Paranormal organizations do help the community, especially when there’s history involved.
When the Maple Ridge Museum and Archives staff connected with Cornerstone Supernatural, they went in with the intention that they didn’t want the Haney House to be cast in night-vision hue.
Situated at the foot of 224 Street, overlooking the Fraser River, it has been a fixture in the city since 1883 when Thomas Haney built it.
“Obviously what we do is paranormal,” Cornerstone Supernatural director Paul Busch said, during a June 2024 phone conversation. “When we first sat down with Shea (Henry), she was concerned — and rightfully so — because she didn’t want the Haney House to turn into a ghost house.”
With that in mind, Busch and his team proposed a fundraiser for the executive director Shea Henry in 2019, and they said any evidence caught on film or digital recorder would be between them and Henry.
The main focus was the history, which the home has plenty of. Plus, the unique quality of the home is that 98% of the artifacts are original to the Haney family as the last descendant
Not all houses have bad vibes
The history of Haney House is one of everyday domestic living and a tale of Canadians adjusting to life in a new province.
But it was one of great travel. Thomas Haney was born on July 22, 1841, in Cape Breton Island. He moved to Paris, Ontario after his father died. It was in Paris where he met Anne Callaghan, whom he wed on October 14, 1873. Their first daughter, Mary Florence, was born in 1875.
Haney travelled to British Columbia to pursue a fortune as a brickmaker and purchased 160 acres of the Wickwire Estate in 1879. Anne and Mary made the trip across the country with Anne’s brother John. The family would settle on Wickwire’s Landing, later renamed Haney’s Landing. Thomas and Anne had six children: Mary Florence, Jeremiah (Frank) Francis, Daniel Thomas, Anne (Birdie) Beatrice, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Mary and Margaret Maude. Five of them made it to adulthood. Mary Florence unfortunately succumbed to diphtheria in 1886 and Birdie succumbed to tuberculosis in the house on September 18, 1912.
Those 160 acres would eventually make up the modern Maple Ridge neighbourhood of Haney, which runs from 222 Street to Dewdney Trunk Road to 232 Street and the Fraser River.
“That’s why the area’s named Haney after (Thomas), or the neighbourhood, I should say,” Abby Lizee, the Community Engagement Coordinator of the Maple Ridge Museum and Community Archives said, during a phone conversation. “It’s very much the house of a wealthier person of the time.”
The home was inhabited by members of the Haney family for over 100 years, with the last member Lizzie, who married James Hawley, living there with her daughter Mary Doreen Hawley until 1979. The home was “donated” to the municipality by Mary in 1980.
“Well, she tried to donate it to the city, but that wasn’t legal,” Lizee said. “So, she sold it to them for a dollar and never cashed the cheque.”
The cheque, Busch said, is up in the parlour.
The only condition for the sale set by Hawley was that the house become a heritage museum. So, everything inside the home belonged to the Haneys and Hawleys.
The Haney House changed with the addition of a bathroom in the 1920s and the introduction of electricity, plumbing and other modern conveniences that weren’t available when Thomas Haney first built it. There was even a dairy in the back, which is now a caretaker’s residence. The verandah was enclosed so Birdie could be exposed to fresh air during her battle with TB.
A grant was given to the museum in 2018 and the roof, as well as the windows, were updated.
The one challenge for the Haney House staff is raising awareness within the community.
“We get a lot of people who walk by, who don’t realize that we’re open,” Lizee said. “We do try to have a few events there every year just to have people come through.”
As a fun fact, the City of Maple Ridge used to be called Haney, but the name changed after the neighbouring town, Port Hammond had their post office closed down, according to Thomas Haney’s grandson in a 2023 interview.
According to the grandson, the residents refused to collect their mail in Haney, and thus the municipality was renamed Maple Ridge. It is also older than Vancouver, becoming a municipality in 1874.
Fundraising for history
Busch, a Vancouver-based paranormal researcher has worked with museums to help spread the history of a location and connect with the past lives therein.
