Phantasmal Crime 18 - The Disappearance of Ambrose Small

History Goes Bump: Ghost Tours For The Mind

Diane Student

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2023

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Toronto Grand Opera House was the scene of a haunting that was connected to a crime that was once dubbed the "Crime of the Century." Ambrose Small was a wealthy theater producer who mysteriously disappeared in 1919, on the same day he acquired one million dollars. He was never seen again and eventually declared dead. Could this be why he is not at rest in the afterlife?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Listener discretion is advised.
0:15.0	True crime can be strangely fascinating.
0:18.0	This true crime is odd, macaw, and haunted.
0:22.0	I'm Diane, your guide into the shadows.
0:25.0	Welcome to Pantasma Crime.
0:31.0	The Toronto Grand Opera House was the scene of a haunting that was connected to a crime that was once dubbed the crime of the century.
0:39.0	Ambrose Small was a wealthy theater producer who mysteriously disappeared in 1919.
0:44.0	He was never seen again and eventually declared dead.
0:48.0	Could this be why he is not at rest in the afterlife?
1:00.0	Ambrose Joseph Small was born on January 11, 1866 in Bradford, Upper Canada.
1:24.0	His father Daniel Small was an Irish Catholic who opened a hotel and saloon in Toronto.
1:30.0	In 1880 he became the proprietor of the Grand Hotel, which was adjacent to Alexander Henderson Manning's Grand Opera House on Adelaide Street West.
1:39.0	Ambrose went to school in Toronto at St. Michael's College and Daily Sal Institute.
1:44.0	He eventually went to work at the Grand Opera House as an usher and bartender.
1:48.0	He learned the theater trade and stayed there until 1889 when he got in a fight with the manager Oliver Barton Shepherd and so he moved on to another opera house.
1:57.0	This one was a Vodville and Melodrama theater on the circuit of Henry R. Jacobs of New York and his Montreal partner John Bowling broke Sparrow.
2:05.0	Here Ambrose would work his way up to manager.
2:08.0	He also got interested in hanging out at the racetracks and soon he was gambling.
2:12.0	He made enough money through managing and gambling to buy the mortgages on two theaters in 1892, the Regent Theater and Toronto's Grand Opera House.
2:21.0	Ambrose was able to become really successful because he was able to adapt to what the public wanted.
2:27.0	When people wanted the theater with big stars from America and Canada, he booked them.
2:32.0	And when Vodville was more in fashion, he ran those kinds of shows.
	...

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