Copyright © 2001 - 2008 South Jersey
Paranormal Research and its investigators.
All content may not be used or reproduced 
without the express written consent of South
Jersey Paranormal Research. SJPR is 
organized exclusively for scientific research
and educational purposes, as specified in
Section 501(c)(3).


Site maintained by Sochtek 



			

FROM THE JERSEY DEVIL AND MARTIAN LANDINGS,
TO APPARITIONS & GHOSTLY WANDERINGS….
 

Trenton, NJ - If you want to see Halloween celebrated with gusto and over-the-top ghoulish decorations, come to New Jersey, where some of the most spine-chilling ghost stories in American history are kept alive, just for fun. It's hard to beat the one, dating from 1938 and still chuckled over, when the stentorian voice of Orson Wells announced over ABC Radio network that Martians had landed in Grover's Mill, a rural village near Princeton. Mass panic ensued, as the story spread, bringing out police, press corps and National Guard to converge on the sleepy village that was unaware any such idea was afoot. The broadcast was taken from H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, and its only visible reminder is a "Martian Landing" monument in Van Nest Park, that still draws fans to stare, speculate and make up their own ghost stories.

New Jerseyans stretch the ancient All Hallows Eve, October 31st when ghosts, ghouls and goblins are said to emerge from the underworld and mingle with the living - into a season. Starting in early October, a drive through towns and countryside will turn up elaborate decorations everywhere. Judging by the number of "scientific" ghost investigation groups, such as South Jersey Paranormal Research, there must be some truth to tales of hauntings and sightings throughout the state, and what better time of year to explore them.

"Fall is my favorite season," says Nancy Byrne, executive director of the New Jersey Office of Travel & Tourism. "Chilly air, turning leaves and roadside harvest stands offer plenty of incentives for driving, hiking, cycling and walking through our small towns and rural pathways. Kids may get to pick and carve pumpkins, walk through haunted mazes and houses, but adults can scare themselves silly too, taking walking tours through haunted villages, dining in haunted restaurants and even staying in haunted hotels - all guaranteed to send shivers down the stiffest spines."

Way before the Martian landing, the famed Jersey Devil of the Pinelands had been scaring people for nearly 300 years. To date, it's been "sighted" by 2,000 witnesses. The most prevalent story of his origin goes that a deformed baby born in the 1700s was actually a devil (some say he was born to a witch; others, to a mother with too many children already). Hidden in his home for years, one night he sprouted wings, flew out a window and tormented the village until a local clergy exorcised him for 100 years. In the 1890's, he returned, swooping down from the air and causing havoc in such south Jersey towns as Haddonfield, Bridgeton, Smithville and, of course, the Pine Barrens. In 1909 more than 1,000 people spotted him in one week, with evidence of his presence being cloven hoof tracks in yards and on roofs all over South Jersey. They would proceed a pace, then end, seemingly in mid-stride, as though he had suddenly taken flight.

Ringwood Manor, a 51-room mansion in the Ramapo Mountains, has a few fascinating ghosts - witnessed by visitors who report getting cold, clammy sensations of ghostly presences while passing along the corridors; some say the presences are more prevalent around Halloween, as though a past owner wanted to register a complaint - but no one knows for what cause, unless it's remorse for the death of an iron industry that had thrived in the area for some 200 years, from the 1600s through the Civil War.

The Ogden family, of Newark, started the industry, opening the first blast furnace and building the original Ringwood House in the little town that soon burgeoned as the iron industry flourished. A British firm bought the property and ironworks from them, establishing a plantation economy, with miners and workers living on the manor and surrounding lands rented to farmers and woodsmen. It was managed by Robert Erskine, who sided with the colonists at the outbreak of the Revolution and became George Washington's surveyor-general of the Continental Army.

In 1782 the New Jersey legislature expropriated the mines and furnaces but they lay idle till well after the war. In 1807 Martin J. Ryerson bought them, running them profitably. After his death, the company went into bankruptcy. In 1853, the then-named Long Pond Ironworks were bought by Peter Cooper, a New York industrialist who founded the Cooper Union and operated the Trenton Iron Company. Cooper turned over the operation to his son in law, Abram Hewitt, who rebuilt the Ringwood Manor House as it stands today. It's open daily, from spring through fall. Call 973-962-7031 for information and hours. Remnants of the Long Pond Ironworks are part of the Longpond Ironworks Historic District, in West Milford. Call 973-657-1688.

Visitors may wonder about two other magnificent manor houses nearby, built during the same era. One has been a Franciscan convent since 1930, when it was purchased from the Hewitt family. The other is Skylands Manor, a 45-room Tudor Revival Mansion, built in the early 1900s by Francis Stetson, a wealthy corporate lawyer for J.P. Morgan. Another wealthy attorney, Clarence Lewis, acquired the property in 1924 and had John Russell Pope (architect of the Jefferson Memorial and National Gallery of Art ) redesign it as it currently appears. Now owned by the state and part of the New Jersey Botanical Gardens, it is open periodically, from spring through fall. Call 973-962-7031, or Gateway Tourism Council, 201-436-6009 (also handles Ringwood and West Milford).
Cape May is said to have lots of ghosts. At Higbee's Beach & Wildlife Reserve, Higbee himself appears whenever his grave is approached and can be seen chasing the ghost of a slave down wooded paths.

The nearby Winterwood Gift Shoppe is haunted by two sisters who used to live there. At Cape May Point, the site of a World War II bunker, an entire ghostly crew prowls, while ghosts of soldiers patrol the beach. Call Southern Shore Tourism, 800-227-2297; www.njsouthernshore.com

In Columbus, dinner at the ancient Columbus Inn is often accompanied by the presence of long dead guests. Sightings have been so strong that paranormals have been called in to investigate. One legend has it that the "Jersey Devil" was born here. Call Delaware Region Tourism Council,
856-757-9400; www.visitsouthjersey.com

In Edgewater, along River Road, an ancient Leni Lenape tribal burial ground dates from the 1400s. On crisp autumn nights, the ghost of a tribesman is sometimes seen wandering among the graves. Gateway Tourism Council, 201-436-6009.

In Edison's Old White Churchyard, Mary Moore was accused of witchcraft in the 1700s and executed. Today, she haunts the churchyard cemetery where she was buried. It is said, that from time to time, people have stolen her headstone - and died shortly thereafter. Call Gateway Tourism Council, 201-436-6009.

Drinks or dinner in Flemington's Union Hotel is only for the brave around Halloween, standing witness to speculation that still surrounds the "trial of the century." During the height of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case, the hotel was temporary operations base for the country's most notable journalists covering the trial.

Today, only the bar and restaurant on the main floor are open to the public. The second floor houses a few offices, and the rest of the Union Hotel is the exclusive property of the building's only full-time residents - its ghosts. They make their presences felt by opening doors, slamming them shut, spinning barstools and other shenanigans. Call Skylands Tourism Council, 908-496-8598; www.skylandstourism.org

In Clinton, the Hunterdon Historical Museum complex is full of ghosts. In the old general store, two men can be heard talking but can't be seen. Footsteps walk across the second floor, but no one is around. The suspect is the ghost of Bill VanCamp, who lived in the building during the 1890s and was found dead just outside the house early one morning, with no apparent cause. When a husband developed the photo he took of his wife on the steps of the old one-room schoolhouse, he saw a shadowy figure of a middle-aged woman, dressed in 1900s schoolmarm attire, beside her. Finally, at the 175-year-old gristmill, a loud gong, that used to be sounded when the mill was in operation, has been heard recently but no one is around to sound it. Call Skylands Tourism Council, 908-496-8598; www.skylandstourism.org