New Jersey

A Fabulous Fable of the Supernatural Kind

The saga of the Morristown ghost has been told around campfires and dinner tables in Morris County for generations. Local legend claimed British Loyalists secretly buried stolen Patriot treasure on Schooley Mountain as they fled the oncoming forces of George Washington during the Revolutionary War. Years later in 1788, a former school teacher from Connecticut, Ransford Rodgers, convinced local prominent Morristown families that a ghost was protecting the true location of the treasure and he alone could exercise it. Little did the victims know, Rodgers was perpetuating an elaborate hoax and eventually extorted large sums of money from the embarrassed local elite. The tale has been recounted in various sensational pamphlets and publications ever since, leaving behind a mystery of what is true or myth.

Author Peter Zablocki separates fact from fiction in the story of the great Morristown ghost hoax.

Among the rolling hills, picturesque farms and lush highlands of Northwestern New Jersey lurk haunting mysteries and unexplained apparitions.

A historic recluse who practiced witchcraft generations ago is said to be still spinning misdeeds as the Sussex Sorcerer on Sunrise Mountain. The ghost of Reverend O'Malley walks the woods around Mount Allamuchy as the Purple Bishop, seeking vengeance against those who betrayed him. The sinisterly named Shades of Death Road along the sod farms and meadows of the Pequest River Valley has a bloody reputation of bandit killings, Lenape massacres and supernatural encounters.

Author Robert Oakes leads readers on a spirited journey through the historic ghost lore of Northwestern New Jersey.

Ghostly Fun in the Sand and Sun

The wide sandy beaches, colorful boardwalks and majestic lighthouses of the Jersey Shore share supernatural secrets and unexplainable encounters...

In Absecon the dead pose as guides for a unique afterhours tour of its historic lighthouse. A reformed criminal met the apparition of his victim, learning remorse is eternal, on Long Beach Island. Newly built casinos in Atlantic City have former patrons stopping by for one last goodbye, from beyond the grave. A spectral organist haunts and plays the pipe organ of Asbury Park's Convention Hall.

Author Patricia Heyer uncovers the eerie mysteries that shroud many of the Shore's iconic landmarks.

The picturesque waters of the Mullica and the Delaware River belie the dark past of Burlington County. Legends of ghosts and spirits are all that remain of this troubled history. A blue ghost sings in the piano room of the Barclay Haines Homestead on the banks of the beautiful Rancocas. The Burlington County Lyceum of History and Natural Sciences in Mount Holly houses some most unnatural artifacts." Riverside's eerie Keystone Watch Case Tower, just thirteen miles north of Philadelphia, stands as a reminder to the lives lost in the harsh course of industrialization in the area. Join local legends expert Jan Lynn Bastien as she explores the haunted history of Roebling, Pemberton, Eastampton and other Burlington County communities."

The historic region between the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers has formed the basis for countless accounts of apparitions, hauntings and unexplained phenomena. For more than one hundred years, reports have circulated that the ghost of merciless slave master Lewis Morris can be seen scouring Passage Point Plantation in Rumson, with a gaping hole where his heart should be. The frozen waters of the Navesink were a popular destination for iceboat sailing, and many still claim to see the face of a drowned teen in the ice after a tragic incident in 1906. The native Lenapes and colonial Dutch told eerie tales of the ancient forest of Ole Balm Hollow in Middletown, including phantom riders and the echoes of crying children. Local author Patricia Heyer recounts haunted tales of the two rivers peninsula.

What ghosts roam within the historic sites and buildings of
Central New Jersey? How accurate are the traditional stories? From the shadowed woods of the Somerset Hills to the dappled banks of the Delaware River, Ghosts of Central Jersey delivers a rich mix of factual history and the sound investigation of ghostly phenomena. The combination of an open-minded enthusiasm and a level-headed approach underscores this collection of reports that will inform, entertain and lead the reader to places where the past is considered to be very much alive and entwined with the present.

Bringing a whole new meaning to the term historical interaction, " Bastien visits firehouses, taverns and cemeteries to exhume those bits of the past whose clammy fingers still cling to the present. The vividness of her spellbinding accounts will have you smelling the sulfur of dead-but-not-departed Hessian mercenaries in less time than it takes to shiver."