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A real-life story · Canada, 1873

The day a young woman dreamed that her sweetheart was drowning: a shared-death experience

In June 1873, a footman of Lord and Lady Dufferin drowned while fishing on a remote river in Canada. Days later, a letter arrived from his sweetheart, who worked as a maid in Ottawa. She had written it a week after the accident, and in it she told him that she had dreamed he was drowning. Lady Dufferin copied that letter into her journal.

This case has something that almost no other case has. The young woman wrote down her dream before she knew anything. Someone outside the family saw the letter and copied it into her journal within days. But the dream doesn’t get everything right. We tell the story step by step and then look at what can be checked. How could she dream of his death from so far away?

Step 1

June 1873 · The Mingan River · Lady Dufferin’s account

Lord and Lady Dufferin go fishing on an uninhabited coast, with their servants

Illustration from The day a young woman dreamed that her sweetheart was drowning: a shared-death experience: “Lord and Lady Dufferin go fishing on an uninhabited coast, with their servants”

Lord Dufferin governed Canada on behalf of the British queen. In June 1873, he and his wife went fishing on the Mingan River, on an uninhabited coast in eastern Canada.

The place was more than 500 miles from Ottawa, the capital. There was no telegraph and no mail there.

Their servants traveled with them. One of them was a footman, a household servant. His sweetheart worked as a maid in Ottawa.

Lady Dufferin kept a journal in the form of letters, and she wrote everything down.

Step 2

Monday, June 30, 1873 · On the riverbank · Lady Dufferin’s account

The footman starts fishing from some rocks, and the steward warns him that they are slippery

Illustration from The day a young woman dreamed that her sweetheart was drowning: a shared-death experience: “The footman starts fishing from some rocks, and the steward warns him that they are slippery”

That Monday, the footman went out fishing. He was on the rocks by the river, eating a piece of bread.

Then he got up and stood at the edge of the water with his rod. The steward asked him if he could swim. The footman said no.

The steward told him to be careful, because the rocks were slippery and the water was very deep. The footman told him not to worry.

At that very moment, he slipped.

Step 3

That same day · Lady Dufferin’s account

He slips, falls into the river, and drowns

Illustration from The day a young woman dreamed that her sweetheart was drowning: a shared-death experience: “He slips, falls into the river, and drowns”

He was wearing a veil against the mosquitoes. He raised his hands to take it off and disappeared into the water.

The steward jumped into the river to look for him, but the footman never came up again. Someone brought a boat, and the men saw the handle of the fishing rod sticking out of the water. They pulled on it and brought up the body. The footman was still holding the rod in his hand.

That same day, the news reached the Dufferins.

Step 4

June 30, 1873 · Lady Dufferin’s account

A canoe brings the news to the Dufferins, who go back to the place of the accident

Illustration from The day a young woman dreamed that her sweetheart was drowning: a shared-death experience: “A canoe brings the news to the Dufferins, who go back to the place of the accident”

It was a very hot day. The gentlemen of the expedition went for a swim, and when they got into the canoe, it overturned and all their clothes got wet. The Dufferins were fishing at another spot on the river. They were about to start again when a canoe with Indigenous people arrived with the news.

They went back right away and saw the place where the accident happened. The piece of bread the footman had been eating was still on the rocks.

Lady Dufferin wrote it down in her journal that same Monday.

Step 5

July 1873 · Lady Dufferin’s account

No one knows whom to tell, and Lord Dufferin asks for the footman’s letters to be given to him

Illustration from The day a young woman dreamed that her sweetheart was drowning: a shared-death experience: “No one knows whom to tell, and Lord Dufferin asks for the footman’s letters to be given to him”

The Dufferins knew nothing about the footman’s family. They had no one to tell about his death.

That is why Lord Dufferin ordered that every letter that arrived for the footman be brought to him.

The first letter that arrived was from his sweetheart.

Step 6

A week after the accident · According to his sweetheart’s letter

His sweetheart writes that on the day she started her new job, she dreamed he was drowning

Illustration from The day a young woman dreamed that her sweetheart was drowning: a shared-death experience: “His sweetheart writes that on the day she started her new job, she dreamed he was drowning”

The letter was dated seven days after the accident, exactly one week. The young woman was writing from Ottawa. She said she had been for a week in the house where she had just started working, and that she was happy there. And she told him this:

“I had such a dreadful dream on the day of my arrival. I dreamt that you and Nowell were upset in a boat together, and that Nowell was saved, but you were drowned.”

