The Mennonite, known for his piercing eyes, produced herbal remedies on the side using a healing process that has "strong Germanic roots and comes to us through Pennsylvania," said Rickert-Hall, who is writing a book about him.

Some of Eby's healing practices, however, did scare people. They used occult books and contained charms and incantations.

Eby, the grandson of Bishop Benjamin Eby, one of Kitchener's first settlers, and nephew of Joseph Schneider, was feared by many.

One popular legend is that a group of boys found their way onto Eby's orchard and tried to help themselves to some apples.

Eby spotted them, and as the legend goes, he stared them down, paralyzing the boys with fear.

"It's one of those things where you question if he had the ability to paralyze with his eyes or if it was the fear these boys had," said Rickert-Hall, who is currently working on a book about the life and times of Eby, called Waterloo You Never Knew: Life On The Margins, expected to be published in the fall of 2018. "But people were very wary of him."

But his legend wasn't just about his piercing eyes. "He had a more tender side and helped a lot of people," said Rickert-Hall.

Anna Mitchell-Hedges

The story of Anna Mitchell-Hedges and the crystal skull is one of the more recent legends in Waterloo Region.

Anna's father, Frederick, was an archeologist in Belize. Accompanying her father to a dig in Belize, Mitchell-Hedges found and kept a crystal skull she discovered. Once she returned to Kitchener, she started showing it to family and friends and soon discovered the skull had healing powers.

The skull was on display at Frederick Street Mall in the 1990s, drawing big crowds before Mitchell-Hedges moved to England.

"There's a lot of folklore around the skull," said Rickert-Hall.

"The mall was packed and people came out to see it. It was really something to behold. To me personally, it just looked like a glass skull," said Rickert-Hall. "Even in folklore, stories take on a life of their own. The reputation of this skull was so powerful that so many people came out to see it."

Haunted buildings

While most stories are based around a specific person, there are legends about buildings, particularly the older ones, in the region.

For example, Kitchener Collegiate Institute, which opened in 1855 as the Berlin grammar school, is known for ghostly sightings.

The sightings, Rickert-Hall said, crop up usually as construction projects are being completed. Every new extension brought out a new ghost sighting.

In Cambridge, at Galt Collegiate Institute (GCI), it is said that soldiers who graduated and died in service in the First World War returned to the school to haunt it. Founded in 1852, GCI is one of the oldest operational high schools in Canada.

"Some former students have said that at different times, in a hallway, people can be alone and they'll hear voices down the hallway. Or there will be a flash of light and they'll see movement out of the corner of their eyes," said Rickert-Hall.

Overall, Rickert-Hall said, people are often entranced by grisly stories, such as the missing body of Reginald White, but they also like the mystery of someone like Christian Eby. While there is a certain amount of interest at historical talks that she gives around the region and beyond, Rickert-Hall says there is so much more to discover about the past in Waterloo Region.

"Our own history is understudied and unfamiliar to the people that live here," said Rickert-Hall.

As for whether or not she believes in the supernatural, Rickert-Hall said she always keeps an open mind.

"I'm a skeptical believer but I have an open mind. I know there's a lot of fakery, but I also believe there are a lot of things we can't explain," she said. "As any kind of a researcher, if you enter into anything with a closed mind, how can you possibly find something new?"