Daily Colonist, 25 Jun 1974

Tod House Owner won’t tell plans

‘None of your businesss’

It’s the oldest private house in western Canada, even reputed to be a ghost house – but the present owner says its fate is nobody’s business but his own.

Controversy arose over Tod House, 2564 Heron, when owner Fred Massie appeared at Oak Bay council Friday night to protest its designation as a heritage landmark not be tampered with.

Massie, who bought the house in 1971, refused to say what he intended to do with it.

“It’s my property, and none of your business,” he told council, “I figure it’s worse than Hitler, worse than expropriation, for you to tell me what I can do with my own property.”

Council, however, apparently thought historical interest in the house outweighed whatever considerations Massie had in mind, and it passed a motion “to proceed immediately to designate the Tod House as a heritage landmark.”

The house was built in 1851 by John Tod, trader, for the Hudson’s Bay Company.  It is the oldest house in Canada west of the lake-head.

It was also, by reputation, Victoria’s only haunted house with self opening doors, rattling chains, self-propelled objects and a ghost reported to look like Tod’s young Indian wife. The strange happenings came to a sudden end several years ago when the bones of a young Indian woman were unearthed and removed from a garden on the property.