When the area was first settled, the land that would become known as MacGillivray's Hollow was little more than a glorified marsh. About the only person who cared to settle there was Angus MacGillivray, a retired riverboat captain who brought his family to the area in 1855, buying up the whole of what most people considered a fairly useless parcel of land. MacGillivray soon demonstrated a remarkable talent for landscaping, as he managed to dredge the worst parts of the swamps and gradually turn his land into a collection of small islands linked by bridges that spanned slender, twisting waterways just large enough for a small riverboat to navigate safely. On the central island (also the largest), the old captain constructed a stone house where he and his wife brought their family up.

Sadly, the next part of MacGillivray's dream was never realized. Though he had hoped to encourage settlement in the newly transformed hollow, there soon arose a horrific stench throughout the region, a scent that drove visitors and prospective buyers well away. Only the MacGillivrays themselves seemed immune, and by the time Angus died, the family still had their land, but they were in dire financial straits otherwise. MacGillivray's son, John, fell in with Charity Sullivan, who convinced him that the stench was a curse laid upon the property by the unquiet dead, who desired the land for their own. Soon convinced, John transformed the area around the house into an above-ground cemetery (the ground was still unsuitable for traditional burial, but above-ground tombs could be constructed), and sure enough, the stench subsided, leaving only the beautiful artificial islands and streams of MacGillivray's Hollow.

Though the MacGillivrays have long since left this area, their house -- located on the central island of the so-called 'Isles of the Dead' -- is still used as the groundskeeper's cottage; given the grim surroundings, only the most macabre souls agree to take such responsibility, and dark rumors and legends have inevitably followed each and every person who has taken the post. The central isle contains only the house, the MacGillivray family crypt, and the tomb for those groundskeepers without friends or family to bury them, but the other islands, in their uncountable numbers, are so crowded with tombs that the Hollow seems a veritable metropolitan city of the dead and buried from any perspective. Many of the tombs are said to contain treasures and relics left by the decedents, and over the years, the groundskeeper has gradually become responsible first and foremost for cemetery security. Thus far, no one has actually found any treasure, but most would-be tomb raiders are chased off by the groundskeeper well before they manage to locate any secret passages or chambers -- if there even are any.

Unlike most of Charity's close, personal friends, John MacGillivray does not possess an elaborate memorial. His body isn't even held within the cemetery, as John died aboard the Titanic in 1912 while returning from a trip to London. His only memorial is a net formed of now-green copper chains, held in place at the intersection of several waterways by seven iron posts near the southern end of the Hollow, with a plaque commemorating his life and death set atop the northmost post. Local legend has it that MacGillivray himself swims those same waterways in the form of an ash-gray fish with white spots in the vague shape of his face, but few people have claimed to see the fish and no one has ever verified its existence. Like most ghost stories, it seems to have a greater basis in fascination and titillation than in fact.