Burlington County Prison Museum

The Burlington Prison Dungeon from the Burlington Prison Museum

Mount Holly Township is home to 9,500 souls, the county seat of Burlington County, New Jersey, and an eastern suburb of Philadelphia. It's also noted as one of the more actively haunted spots in the east, which makes sense as they trace their municipal roots back to 1688. If you want confirmation of that spooky factoid, just take a trip to 128 High Street and visit the Burlington County Prison Museum.

Built in 1811, following the design of the young and then unknown architect Robert Mills, the prison functioned from 1811 to 1965, making it the oldest continually operating lockup in America at the time of its closing. The smallish stone building (it held 100 prisoners in its heyday) not only looked foreboding, but also looked like a textbook haunted English manse. And its reputation has lived up to its looks.

Workman renovating the prison in 1999 for its conversion to the museum were the first to note some eerie going-ons. Their tools would disappear, to be found later behind prison doors that hadn't been opened in decades. They could hear footsteps where no one was at, and ghostly voices and moans added to the cacophony. Glimpses of shadow figures flashed by, caught just in the corner of their eyes. It got to the point where the work gang would leave the job site in a group; no one wanted to be left alone in the old jailhouse.

So whatcha gonna do? Well, what everybody does in those circumstances (at least in this blog) - they called in the paranormal investigators to get to the bottom of the situation. The ghost hunters poked and probed with their electronica, and came up with EVPs, orbs and mists, apparition sightings, temperature spikes and drops, and all sorts of anomalies. One set of investigators were followed by the scent of a burning cigarette that tailed them through the womens wing. The paranormal community confirmed what the workmen already knew - the prison was spook central.

Staff and visitors reported like phenomena (especially in the gallows and solitary confinement areas), and more - the senses of presence and depression, objects that move themselves, electronic malfunctions, moans and screams, but especially sightings. Shadow figures were reported from the first floor of the prison. There are tales of a spirit in the shower area who was kind enough to leave a footprint in the dust once. Others have claimed to see a legless ghost glide from the main gate toward the prison yard.

The basement is a hot spot; twice prison employees were killed near there by inmates during break-out tries. One cellar spook is thought to be that of murdered prison guard William Harry King, who has been reported roaming the lower level hallways of the prison.

But the star of the show is the otherwordly Joel Clough, who was sentenced to hang in 1833 for the brutal stabbing murder of a lover who had jilted him, convicted by a jury that didn't buy his insanity defense. He tried to escape - not much to lose, hey? - and for his efforts was tossed in the dungeon, a solitary cell with an iron ring in the middle that he was chained to while stark naked 24/7. Clough eventually had his neck stretched at a crossroads a few miles outside the jail in front of a large crowd, and was buried in the prison yard in an unmarked grave, the spot now marked by a tree.

Since his hanging, prisoners, guards, staff and regular folk have allegedly seen items in the room levitate, heard his moaning and rattling chains, and seen his apparition sitting in his cell. Security motion detectors keep going off there, even when the area is empty. Paranormal teams have all confirmed an active presence in and around the dungeon, so it looks like Joel Clough has claimed Burlington prison as his home for the afterlife.

The prison lore was featured in an episode of the SyFy Channel's "Ghost Hunters." It's included in Jeff Belanger's "Encyclopedia of Haunted Places." And if you want to catch it up close and personal, no prob. The museum (a National Historic Landmark) is open Thursdays-Sundays. If you're in the neighborhood during trick-or-treat season, they offer a "Haunt of the Prison" tour weekend evenings in October with a tricked-out Halloween prison yard.

See if you can tell the local actors from the local apparitions.

Grenville Hotel

The Grenville Hotel & Restaurant
The plush Grenville Hotel at Bay Head, New Jersey, is a Grande Dame of local seaside hotels, dating back to 1890. It was built on Barnegat Island by Wycoff Applegate, who also built the Bay Head Yacht Club.

In 1922, the hotel was sold to Nellie Georgette who renamed it "The Georgette." In 1945, it was sold to the Grenville Corporation and became "The Grenville Arms." Later it was christened "The Grenville" after The Arms was destroyed in a fire.

Since 1956, the title has switched hands three times; the hotel now belongs to Harry and Renee Typaldos, owners since 2003. It's the kind of place that people like to return to every year for their summer vacation, right on the shore.

Most of the guests like to tan, splash around, and enjoy a week-long romp in the sun and sand. But others come away with stories of the hotel's more permanent guests, its spooks.

Now, the Typaldos say they've never seen anything supernatural occur in their hotel, but they do admit it's an old building with a lot of tradition and history, and have a generally laissez-faire attitude toward the whole ghost thingie.

But check with their employees, and the stories come gushing out. They've heard the sound of footsteps and moving furniture in empty rooms, and people walking down hallways when they're alone. The sense of presence while they work is also a well known phenomena at the hotel.

One popular report is of the sound of children, playing and laughing, in the lobby and the hallways, usually at night. One employee claimed to have seen the ghostly kids in the lobby.

Guests have verified what the staff has seen and heard, adding their own tales. Some visitors claimed to see apparitions of people dressed in dark nineteenth century outfits walking through their rooms or down the hall. Others have said that they've seen an impression form on their beds as if someone were laying there.

