Her ancestor was known as a ‘witch.’ Why this woman wants to keep the legend of Plum Hollow alive

When Melanie Chisamore saw the growing pile of quarters left on her great-great-great-great-grandmother’s gravestone, she felt a sense of awe. 

“I was overwhelmed … with just how special it seemed,” said Chisamore, who believes people leave the coins because that was the price her ancestor Jane Elizabeth Martin Barnes charged to tell a fortune back in the mid-1800s.

“The fact that the number of coins keeps increasing means that more and more people are learning about her and understanding her place and our history here.”

Chisamore has made it her goal to share the story of Mother Barnes, who also came to be known as the Witch of Plum Hollow and lived in a log cabin in Sheldon’s Corners, Ont., just outside the hamlet of Plum Hollow, about 110 kilometres south of Ottawa. 

WATCH: Witch or wise woman? The story of the so-called ‘witch of Plum Hollow’:

She says Barnes immigrated to Canada from Ireland after marrying against her family’s wishes. Her first husband died, and her second husband abandoned her after they’d had nine children together, seven of whom survived. 

“It seems like she started telling fortunes because of her circumstances,” said Chisamore.

Telling fortunes proved lucrative for Barnes.

“When you do the math … the average labourer at the time was making a dollar a week and she was making two, three, $4 a day,” said Elaine Farley, who works as a Mother Barnes interpreter and re-enactor in partnership with the local museum.

Chisamore says it even allowed Barnes to cover the cost of the log cabin she shared with her children.

Reading the tea leaves

Though Barnes’s log cabin is now privately owned, some of her belongings including the table she used to read tea leaves or tell horoscopes on the upper floor are now on display at the nearby Athens and Area Historical Museum.

Farley points out the two finger-width holes just below the lip of the table, through which it’s believed Barnes would insert a stick to help with the drama. 

“It was often thought that somehow she was tapping messages to people and saying that she was getting information from the great beyond,” Farley said. 

Being on the second floor helped, too.

“It’s a small building, and even if you were talking quietly, she was hearing your conversation. So when you’re telling your friend, ‘Well, I’m going to ask if Joe really is going to ask me to marry me,’ she’s already heard that,” Farley said. 

However Barnes accessed her knowledge, Farley says it’s clear she was a perceptive and intuitive woman. For that, she credits Barnes’s upbringing in a wealthy family and the classical education she received, different from most others in the area.

Myth or marketing?

When it comes to Mother Barnes, it’s difficult for historians to separate fact from fiction — and Farley says that’s how Barnes wanted it.

“I believe some of the myths were created by her,” Farley explained. “I think she could capture the imagination that fuelled people to go, ‘Oh, look at that!'”

Barnes claimed to be the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, which Farley said was seen as the mark of a clairvoyant. Though she also sometimes claimed to have been born in Spain, Farley says Barnes’s birth record disprove this — in fact, she would alter her country of origin or religion from one census to the next.

Farley says Barnes became so popular there was a shuttle from the train station in Athens, Ont., to her log cabin where people would line up along the path waiting to have their fortunes told. 

“People came from all over this country. They came from the States to see her,” Farley said. 

Legend has it one of her most famous visitors was Sir John A. Macdonald, before he became prime minister of Canada.

The story goes that he went to see Barnes and she told him that the capital of the country would be located in what is now Ottawa. Whether or not this actually happened is up for debate, but Farley said there is evidence that Macdonald visited the area.  

Witch or wise woman?

For Farley, that notoriety is likely what led to the “Witch of Plum Hollow” — a name first coined in the late 1860s, and one which it seems Barnes never contested.

But Sally Smid, who runs the museum in Athens, said the display aims to teach people that Barnes was more than just a witch. 

“We were, as we studied her, kind of offended that she was called a witch,” Smid said, though she admits the name does drive a lot of the interest in her story, with people searching the museum’s Facebook page for references to it and visitors suggesting they should push the witch narrative more.

“There’s a lot of interest again in clairvoyance and tarot cards and all the other types of ‘mind knowledge,’ I guess you would call it … so I do think that’s what’s fuelling the interest,” said Farley, who also prefers Mother Barnes to the term “witch.”

Keeping the past alive

Chisamore doesn’t mind her grandmother being called a witch, however, and said the cousins she’s spoken to feel the same. They all grew up hearing the stories of Mother Barnes.

“My father, in particular, was very interested in her story,” she said. 

He died in January, and now the family’s documents detailing Mother Barnes’s history have been passed on to Chisamore. Sharing the story is a job she takes seriously.

“Things like gravestones will fade over time,” she said. “But if we can keep the stories going … whether it be through print or through video or just through stories that we share from generation to generation … that keeps those people alive.”