Oban Inn celebrates 200 years

This is a story of epic proportions involving one of Niagara-on-the-Lake’s greatest heroines, a devastating fire and the supernatural.

The historic Oban Inn is celebrating 200 years of hospitality this fall, and its history involves the daughter of our beloved Laura Secord, the Christmas Day fire that destroyed the inn, and the ghosts that haunt the building to this very day.

Everyone is invited to a free concert on Sunday, Sept. 15 to help celebrate. Bob D’Angelis and his Orchestra will be performing from 2 p.m. until 6 p.m. in the front gardens.

The 28-guest room boutique hotel is officially designated as a significant heritage resource. It is the town's first country inn that overlooks Lake Ontario and one of the oldest golf courses in Canada.

Shawna Butts, assistant curator and education programmer at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum, provided historical details about the inn, but admitted that the history of the Oban House on 168 Front Street, and the Inn (160 Front Street, facing Gate Street) is blurred. “We don’t actually have that much information from that time, so it's hard to piece it together.”

What is certain is that in 1822, Mary Trumble (nee Secord) purchased Lot 13 in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Mary’s mother was none other than Laura Ingersoll Secord, and Mary was about 16 when her mother went for that 20 mile walk in June of 1813.

In 1816 Mary married William Trumble, assistant surgeon of the 37th Regiment of Foot, and accompanied him when he was posted to Jamaica. When William died in 1822, Mary returned to Canada with her two small daughters, buying Lot 13, and by the end of 1822 she had built a house on the property that is now 168 Front Street.

“Mary was the one who actually had the Oban House built,” said Butts. “The original building on the lot was burned during the War of 1812 when the Americans retreated on Dec. 10, 1813.”

At some point during her ownership, Mary ran a boarding house/hotel/hostel/inn, but when her father-in-law died a few years later, Mary took her family to Ireland in order to claim an inheritance. She sold the property in the 1830s, and after that it was owned by a succession of people: the Cryslers, Lockharts, Richardsons, and David Archibald McNabb.

Captain Duncan Milloy, a sailor born in 1825 in Oban, Scotland, moved from his homeland with his family to Toronto in 1843. He commanded the passenger steamer Chief Justice Robison which ran from Toronto to Niagara to Lewiston and in 1858 he captained the Peerless, piloting it from Toronto to Hamilton. In 1859 he bought the Zimmerman which burned at the Niagara Wharf in 1963.

In 1862, he purchased 168 Front Street and operated the ship that he designed, the City of Toronto. He enlarged the home built by Secord and ran it as an inn. Milloy died in the Oban House in 1871, and his son, Captain William Milloy, re-opened the residence as the Oban Inn in 1895. The additions in the 1870s allowed Milloy to accommodate the influx of guests who could not get a room at the sold-out Queen’s Royal Hotel. Over time the inn gained popularity and became one of the better hotels in the district, especially after the Queen’s Royal was demolished in 1929. In 1914, during the First World War, the inn became an officer’s mess while the enlisted men were stationed close by on the golf course.

Cpt. Duncan Malloy is said to be the first ghost to inhabit the Oban Inn, when he began haunting his son William, and is reported to have never left the building. But that's another story.

The property changed ownership several more times until the 1960s when Edna Burroughs attended a cocktail party in NOTL and stayed at the inn. “My mother fell in love with it, and was determined to buy it,” said Gary Burroughs, son of Edna who persisted, and purchased and ran the inn for the next three decades.

Burroughs cooked in the restaurant on the weekends while attending Ridley College and then McMaster, and took over running the inn in 1972. “It was the early days of the Shaw, and they all stayed at The Oban, and it was a big party all the time,” he said in an audio memory of The Oban recorded by the NOTL Museum.

Politicians and celebrities have stayed at the Oban during Burroughs’ tenure. He once had lunch with Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter. “I was paranoid because security was so strong,” he said, “even though it was after his presidency.”

The Oban Inn hasn’t been without its problems.  A devastating fire in 1992 destroyed the inn, and there is rumour of Duncan Milloy’s ghost haunting it.

It was Christmas Day 32 years ago and Burroughs still clearly remembers details. “That was our biggest day. We had 180 in the first sitting, 180 in the second sitting. At 8:10 the alarms went off.” At first, Burroughs didn’t pay much attention to the alarms, but it quickly became evident that the building had to be evacuated.

“I was talking to my manager at the time and saying now we have to make sure that we get this mess cleaned up so that we can be open for New Year's Eve, because it was a tradition for us. Little did I know, there wouldn't even be a building that year.”

Hans Last was 23 years old at the time of the fire and returning from a family Christmas get-together at a relative's place. He said his father noticed an orange glow, and flashing lights down the street as they returned to their Gate Street home.

Last was able to record the fire with his VHS camera, and his video is posted on Last’s Youtube channel.

“When we arrived, the fire was active, it was in the early stage when the top floor was on fire and it was starting to work its way down to the lower levels,” explained Last to The Local. “There is a point where a loud pop is heard, which was likely from one of the large windows in the lower level dining area shattering from the heat. That is why the camera shakes for a second from my startled reaction from the loud pop.”

While witnessing the fire, Last saw a lady getting quite emotional and start to cry. “This woman, I would find out later, was someone from the Niagara-on-the-Lake Historical Society. She was obviously upset over the fire destroying a historical structure.”

“My father and I returned to the scene the next morning after the fire was out, and we saw how badly the hotel was damaged from the fire. I don't think I'll forget that fire.”

The fire was believed to have been started in a third storey linen room, but “powerful winds quickly turned the quaint 1820s inn into an inferno,” cites a St. Catharines Standard article published December 26.

Re-created as an exact replica of the former inn, the Oban Inn again opened its doors in November 1993.

In 1999, business woman and entrepreneur Si Wai Lai purchased the Oban Inn, and still owns it today. In 2006, it underwent a significant renovation and today, the Inn features 28 guestrooms, a restaurant surrounded by ponds and lush English gardens, a full-service spa and a fitness studio, outdoor swimming pool and a hot spring.

In May 2015, the NOTL Fire Department was called out once again to the Oban Inn to extinguish a fire in the laundry room, the only space that had not yet been installed with a sprinkler system. Then Fire Chief Alex Burbidge said the fire, which was electrical in origin, caused $75,000 damage.

Lai told The Local she is “proud of the 200-year tradition of Oban Inn hospitality. The Oban team and I are committed to cherish and nurture our beloved Oban Inn,” she said.