, she developed the stories she will tell with help from the St. Marys Museum and Archives and Mary Smith, by reading through St. Marys history books written by local historians like Larry Pfaff and by encouraging her friends and neighbours to share any of the local ghost stories they’ve heard around town.

“We have lots of great buildings downtown, but I’m going to focus the walk along the riverside,” Leduc said. “It’s about a two-kilometre path, it takes about an hour. We’re going to tell stories about a disgraced 19th-century doctor who had to flee town, but his spirit allegedly still roams the town even though he left decades and decades ago. There’s the quarry; I have some great stories from the quarry as well. It literally built this town – economically and our many beautiful buildings – but health and safety wasn’t that prominent back in the day, so it led to lots of accidents.

“The newspaper accounts of the day were so graphic in their detail. They talk about their heads being crushed and people lingering for days before passing away. So, there’s all these great, tragic stories about the quarry in that history, including one alleged incident about a gentleman who was tragically killed there who still haunts the quarry pillars to this day. So, lots of working in some of our history like the quarries, like the building of the town, but also some characters that were involved.”

In addition to ghost stories and tales of tragic deaths, Leduc’s tours are also an engaging blend of architectural insights, historical anecdotes and little-known facts about the past.

The Spirits of St. Marys Walk will start in September and run on Friday nights through the month of October. Leduc says the ghost walk should be of interest to locals and visitors alike, and everyone who participates will take home at least a little more knowledge of and appreciation for the Stonetown and its vibrant history.

For the tour schedule and booking information, visit stratfordwalkingtours.ca.