Digging up Moxley

Newfoundland unexplained - This past summer, visitors to Carbonear were invited to participate in a number of walking tours that departed from the Railway Museum on Water Street. One of those walking tours was the Moxley Cemetery Walk, a tour advertised as being one for those who had an interest in tales that chill the marrow.

The closing story of the walk was a ghost story, one which stems from true events which took place back in the 1830s. According to Bert Parsons, a local Carbonear historian, the story started with a fellow, John Moxley, who had money problems.

"He wasn't doing so good and he had a family and I guess it was getting to him," says Parsons. "Anyway, he decided he was going to take his own life. So, he went off and he took a razor and cut his own throat. He figured that was the end of it. Unfortunately, he came to after he did it. He didn't die right away."

Eventually, Moxley did die, and as he was a Roman Catholic, he had figured his wife would bury him in the Catholic cemetery.

"But the Catholics refused to bury him because he'd committed suicide, which I suppose was something that went on at that time," says Parsons. "So, the local magistrate in Harbour Grace, John Stark, who represented the government, said, 'That's all right. Take the man and bury him down in the Anglican cemetery in Carbonear.'

"That was in February month that it happened, so it took a nice while to dig the grave," Parsons says. "But the Anglicans heard talk of that and they sort of didn't like that. Here is the church uptown, he's Catholic, and they wouldn't bury him. Why are we going to put him here in our graveyard?"

But bury Moxley they did. They dug the grave and they put the body of the suicide victim down in it.

"The people didn't like it and the next day, they dug him up and threw him out on the road, half out of the casket," says Parsons.

"That caused more turmoil in the community and, of course, the magistrate ordered them to take the man back and bury him again. It even caused problems within the church; there was a special meeting called by the minister when he heard what was going on, and the parishioners wouldn't go to church on one Sunday. They all refused to go to church until they got something done about it. So they held a meeting to try and straighten it out."

The meeting came to naught because the second time they buried poor old Moxley, a night or two after, he was dug up again. This time he was thrown over the public wharf, and his body floated down to Crocker's Cove.

"Again, a large number of people that were on the side of Moxley decided, OK, we're going to bring him back and bury him again" says Parsons. "So they brought him back for a third time.

"There was a large number of people marched up through Crocker's Cove with the body and put him down for a third time. A fellow by the name of John Powell, so the story goes, said, 'B'ys, we can't be doing that. That's terrible. Let's go and dig the body up and put him somewhere else.' So, the story goes they went up and took the body out of the grave again and they brought it in on the ridge going to Victoria."

At that time there was no road going through like there is there now. Years later, the government decided to put a road through to Victoria, and as luck would have it, they disturbed the grave of John Moxley. It was this final disturbance that gave rise to the ghost stories.

"Years after that, all these ghost stories started involving him," says Parsons. "People would hear all kinds of strange noises. So it became known as Mosley's Corner - not necessarily Moxley, but a variation on the spelling. People would swear that queer things happened coming up that ridge out of Victoria, to Carbonear, years gone by.

"I've heard people tell me that, and that's people who weren't afraid; either. Strange things have happened coming through there. This was back in the days when there were no lights, and darkness; it wouldn't take much to scare you coming through a narrow trail. You'd hear strange noises and the horses would take off all of a sudden when you got to a specific point, running, that sort of thing."

While the tours have officially finished for the season, Florence Button, one of the organizers, says there is still some life left in the Moxley tours yet.

"We will be willing to consider doing them for groups of special interest," Button says.

Dale Jarvis can be reached at info@hauntedhike.com