Paranormal Legends of Toowong
“The Black Prince” In 1886, a boxer named Peter Jackson became the Australian Heavyweight Champion under the moniker of “The Black Prince”.
Jackson won many fights in the U.S.A. and England and would have been world champion except John Sullivan refused to fight him because of the colour of his skin. It is rumoured if you visit Jackson’s tomb at midnight, by yourself, you will hear the sound of a ring bell sounding…
Mr. Macgregor The proprietor of the Lyceum Theatre, Edward Macgregor was a patron of the arts. A statue of him was erected after he died in 1939. It has been reported by countless groundsmen that the statue has been seen walking amongst the headstones at dusk. That his coat can sometimes be seen swaying in the wind as he sits thinking, and that the statue's eyes move and blink as he casually watches those watching him….
Mayne Family Crypt In the early 1840s, Patrick Mayne was a slaughterman in Brisbane. Whilst drinking in a local pub, Patrick overheard a conversation with a drunken man who was boasting about large sums of money he was carrying. The next day the boaster, Robert Cox, was found butchered. His finger was found in a gutter, his disembowelled torso in the street, and his head near a local hotel.
William Fyfe was arrested for the murder, convicted, and subsequently hung for the crime, all the while protesting his innocence.
A year later, Mr Mayne improved his butcher shop on Queen Street, Brisbane. His butcher shop became so successful he was able to invest in real estate and create a sizeable investment portfolio.
In 1865, on his deathbed, Mr Mayne confessed his sins, one being the murder of Mr Cox.
At the bottom of the Mayne family crypt are air vents, which allow liquids and gases from decomposition to escape the vault. At various times, the thick red liquid is seen oozing from the vents and down into the gutter on 12th Avenue…
12th Avenue Vampire Only two cemeteries in the world are known to have a vampire that dwells amongst the graves, Highgate Cemetery in London, and Toowong Cemetery, in Brisbane. It is said that a black shadow with razor-sharp teeth drifts through the trees on 12th Avenue within the cemetery; that homeless people will walk a longer path, choosing to encounter the cemetery's other ghouls, rather than face the shark-like razor teeth of the Toowong vampire.
Local legend has it that two gravediggers were called upon to exhume a body; they were puzzled by the softness of the ground, which appeared to have been recently disturbed. Once they had dug down to the coffin, the men were disturbed to find the nails of the coffin had been pushed from the inside out.
They removed the lid, only to find the woman inside the coffin had not decomposed at all, after many years of being dead. The braver of the men reached in and touched her face, her head rolled to one side and she smiled, revealing two rows of sharp teeth. The gravediggers dumped the coffin back in the grave, filled it back in and left….
Angel of Death
A dark-cloaked man has been seen in the cemetery since the great depression era. Jack Sims has dubbed him “The Angel of Death”. This ghost has been witnessed at least 11 times since 1998 when tours started.
References
http://www.toowongwest.org.au/heritage_register/cemetery.htm Black: Australian Dark Culture. Magazine, Issue 1 July 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toowong_Cemetery http://www.ghost-tours.com.au/Pages/tour_toowong_cemetery_details.htm http://www.toowong.cemetery.org.au/