Lookin' for a little sun in the summer? Try a trip to the Grenville - you may be surprised at who you meet.

(Readers - sorry; we've been on a bit of a hiatus. This is our weekend blog, and spring has finally sprung. We promise to get back in the swing of things after fending off our spring fever - H&H)

Jenny Jump Park/Shades Of Death Road

Jenny Jump Park's Ghost Lake from NJ State Parks
Jenny Jump State Forest is located in New Jersey's Warren County along the rolling terrain of the Jenny Jump Mountain Range. Vistas of the Highlands and the Kittatinny Mountains - which has its own set of eerie legends - to the west, and scenic views of the Great Meadows in the east await the visitor who climbs the narrow path leading to the top of the peak.

Rocky outcroppings and boulders line the trail, evidence of the great glaciers that once covered the site. There are 14 miles of trail, scenic views galore, hunting and fishing lands...and the spirit of Jenny, the lore of Ghost Lake, and the legends of neighboring Shades of Death Road and Lenape Lane.

The namesake's story has it that Jenny was a nine year old girl from back in the settler days who lived in a small white house below a cliff. One day the child was picking berries on the rocks above when an Indian surprised her.

In fear she cried to her father below for help. He responded, "Jump, Jenny Jump!" The child leaped from the cliff to her death (it's unsaid, but we assume poppa was below and tried to catch her. Oooops.)

Her small figure, it's claimed, can still be seen wandering around the cliff. She's been described differently; some say she's a little girl in white that skips along the trail, while others describe her as being in a dark blue dress with white sleeves and light hair.

Ghost Lake was created in the early 1900's when two men dammed a creek that ran through the narrow valley between houses they had just built. They came up with the lake's name because of the wraithlike vapors they saw rising off it in the early mornings, and called the vale Haunted Hollow; both are part of the park.

Visitors report that no matter what time of night they visit the lake, the sky above it always seems as bright as twilight. Several have sighted ghosts in the area, especially in a deserted (and now demolished) old cabin across the lake from Shades of Death Road. The spooks are supposedly the victims of long ago murders.

As far as the lake itself, one legend says that the early settlers killed the Indians and threw them into the lake. This seems pretty unlikely, considering that the lake doesn't date back that far in time.

A more likely tale says that the mists are the ghosts of Indians floating up the mountain from an old burial ground beneath the waters. Nearby is a cave known as the Fairy Hole, a Lenape site that may have held religious significance to the Native Americans. Now it's sacred to teen party crowds and graffiti taggers.

Then we have Shades of Death Road which runs along the border of the park by the lake. Why the name? Well, pick your poison; no one really knows the origin.

Some say it's named for the guys murdered in the Ghost Lake cabin. Other theories cite malarial swamps, murderdous highwaymen who were hung along the road, a long history of killings and suicides, attacks by wild animals, or fatal car accidents that happened along the dark, twisty lane at night. The area has its own mythology.

A popular saga of urban mythology involves Lenape Lane, an unpaved private road that is little more than a driveway to some homes that ends at a farm house.

People report that the area is always chilly, gives one a sense of foreboding, and there are claims of seeing apparitions on it.

Legend also has it that nighttime visitors to Lenape Lane can sometimes spot an orb of white light (other versions of the story claim the orbs are the headlights of a phantom car) that appears near the end of the road and chases cars back out to Shades Of Death. There's also the tale of the eerie red light.

The red light is from a reflector nailed in a tree in the middle of the lane, meant to warn drivers that the road bears right. Legend says that if you circle around the tree and drive down the road again at midnight and see the red light shine in the mirror, the driver will die.

Our guess is that the legend was started and spread by the homeowners on Lenape Lane, who have had it up to here with the kids laying rubber up and down their narrow lane at all hours of the night.

Another bit of lore tells of a bridge over the Flatbrook River on Old Mine Road off of the Shades of Death. If drivers stop after midnight with their high beams on and honk their horns three times, they'll be greeted by the ghosts of two youngsters who were run over while playing on the road.

The bridge is no longer accessible by car; a new span has been built next to it. You can still get to the spooked-out bridge on foot. Maybe if you have a good set of flashlights and a vuvuzela, you can still coax the spirits out to visit...

The most enduring legend from Shades of Death Road is that of the Native American spirit guide who takes the shape of a deer and appears along the road at night. If drivers don't avoid him as he crosses the road and crash into the phantom whitetail, they will soon get into a serious accident with a real deer.

A local threw cold water on the legends, writing us that "Bootlegger's started all the spooky tales to keep people away from the area and their stills in the 1920's; it's that simple. Quite a few farmers hung themselves along that road, but more hung or shot themselves on Alphano Road, which runs parallel to Shades on the other side of the valley. I was raised there and never saw a Ghost. I saw lots of spirits though, of the liquid kind."

Our suggestion is to take a day trip to Ghost Lake if you're into communing with the spirits. While the Shades of Death lore is appealing, it's beyond old to the homeowners, with the noise and stolen street signs making their lives spooky. And most people think the combination of its name and unlit, tree-lined back road make-up are the genesis of its tales.

