The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

31 Friday , O ctober 15, 2010 O A KVILLE BEA V ER w w w .o akvillebeaver .co m Artscene By Angela Blackburn OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Oakville resident DanielFassler is eight years old and has a long past. And hes not waiting until Halloween to masquerade as someone else. Throughout October, hes lending his talents and they are considerable, despite his diminutive size to the Oakville Historical Society to masquerade as Robert Murray Thomas. The young Daniel, a Grade 4 student at MacLachlan College, will lead a number of the ghost walks that began Oct. 7 and run throughout October as they take visitors on a spooky tour of down- town Oakville and its neighbour- ing heritage district. Visitors will learn which her- itage homes once belonged to local politicians, business opera- tors and others and which are said to be haunted. Theyll hear stories about life in town long ago. Daniel, a.k.a. Robert Murray, will tell those stories, with the help of his historical parents Wendy Belcher as Esther Thomas and Phil Brimacomb as Merrick Thomas. If we turn back the pages of history in Oakville about 200 years, just before the War of 1812 wed find Robert Murray (Daniel) Thomass grandfather, Seneca Thomas, settling his family in Canada. As the war breaks out, Seneca is captured by the British, makes good his escape to the U.S. and dares never return to Canadian soil. With his wife dead, his youngest children are taken in by relatives, except his son Merrick who decides to fend for himself at age nine or 10. Merrick lands a job with a store owner of Saltfleet, then enters the service of William Chisholm, a businessman and shipbuilder who later purchases land at the Sixteen Mile Creek and becomes the founding father of Oakville. In 1827, the year Chisholm buys the Oakville land, Merrick comes to Oakville to oversee that lands development and the build- ing of the harbour. Merrick marries Chisholms wife Rebeccas sister, Esther, and in 1829 acquires the Thomas farm, which sprawls west of the Sixteen Mile Creek from Lake Ontario north to whats now the QEW. Merrick and his wife have seven children though their three girls, two of them twins, all died in infancy something historical society officials assure was a sign of the times and not anything to raise a brow about. At age 53, Merrick himself died, after deeding some of his property to the Anglican church. That left his wife Esther and son Robert Murray to carry on the farming. The other Thomas sons all returned to Boston, according to Belcher of the Oakville Historical Society. Robert Murray was blind and deaf, says Belcher, but managed to overcome the challenges. As to other chapters in the towns early days, those taking part in what have become regular ghost walks in October, will learn the tales from Robert Murrary a.k.a. Daniel. Like the fact that the elegant Knox Presbyterian Church was once the site of a tavern where one of its notorious owners fea- tured a bear tied to a pole to which hed feed a live pig to enter- tain his customers. Or the young Peter Patterson, a five-year-old boy who drowned MICHELLE SIU / OAKVILLE BEAVER GHOST WALK: From left, Daniel Fassler as Robert Murray Thomas, Wendy Belcher as Esther Thomas and Phil Brimacomb as Merrick Thomas. The Thomas family members were among Oakvilles early residents and have apparent insight into days gone by in the downtown. For related story, see page 31. Ghost stories here Im going to be dressing up as a ghost. Daniel Fassler, 8 See Ghost 32