Witching Hour - Legends: The widow's curse on Peche Island
Witching Hour - Legends A widow's parting words still hang over a Detroit River island. Ordered off Peche Island in 1883, Rosalie Laforet is said to have cursed it: no one will ever do anything with it. The Walker mansion there burned in 1929.
Topics: Witching Hour
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Witching Hour is our nightly local history and folklore feature. Ghost stories and legends are retold as stories people tell, not reported as fact. Sources are listed below the story.
Tonight's Witching Hour is a legend, told here alongside the island's recorded history.
The island
Peche Island is a wooded island of about 100 acres where the Detroit River meets Lake St. Clair, about two kilometres from Belle Isle. It has also been called Isle aux Pecheurs and Isle a la Peche. The Windsor Star notes it was once an Ottawa First Nation fishing village. Its only known permanent residents were the French-Canadian Laforet family, who lived and farmed there from as early as the 1780s.
On July 30, 1883, Hiram Walker's sons bought most of the island from the estate of William G. Hall. The Laforets owned four acres. Benjamin Laforet filed a claim that he and his brother held a one-third interest, and the case was settled with Hall's estate ordered to pay the family part of the sale price.
The legend
Leo Laforet died in September 1882. The Windsor Public Library's history says that later that year, some of Walker's agents forced their way into his widow Rosalie's house and told her to leave the island by the spring of 1883. The story goes that as the family left, Rosalie cursed the Walkers and the island. She is reported to have said: "No one will ever do anything with the island."
What happened next
Walker built a summer mansion described as having anywhere from 40 to 54 rooms, with a greenhouse, an icehouse, an orchard, stables and a carriage house, and bought two yachts to reach it. Walker died in January 1899. His daughter, Elizabeth Walker Buhl, sold the island in 1907. The mansion burned in 1929. Tourism Windsor Essex Pelee Island lists the plans that followed and fell through, including a resort, housing in the 1950s and a ski resort in the 1960s.
The City of Windsor took over the island from the Province in 1999. Today it is a city park reached by boat, with walking trails and the foundations of the old estate still among the trees. Whether a widow's words had anything to do with it is left to the reader.
Correction (Oct. 17, 2026): An earlier version of this story and its card said Hiram Walker sold the island in 1907. Walker died in January 1899. His daughter, Elizabeth Walker Buhl, sold the island in 1907. Thanks to the reader who pointed this out. We regret the error.