They’ve been around for 10 years and were a conglomeration of various other investigative groups in the Lower Mainland and Fraser River Delta. The team consists of 26 investigators in the Vancouver area and the Interior.
The organization has built on the foundation of those groups, which led to the name, Cornerstone.
They’ve worked with the Haney House since 2019 when Maple Ridge Museum and Archives Executive Director Shea Henry was first connected to them through the City of Maple Ridge, who had been working with the group for six years.
“We started working with them and they’ve been so generous with their time and expertise in holding an annual fundraiser for us,” Shea Henry said. “It’s really been a fantastic relationship.”
Henry added that the doors have remained open to Cornerstone Supernatural to continue investigating the Haney House, even outside of the Halloween season.
“It works really well for us because we can reach all kinds of community members who may be interested in the history of the house; people who may be interested in other aspects of the history of the house.
“And really for us, it’s getting people through the door, raising funds to keep the doors open.”
Maple Ridge Museum and Archives is independent of the city, so all funds that are raised go into the maintenance of the building, as well as programs.
The most important thing for Busch was to share why the Haney House is where it is and to share with the public what it is that they do in Vancouver and the surrounding communities.
“Regardless of whether we got things or not, we wanted to talk about the history of the location, why it was there, and more of what we do outside of the Haney House. And we’ve been doing it ever since,” Busch said.
What was one night in 2019 turned into two nights and has raised somewhere between $4,000 and $5,000 for the museum. That can help the museum repaint an area of the house or set up a new program.
Cornerstone Supernatural has been able to raise over $15,000 for museums and heritage locations along the Fraser River.
“It’s just something we do,” he said. “It’s our way of giving back.
One hundred percent of the money raised goes directly back to the museums. Additionally, the team never charges for their work.
Anatomy of a haunting
The question on most paranormal enthusiasts’ breath? Is Haney House haunted? Well, Busch and his team did find some evidence to help bolster theories.
“Have we caught anything there? Yes. Has it been of interest? Yes,” Busch admitted. “Has it been out of this world? No.”
Part of the evidence includes some unique photos, that were passed along to the Maple Ridge Museum team. They do allow investigations to occur from time to time.
“Some of (Henry’s) volunteers have felt things, but others have felt nothing,” Busch said.
In a previous investigation, they had medium Jude Vandenberg with them, and she kept detecting a person named Kevin. That name wasn’t commonly used in Victorian Canada.
“This building is a hundred-plus years old. Kevin, back then, wasn’t really a name that was used a lot,” he recalled. “It could be Bartholomew or something like that.”
But no, the medium stayed with the name Kevin.
That story was shared at the first fundraiser by Busch’s wife, Janine McCaw, in 2019, and one in the crowd gasped. “That’s Kevin.”
The Kevin in question was Kevin Haney, the woman’s husband’s grandfather — A Haney. He had his wedding at the house.
“There was death in the Haney house,” Busch admitted, adding that the portrait of Mary Florence hanging inside the home was painted from a tintype photograph taken before her death.
The Haney House is a testament to the continuum of life, as Henry said, adding three generations lived there. Two of the Haney daughters died inside the house, as did Thomas Haney. His sick room, which was located next to the kitchen is now the staff office.
“People often come to the museum, or call the museum in October wanting the local ghost stories, and we really don’t have any for them,” Henry admitted, adding the old feeling and old smell triggers the senses.
“That kind of natural thought usually occurs to people when they walk through the door and they often ask us if the house is haunted,” she added. “It opens up a way to chat with people about their experience and their view of history and all that.”
Busch agreed.
“It opens up the Haney House to other people to learn about some history,” Busch said. “It was the first year we had some of the board members from the Haney House come through, and again, curiosity. And sure enough, they enjoyed it. To learn about the history of different locations, I think, is phenomenal.
The Dead of Night event at the Haney House with Cornerstone Supernatural will be on October 11. The Cornerstone team will also have events at the Old Hastings Mill Store on October 5, the General Store and Hotel of Kilby Historic Site from October 25 to 26 and the Roedde House in Vancouver on November 2.
Photo courtesy Maple Ridge Museum and Archives