Flanders Hotel and Emily

"Emily" painting by Tony Troy from Art & Architecture of New Jersey
Hey, if you're heading to the Ocean City boardwalk and pass 719 E. 11th Street, stop in the Flanders Hotel.

Built in 1923, the ritzy hotel was named after the Flanders Field in Belgium made famous by the poem of Canadian Lt. Colonel John McCrae. It was OC's entry into the upper end resort trade, and the building featured speakeasies, grand halls and rooms, and a huge "catacomb" of a basement, all the better to lure some East Coast mob and celeb business from Atlantic City.

It also provided the perfect setting for a guest who wouldn't leave, the "Lady in White" dubbed Emily.

Guests and staffers have reported spotting the spook of a young woman in the hotel for years, her apparition appearing before dozens, if not hundreds, of people. She's been seen all around the Flanders, but mostly in the Hall of Mirrors. Other sites she roamed were the catacombs, the hotel lobby, and the second and fourth floors. And she's always barefoot - hey, it is on the beach.

Emily appears and disappears into walls, plays with door locks, opens and shuts doors, unscrews light bulbs, and for years her laughing and singing have echoed merrily through Flander's halls. The train of a white gown has been seen disappearing around the corner of a corridor. A photograph taken at one of the hotel's weddings captured her misty form; ghost hunters have rolls of orbs on film.

Her presence is so famous that the hotel had a mural of her painted, and named a restaurant after her. Artist Tony Troy painted a portrait of Emily based on the descriptions told by workers and guests of the hotel, and it's hung on the second floor. It shows a young woman with long reddish-brown hair standing by a piano wearing a long white dress and no shoes.

Ghost Tours of Ocean City say that Emily is the shadow of a woman who was a girlfriend of a WWI soldier who never returned from Europe; how fitting for a girl from a place named for Flander's fields.

Many paranormal groups have examined the hotel. The South Jersey Ghost Research gang found the spirit of a young girl in the Flander who may have died from hypothermia or from the water.

They noticed that the painting of Emily shared a physical resemblance with the little girl. Putting two and two together, the SJGR group theorized that she was looking for her mother - and that woman may be Emily. Here's their report on YouTube, Part 1 and Part 2.

The Legend of the Spirit Lodge

Lake Hopatcong photo from the Lake Hopatcong Commission
From the time the Lenape (Delaware) first discovered the waters of Lake Hopatcong some 12,000 years ago, it was a special place. A deep spring-fed lake formed by glaciers, it was an idyllic spot for a Native American community. Its wooded shores provided rich soil and ample game while the lake teemed with fish.

In the 1600's, the Nariticon clan of the Lenape lived on the eastern shore of Lake Hopatcong, in a large village on Halsey Island in northern New Jersey. The island was then connected to the mainland before the lake was dammed in 1750 for a forge and in 1831 for a canal.

Quaquahela, the clan's chief, decided to visit another tribe, and rowed his canoe across the lake. He reached shore, when suddenly he heard roaring and thrashing in the woods. A huge bear was charging at him.

The chief was brave, and armed with a war club and knife. But his totem was the bear; it was taboo for him to kill one. Someone should have told the bear!

Despite the tribal sanction, Quaquahela had no option but to engage the beast in combat. The chief finally dispatched the bear in a bloody contest, but lay dying on the forest floor, realizing by his deed that his spirit would never be accepted into the Happy Hunting Ground.

His body was never recovered, claimed by a wolf pack, but a friendly chieftain found the bear's body and Quaquahela's blood-crusted weapons, added two and two together, and after a fruitless search sent a messenger to the Nariticon to tell them the sad news.

About a month later, during a full moon, Quaquahela's clan saw an eerie mist spiraling up the side of a nearby hill, like the smoke from a fire. The haze formed into an unmoving cloud, despite gusty winds, and hovered over the hillside. The clan was mystified by the strange sight, and wondered why it had appeared to them.

That night, Quaquahela appeared in a dream to his medicine man. "It is I," he told him, "who have appeared in the mist on the hillside. I have killed the great bear who took my life, and so am forbidden forever to enter the spirit realm. Rather than roam the earth, I have determined to stay near my clansmen, and so have erected a spirit lodge on the hillside in the place which you saw tonight."

The chief promised the medicine man that he would be with his people on all their travels to watch over them. If they ever doubted his presence, all they had to do was look to the hillside. The mist was the smoke from his spirit lodge, and if they ever called to him, he would answer.

And while the Lenape remained by Lake Hopatcong, a call to Quaquahela was always answered by an echo in response.

Life for the Lenape would change with the arrival of the European settlers. Most of the Delaware people had died from disease or were chased from the area by the time of the American Revolution. But many Lenapes still came to the lake to drink from its waters before their ceremonies.

(The lake is now part of Hopatcong State Park, bordered by four different residential communities and a thriving recreational site.)

The legend goes that to this day, if you hail Quaquahela on the River Styx bridge towards the hillside, he will answer. But many have tried to reach him without success.

Maybe it's because they're not his clansmen. But we like to think it's because he's moved his spirit lodge to wherever the Nariticon call home, and can be found there as long as his clan needs him.