The footman’s sweetheart, in her letter of July 1873, copied by Lady Dufferin

If she had been there for a week, the dream was on the same day he drowned, or very close to it.

Elsewhere in her journal, Lady Dufferin calls Nowell “our English servant” and says he was Lord Dufferin’s valet. The letter shows that they both knew him.

Step 7

Friday, July 11, 1873 · Lady Dufferin’s account

Lady Dufferin copies the letter into her journal and notes that the young woman could not have known anything

Illustration from The day a young woman dreamed that her sweetheart was drowning: a shared-death experience: “Lady Dufferin copies the letter into her journal and notes that the young woman could not have known anything”

Lady Dufferin read the letter and copied it into her journal on July 11. She wrote that the young woman could not have known that her sweetheart had died. The place was more than 500 miles away, on an uninhabited coast, with no telegraph and no mail.

Lady Dufferin published her journal in 1891, in a book called My Canadian Journal. In 1893, an English society that studied cases like this reprinted the two journal entries in its periodical. They were the entry about the accident and the entry about the letter.

The question remains: how did the young woman dream that her sweetheart was drowning, from so far away?

What does the evidence say?

What can be checked

We ask every story the same five questions. They don’t tell us whether someone is telling the truth. They tell us what can be shown today. Here we ask them about what his sweetheart dreamed: that he was drowning after a boat overturned.

4 of 5
  • Yes
  • Unconfirmed
  • No data
  1. Did the footman’s sweetheart tell anyone about her dream before she knew that he had died?Yes. His sweetheart wrote it in a letter to him dated seven days after the accident, when she could not have known anything. Lady Dufferin, who was not part of her family, read the letter and copied it into her journal on July 11, 1873.
  2. Is it known which day the young woman dreamed that the footman was drowning?It is known only roughly. She wrote that she had the dream on the day she arrived at her new job, and that she had been there for a week. The letter was dated seven days after the accident. Everything points to the same day, but no date or time for the dream was written down.
  3. Is it known when Lord and Lady Dufferin’s footman died?Yes. Lady Dufferin wrote in her journal that the footman drowned on Monday, June 30, 1873, in the Mingan River. She wrote it that same day.
  4. Is there any document from the time that confirms the footman’s death?Yes. Lady Dufferin, the woman the footman worked for, wrote in her journal on June 30, 1873, how he had drowned. That same day she went to the place of the accident.
  5. Could the young woman have learned in some other way that her sweetheart had drowned?The young woman had no way of finding out about the death. The place was more than 500 miles from Ottawa, with no telegraph and no mail. But the dream doesn’t match completely. In the dream, he drowned when a boat overturned with Nowell, someone they both knew, and in fact he slipped off some rocks. It is also not known whether she knew he was on a fishing expedition, a trip with risks.

Why we ask each question

What is hard to explain

  • The young woman wrote down her dream before she heard the news. Lady Dufferin, who was not part of her family, read the letter and copied it into her journal within days.
  • Lady Dufferin’s journal gives the exact day of the death, Monday, June 30, 1873.
  • The place was more than 500 miles away, with no telegraph and no mail. The young woman had no way of finding out.
  • The dream gets the main thing right: he was drowning.

What remains unresolved

  • In the dream, he is upset in a boat with Nowell. In fact, he slipped off some rocks, and he wasn’t in a boat with anyone.
  • That same day, the gentlemen of the expedition overturned as they got into a canoe. No one knows whether the footman or Nowell was among them, or whether his sweetheart heard about it.
  • No one knows what time the dream happened. The day is worked out from the letter. If the week is exact, it was the same day as the accident.
  • We don’t have the whole letter. We only have the part that Lady Dufferin copied.
  • The book doesn’t say whether the young woman knew that her sweetheart was on a fishing expedition, which was a trip with risks.

Where this story comes from

Books

  • The Marchioness of Dufferin (1891), My Canadian Journal, pages 82-83 and 88, with the entries of June 30 and July 11, 1873Read for free

Periodicals

  • Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, volume 6, May 1893, pages 85-86, case G. 236Read for free

Case documents

  • The letter from the footman’s sweetheart, July 1873, partly copied by Lady Dufferin into her journal

Learn more

  • Frederick Wingfield: the dream of his brother, another shared-death experienceRead
  • More shared-death experiencesRead

Our archive

  • Our full reading of the case and its scoring against our five criteria, as of October 27, 2026

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