His lore is preserved by Henry Charlton Beck in Tales and Towns of Northern New Jersey and S. E. Schlosser in American Folklore.

Fort Dix Demons

Walson Army Hospital - Fort Dix
Located in central New Jersey, Fort Dix is named for Major General John Adams Dix, a veteran of the War of 1812 and the Civil War.

It has been training soldiers since its founding in 1917, including H&H back in his Army days. In fact, more than three million men and women have passed through its gates since it was established as one of the original sixteen Army training camps built for World War I.

Today, the camp is a major training and mobilization center for the Army Reserve and National Guard after barely evading closure. Fort Dix also lies almost entirely within the Barrens of New Jersey, and we all know what that means.

There have been, as paranormal starters, many reported sightings of the Jersey Devil by soldiers during World War II, with a resurgence in the 1990s. Well, hey, that's to be expected; the Barrens is its hangout and the Devil is Jersey's unofficial state monster.

But Building 5418 at Fort Dix, the Walson Hospital in its heyday, is spook Central. The structure is a clinic now with its top five floors shuttered, but once hosted a psychiatric ward and its basement was the fort's morgue, a deadly duo of apparition generators.

Walson is without question the most active spot on the installation. Accounts of floating orbs, the opening and closing of doors and windows, lights going on and off, unexplained drops in temperature, sense of presence, furniture getting tossed around, electronics going haywire - pretty much the gamut of spectral trickery.

The top of the spectral food chain includes the sightings of orbs and ghostly visitors. The former morgue and psychiatric ward are usually where the eerie stories originate.

Most of the poltergeist-type activity happens on the seventh floor, the psych ward. That's also where the orbs appear, along with all the other ghostly going-ons.

The OB floor is another place where the dead don't rest. At one point, it's successful delivery rate was said to be just 60%, an embarrassment to even third world countries, and eventually Fort Dix's deliveries were handled by an off-base hospital.

There are regular stories of babies crying. It's also home to an eternal orderly. The OB floor is always said to be always freshly mopped. There is a mop and bucket propped in a corner that remain from its working days, and the floor seems wet, with foot prints across it, but the mop and bucket are bone dry - and have been for years.

The morgue is where the ghosties hang out. It's reported that you can feel and see the spirits in the basement, and that if you sit in the old gurney, ghostly hands will push you towards the body cooler. Brrrr! Another story involves the sounds of a grown man crying. People believe that a spirit watches the base at night through the morgue windows.

The hospital isn't the only place that's home to shadows. There's a couple of places near base housing units that have eerie reports, too.

Kennedy Court residents on Pemberton Road have reported glowing red eyes that peer at them from the nearby woods at night, and a trail that no wildlife or even sound crosses. Garden Terrace neighbors on Cedar Street tell of a teenage boy, dressed in jeans, a jacket, and red cap who can be spotted walking down the street...and then disappears right before your eyes.

But time may be running out for you to get in on the spectral fun at the hospital. The Army doesn't allow tours, and Walson, as we understand, is slated to be demolished with all its bad ju-ju. But last report, it still stands and lights still flicker, even without electricity...

Southern Mansion

The Southern Mansion from Eras of Elegance
A wealthy industrialist, George Allen, built the Southern Mansion as a summer home for his family in 1863. Cape May was a getaway for the rich and famous, and the Italianate-designed Mansion was one of its featured homes (it's now part of Cape May's historic district).

The Allen's house sat on a acre and a half estate, lined with trees and dotted by Italian gardens, with mahogany woodwork, intricately carved crown moldings, fifteen feet ceilings, giant gilded mirrors, grand ballrooms, and 5,000 square feet of verandas surrounding it. Allen and his family summered there for 83 years.

George's niece, Ester Mercur, and her husband were the last of Allen family to call the mansion home. Ester loved the estate, and when she died, her husband, Ulysses, couldn't bear to remain there without her, and sold the whole shebang for $8,000. He was in an emotional rush to get out, and didn't vet the next caretakers very well.

The new owners turned the place into a boarding house. They painted the beige structure white, and converted the mansion into a rat's nest of small rooms to let. It gradually evolved into a poorly kept flophouse, and after 50 years, the hotel license was yanked because of the deplorable condition of the once-proud building.

In early 1994, the mansion was bought by its current owners, who turned it into a boutique hotel and event center. In just 18 months, after carting out 25 dumpsters of accumulated junk, the mansion was fully restored and renovated back to the spittin' image of its glory days.

The original owners must have liked the restoration. Some of them came back to enjoy their old home as yappy specters, while another had a complete attitude make-over.

First, voices and hushed conversations have been heard and reported from all corners of the Southern Mansion. It's thought that ghosts of the mansion's summer home era have returned, enjoying the building as in days of yore. Paranormal investigators have captured the spectral talk on EVP.

There's also one spooked out, but unidentified, room that weighs heavily on its mortal visitors. Folks claim that they get the feeling of anxiety and tension when they enter the space. There's never been a report of an apparition present, just a universal sense of angst.

It's believed that a highly emotional death occurred in the room, like a suicide, murder, or illness/accident.

But hey, the ghost of Southern Mansion isn't about the bad times. The star spook is Ester, and she's one happy lady now. It wasn't always that way; back in the boarding house days, she was often reported roaming the Mansion as a sad visitation, no doubt bummed to see how far her beloved home had tumbled downhill.

But now that the house has been restored to its heyday look, Ester is a joyful spirit, apparently delighted that the mansion is once again like home. And she's been seen all over the place, in different guises.

In the kitchen, staff members claim that a female apparition watches over them while they prepare the meals, cook, and clean. In fact, the elderly woman seems very much at home there, even trying to help out. That's Ester, tending to her homefires.

Visitors entering the Mansion reportedly hear a lady's laughter echoing off the walls with music playing, and see a beautiful woman dancing up a storm in various rooms. That's said to be Ester, too.

Ester's also been spotted as the image of a decked-out hostess, wearing a gown and wafting a trail of lilac perfume as she floats through the halls, with the sound of her swishing petticoat clearly audible.

So hey, scared of spooks? You'll get over that with one visit to the Southern Mansion. Ester is the happiest ghost this side of Casper.

White Stag of Shamong

White Stag from Quark
Now we're off to New Jersey. We've already posted about the Bad Boy of the Pine Barrens, the Jersey Devil.

H&H being an equal opportunity blog, we thought we'd try to offset some of the bad press the Jersey Devil has given the state by relating the tale of a Dudley Do-Right creature, the White Stag of Shamong, in Burlington county.

To get to their Meeting House in Tuckerton, local Quakers had for decades traveled an old trail, barely more than a path, through the pine barrens. The road crossed the Batso River, which had to be forded. In 1772, several travelers drowned in its roaring waters.

After the disaster, the Friends rolled up their sleeves and built what became known as Quaker Bridge. Their trail, Quaker Bridge Road (which still exists, somewhat rerouted), soon became the most traveled route to Tuckerton, then a busy ship building town.

One rainy, lightning filled night, a stagecoach was attempting to reach a tavern, the Quaker Bridge Inn, on the other side of the river to ride out the storm. The driver breathed a sigh of relief when he saw a light in the distance from the Inn. He was close enough to the bridge to hear the rushing water roar past.

Suddenly, a White Stag appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the road, frightening the horses and blocking the stage.

With the horses snorting and rearing, the driver tied down the reins and got off the coach, trusty rifle in hand, hoping to shoo the creature away and get his passengers to the warmth and safety of the Inn. He hit the ground and tried to cluck the stag off of the road.

Then, in front of his eyes, the animal disappeared. The teamster slowly walked the approach to Quaker Bridge, looking for the White Stag. He not only couldn't the find it, but discovered that the bridge had washed out during the storm.

Had it not been for the White Stag, the stage and everyone on it would have plunged into the angry waters of the swollen Batso River.

The local Lenape tribe considered a white stag an omen of good luck. Since that day, everyone in the Barrens agreed. It's been spotted several times since, always as a warning of impending danger.

Though Shamong Township and the area is brimming with deer hunting clubs, no one has ever tried to bag a white stag thanks to that long-ago night. The last live one was spotted in 1953, but its spectral cousin is still thought to be in the Pine Barrens, watching over its travelers.

Cape May's Working Girls

The Merry Widow
Hey, it's been a while since we've taken a road trip, and while it's not summer yet - darn groundhog! - we decided to head east to the Jersey seashore and Cape May.

Founded by Dutch explorer and seaman Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, the town began as a whaling community in 1620, named Cape Mey. By 1720, it was known as Cape May and had morphed from a whaling port to a seaside resort town.

It also picked up the reputation as New Jersey's most haunted city over the centuries, making it the perfect vacation Eden for us. First we visited the Queens Hotel, on Ocean and Columbia Avenues.

Now it's a nicely laid-out bed and breakfast. It began in 1876 as Ware’s Pharmacy, a local apothecary. But you could get more than a prescription filled there; it also sported a speakeasy, a gambling den and a third floor brothel. Well, it was a resort, and you gotta keep the tourists healthy and happy, right?

One city-wide fire raged through Cape May in 1878 and damaged the Ware’s Pharmacy building, and it had to be extensively remodeled. It became bigger to support its thriving businesses, and was rebuilt ala the then-current Victorian architectural fad.

And one of its working girls is still working the house. Her haunted hang out is on the third floor where the old cathouse operated, and she's been blamed for all sorts of little antics.

You can tell when she's present by a powerful scent of perfume drifting through rooms and the accompanying cold spots. She also likes to play around some, moving objects around and rearranging the furniture more to her liking.

The ethereal lady of the evening has more physical attributes, though - she enjoys bumping into the upstairs beds, where she no doubt spent a great deal of her time.

Even more cattily, she's been known to jostle the other lady guests in the upstairs hallway, maybe in jealousy, or maybe just to let them know that they're intruding on her territory. Can't make any money if there's too many girls on the same corner, hey?

If you want to avoid her, local lore says she's just looking for a little appreciation for her services, so if you leave a buck or two on your third floor dresser, she'll consider her work satisfactorily rendered and will let you be.

That's the story of one working girl; we took a jaunt to Jackson Street - supposedly the most haunted street in the the most haunted city, how could we resist? - to check up on another, at the Merry Widow B&B. (Most of this tale is told by Susan Tischler in the Cape May Magazine.)

The spook here is an honest, hard working domestic, and dates back to the 19th century. She first became known to the owners in 1899, when the proprietor heard a knock and opened the door to a distinguished gent who asked if his old companion, Esmerelda, was still around - as a ghost!

As they spoke, the temperature in the foyer inexplicably dropped lower and lower. Feeling a little spooked, the landlady shut the door on her chilly visitor, but in a second reopened it, feeling a bit impolite and a lot curious. But, of course, all traces of the man were gone.

A short while later, one of the guests wondered if the home was haunted after seeing an unexplained female form wandering around on the first floor. Hmmm...

She asked the upstairs tenant if there was anything odd about her stay in the Turret on the third floor. "Nah," she says, "just the woman sitting at the end of the bed."

Now the innkeeper was worried. Haunted B&B's weren't exactly the rage at the turn of the century, and she knew her job was closely intertwined with the number of guests the Merry Widow took in. So in the off season, she did some exploring.

She discovered an old laundry chute under the third floor Turret bed, and found out the room belonged to a nanny named Esmerelda who worked for J. Henry Edmonds, the original owner of the house.

Did one of the kids come back looking for his old nanny? Is she still tending the place she called home? Or is the Merry Widow trying to drum up a little PR noise? They do offer a "Physick Tour," and the Inn is part of the Cape May Haunted Tour.

Hey, all we know is that the French Turret room is small, and been described as "spooky" by many of its guests, although we haven't found any of them willing to collaborate Esmerelda's presence.

So hey, go find out yourself. Jackson Street alone is supposed to have eight haunted homes, and Cape May has a list of eerie spots a mile long. My spook sensitive bud from Philly, LC, is fascinated by the place and assures me that there are more spirits there than you can shake a scary stick at.

These are just a couple of tales of gently haunted homes. Cape May seems like a place no one likes to leave - ever.

Surf City, Here I Come...

Surf City Hotel
Hey, we hopped in the jalopy, aimed south, and headed towards the shores of Jersey. What should come on the radio but a little Jan and Dean, and that gave us an idea - "Ya, we're goin' to Surf City, gonna have some fun..."

The Jersey town of Surf City has gone by many names since it was first settled - the Great Swamp, Buzby’s Place, Old Mansion, and Long Beach City. In 1894 the name was changed to the current Surf City, and that looks like it's a keeper.

Likewise, the Surf City Hotel has had several reincarnations, doing business as the Mansion of Health, Mansion House, Long Beach Inn, Marquette Hotel, and the Surf City Hotel. The hotel has a colorful history, especially gaining noteriety as a Prohibition era party spot.

But our ghost tale goes back to its beginning.

Part of Long Beach Island was once known as The Great Swamp, and it was there that the grand Mansion of Health was built in 1822. The Mansion was constructed near where West Seventh Street stands today.

It was three stories high, and the largest hotel on the Jersey shore in its day. The mansion featured a balcony that ran along the entire top floor with a magnificent view of both the Atlantic Ocean and Barnegat Bay.

Then on April 18, 1854, a legendary storm battered Long Beach Island. Fighting the hurricane winds and currents offshore was the schooner Powhattan, which carried 300 German immigrants looking to start anew in America. They'd never make it.

The Powhattan was slammed against the shoals and a large hole punctured the bow of the now-doomed ship. It bobbed around in the angry Atlantic, with nowhere to go but down to Davy Jone's locker.

As word spread of the disaster, a small crowd of people gathered on shore, but the storm was too powerful to put together any kind of rescue effort.

The ship began to break apart in the dark, and passengers began to wash overboard. The people on the shore could only watch helplessly and wait for the bodies. The entire crew and all of the passengers perished in the disaster, and only fifty of the bodies drifted ashore to Long Beach Island. The rest were consigned to the deep blue sea.

The Powhattan was certainly not the first, and wouldn't be the last, ship to flounder off the coast, and New Jersey appointed wreckmasters for the all-too-common event of a shipwreck. The wreckmaster's duty was to salvage anything of value that washed ashore, and to collect the dead until the coroner could identify them and get them properly buried.

The wreckmaster at Long Beach Island was the manager of the Mansion of Health, Edward Jennings, and the debris and the deceased were neatly stacked outside the hotel for the coroner, who arrived the next morning.

Oddly, as he examined the bodies of the dead he found one thing to be kinda peculiar. None of the men or women had anything of value on their person.

When immigrants arrived in America, they came with everything they could carry, especially cash and jewelry. It was customary for passengers to wear money-belts around their waists to protect their nest egg, but the coroner couldn't find any sign of their gelt.

Immediately, people lifted a cocked eye at Jennings, but there was no proof that he had stolen any money from the corpses, or that indeed any money existed for him to swipe. Still, it smelled awfully fishy.

The victim's bodies were eventually sent along to Manahawkin and buried in pauper's graves in the Baptist cemetery. As time went on, the wreck was forgotten and life went on in the Great Swamp.

But a few months later, another storm ripped through the Island. The frenzied waves crashed near the Mansion, and washed the sand and soil away from the stump of an old cedar tree, a throw-back to the old freshwater swamp that once dominated the landscape.

Among the uncovered roots were dozens of soggy money-belts, all slit open and empty. Jennings was busted, and he was forced to flee the Island in disgrace before the long arm of the Jersey law and the local lynch mob could get to him.

But his troubles didn't end there. It's said that Jennings suffered from terrible nightmares for the rest of his life, haunted by the spirits of those unforunate souls he robbed. He died in a barroom brawl in San Francisco. We'll bet he had some explaining to do for those 300 avenging spirits when he landed in the netherworld.

But the Powhattan spooks didn't go to the light with the death of Jennings. They took over his Mansion of Health. Guests heard sobs during the night and caught shadowy glimpses of misty figures walking on the balcony.

It didn't take long for rumors to spread, and within the year, the hotel was shuttered and closed. The Haunted Mansion of Health remained empty, as it found that most paying customers weren't keen on sharing their suites with spooks.

One summer night in 1861, a group of five local teens broke into the empty building. After horsing around in the deserted halls, they sacked out on the third floor to catch the cool ocean breeze. Just as they began to drift away, one of the boys glanced out the window at the balcony, lit by the full moon.

There stood a young woman holding a small child, gazing sadly out to sea. The light from the moon shined through her. Spooked, he woke up his buds, who also saw the apparition. Then in a flash, both mother and child vanished.

The Mansion of Health didn't get many nocturnal visits after that tale spread around town, and it burned to the ground thirteen years later, in 1874.

When the RR's hit the burg in the mid-1880s, a new hotel call the Mansion House was built on the old foundations of the burned out shell. It flopped, too, and stories of restless spirits in its halls continued to be told.

At the turn of the century, the hotel was moved to the ocean side of Eighth Street, where it now stands as part of Crane's Surf City Hotel.

It seems that the departed Deutsch appreciated the move nearer to their watery ocean doom; maybe it released their spirits. Then again, they may have shuffled off to their eternal home when the State of New Jersey placed a monument on their unmarked Manahawkin graves, memoralizing the ghosts burial spot and setting them free.

Whatever the reason, the hauntings have ceased now, and the spooks of the Powhattan are finally resting in peace so far as we know. But if you're ever on the third floor and hear "Gott, hilf uns, bitte!" out of the clear blue, well, maybe they're back...

Jersey Devil

We're gonna share one of our neighbor's tales with you today as we gaze eastward towards the woodlands of New Jersey and its' infamous Devil. The well-traveled Jersey Devil has been known to cross state lines to spook small town Pennsylvanians, so we figure it's fair game for this blog.

The Jersey Devil is a legendary critter said to generally cavort in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey. It's sort of a cross between a pterodactyl and a horse.

The Jersey Devil's home is the Blue Hole. According to popular folklore, the pond is a gateway to Hell. The water in the hole is always frigid, even during the summer. And the pool is said to have a whirlpool effect on any person who dives into it, swirling you into the depths of Hades - or the Jersey Devil's living room.

Unlike the surrounding rivers and lakes in the region, the Blue Hole has crystal clear water, which is one of its stranger features. Clean water in Jersey? Now that's eerie. (Actually, the Pine Barrens is one of the state's major aquifers.)

The most popular version of the Jersey Devil legend begins in the 18th century when Jane Smith arrived from England and went to the Pine Barrens to marry a Mr. Leeds, who wanted heirs to continue the family name. As a result, the missus was continually preggers, getting frumpier and grumpier by the child.

After bearing twelve healthy children, she lost it when she became pregnant with her thirteenth kid. She cursed the unborn child, saying she'd rather have the Devil's child than another Leeds' legacy. Guess the blush was off the rose by then, hey?

According to legend, her wish was granted. Her new child had cloven hooves, claws, and a tail. The gruesome babe devoured the other Leeds children and then its' parents before escaping through the chimney to begin its' reign of terror. (Yah, it seemed odd to us too that all the witnesses became Devil chow. Maybe the nanny busted it.)

This version, cool as it may be, is waylaid by the fact that Mother Leeds has descendants that, as of 1998, still lived in Atlantic County NJ according to the New York Times. Bummer.

But there are several twists of the Leeds tale, like the one claiming that in 1735, Mrs. Leeds discovered that she was pregnant with her 13th child. She complained to her friends and relatives that the “Devil can take the next one”, and he did.

The child was born with horns, a tail, wings, and a horse-like head. Leeds threw it out of the house, but the creature came by and visited its' mom everyday, like a good son. And every day, she stood at the door and told it to leave. After awhile, the Devil took the hint and never came back, retiring to the Barrens.

Another similar bit of folklore says a Mrs. Shourds made a wish that if she ever had another child, she wanted it to be a devil. Watch what you wish for.

Her next child was born misshapen and deformed. She hid the baby in the house, so the curious wouldn't see him. One stormy night, the child flapped it's arms, which turned into wings, and escaped out the chimney and was never seen by the family again.

The Shourds House (Leeds Point, Atlantic County, NJ) is considered sacred ground for Jersey Devil devotees. It's alleged to be the Devil's birthplace, and the ruins of its' old stone house still remain. So whether its' ma was Mrs. Leeds or its' home was Leeds Point, the Jersey Devil is also often known as the Leeds Devil.

But there are other older origins for the Jersey Devil legend besides the Leeds' family feud. The local Lenni Lenape tribes called the area around Pine Barrens "Popuessing," meaning "place of the dragon." Swedish explorers later named it "Drake Kill", "drake" being a Swedish word for dragon, and "kill" meaning river.

Some skeptics believe the Jersey Devil is nothing more than a morality tale of the English settlers. The Pine Barrens were shunned by the early locals as a desolate, threatening place. Isolated in the misty forest, it became a natural refuge for those on the lam, such as religious dissenters, loyalists, fugitives and deserters in colonial times.

The runaways formed groups known as "pineys", some of whom became bandits called "pine robbers". Pineys were further demonized after two early 20th century eugenics studies depicted them as inbred congenital idiots and criminals (Modern geneticists say that the studies weren't worth the paper they were written on, but the stigma is hard to shake, even today.)

It's easy to imagine early tales of terrible monsters arising from a combination of sightings of wild life, fear of outlaws, and dread of the Barrens. Don't you love it when a story comes together?

But Jersey Devil lore is backed by many reputable eyewitnesses who have reportedly seen the creature, dating over two centuries to the present day.

In 1778, Commodore Stephen Decatur, hero of Tripoli, visited the Hanover Iron Works in the Barrens to test artillery at a firing range, where he witnessed a strange, pale white creature flying overhead. Using cannon fire, Decatur punctured the wing of the creature, which continued on its' merry way without missing so much as a flutter.

The problem with this tale is that Decatur wasn't born until 1779. But it could have happened between 1816 and 1820, when he was the Naval Commissioner in charge of testing equipment and materials used to build new warships.

Joseph Bonaparte, the oldest brother of Napoleon, is said to have witnessed the Jersey Devil while hunting on his Bordentown estate around 1820.

In 1840, the Devil was blamed for cattle killings. Similar attacks were seen in 1841, accompanied by strange tracks and unearthly screams. The devil made an 1859 appearance in Haddonfield. Bridgeton witnessed a flurry of sightings during the winter of 1873.

About 1887, the Jersey Devil was sighted near a house, scattering the local rugrats. The Devil was spotted in the woods soon after that, and just as in Decatur's story, it was shot in the right wing, but still kept flying.

There were reported Jersey Devil sightings throughout the 1800s, include an 1899 raid on Vincentown and Burrsville, during which many sheep and chickens disappeared, presumably becoming a quick snack for the Devil.

January of 1909, however, was the mother of all Devil sightings. Thousands of people claimed to witness the Jersey Devil during the week of January 16–23 in towns, hamlets, and farms all over New Jersey. Newspapers nationwide followed the story and published breathless eyewitness reports.

The Philadelphia Zoo posted a $1M reward for the Devil's capture. The offer set off a chain of hoaxes, including one involving a kangaroo with artificial wings. None were good enough to pass the Zoo's muster, and the reward remains unclaimed to this day.

Since that week of the Devil, sightings have been much less frequent, but didn't end by any means. In 1951 there was an uproar in Gibbstown after local boys claimed to have seen a screaming humanoid monster.

A telephone lineman working near Pleasantville was chased up a telephone pole by the Jersey Devil. He stayed there until a co-worker arrived and shot the Devil in the wing, wounding it. The Devil escaped into the surrounding woods.

In 1991, a pizza delivery driver in Edison described a night encounter with a white, horselike creature. In Freehold, in 2007, a woman supposedly saw a huge creature with bat-like wings near her home.

In August of the same year, a young man driving home near the border of Mount Laurel and Moorestown reported a similar sighting, claiming that he spotted a "gargoyle-like creature with partially spread bat wings" of an enormous wingspan perched in some trees near the road.

In January 23, 2008 the Jersey Devil was spotted again, this time in Litchfield, PA, by a local resident that claims to have seen the creature standing on his barn roof.

Many theorists believe that the Jersey Devil could possibly be a very rare, unclassified species which instinctually fears and attempts to avoid humans. Pretty smart critter, no?

Supporters of the crypto theory point out the similarities of the creature's appearance (horselike head, long neck and tail, leathery wings, cloven hooves, blood-curdling scream), with the only difference being the height and color.

Another fact supporting the cryptozoological theory is that it's much more likely that a species could endure over a span of several hundred years, rather than a single creature surviving since the days of the Lenni Lenape.

Some people think the Sandhill Crane (which has a 7' wing span) could be the Jersey Devil. But the physical descriptions of the Devil seem to be match up with the species pterosaur, Jurassic Park era dinos known popularly in museums as "winged lizards."

A rotting corpse vaguely matching the Jersey Devil's description was discovered in 1957, leaving some to believe the creature was dead. However, there have been several sightings since that time, soooo...

How ingrained is this story into the Jersey psyche? Well, the New Jersey Devils hockey team takes its name from the legendary critter. It sure beats the New Jersey Sopranos, right?

(The top and bottom images are from the
Elk Township - Jersey Devil site.)