New Jersey is a scary place, and I don't mean the skyrocketing property taxes, monumental traffic jams and assorted crises and catastrophes that are our daily lot.
I mean scary places: the haunted houses, abandoned buildings, creepy cemeteries and ghoulish legends packed into this tiny, terrifying state.
Here's my list of the Garden State's 10 Creepiest Places, drawn from personal experience and my book New Jersey Curiosities, plus the archives of that indispensable and bottomless fount of strangeness, Weird N.J.
Speaking of Weird N.J., here's my story on an unforgettable road trip with Mark Sceurman and Mark Moran, WNJ's founders.
Orson Welles' "The War of the Worlds'' broadcast in 1938 was the most terrifying radio program ever. Here's my 75th anniversary story on the infamous broadcast, including an interview with a Grovers Mill resident who was in town at the time.
POLL:
Would we fall for Orson Welles' 'War of the Worlds' today?
Have your own favorite scary place or story? Feel free to share — if you dare!
1. Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, Parsippany. Does any abandoned building in New Jersey evoke the same dread and frisson Greystone does? Opened in 1876 as the New Jersey Lunatic Asylum, the 675,000-square-foot Kirkbride Building on the 1,000-acre grounds was built on what was once the largest continuous foundation in the world.
Built to house hundreds of patients, Greystone eventually packed in 7,500 or more. Its most famous patient: songwriter Woody Guthrie, who — suffering from Huntington's disease, a hereditary nervous disorder — stayed here in the late 1950s.
Preservationists fought to save the magnificent French Renaissance building, but the state announced this August it had awarded a $34 million contract to demolish Greystone.
2. Snake Hill, Secaucus. A monstrous black rock looming over the Turnpike is scary enough; when you add the fact that Snake Hill was once home to a psychiatric hospital, almshouse and penitentiary, you can see why it has spooked generations of Hudson County kids. And let's not forget all the snakes; Secaucus is often translated as "the place where snakes hide (or live).''
But the rock was inspiration for The Rock. On a train ride from New York City to Newark, an advertising executive passed Snake Hill and was inspired to create the Prudential Insurance Co.'s Rock or Gibralter-like logo, which is used to this day.
Today, there's a pleasant waterfront park at Snake Hill, and the Hackensack Riverkeeper runs tours — highly recommended — from there.
3. The Pine Barrens. How can a place so beautiful and mysterious be so supremely spooky? Because there's a lot of nowhere there — deep, dark woods; overwhelming silence; and trails that lead to certain doom, all of which give rise to legends of ghosts, goblins, and yes, a devil or two.
"I got lost in the Pine Barrens one night going to cover a Jersey Devil hunt,'' recalled Jess Infante, a Jersey native and now Boston resident who shared her story on Twitter. "Phone died, ran out of gas. I cried.''
What happened next?
"With my last bit of cell battery, I called my boyfriend, who hacked into my email, got me directions. I found (the rest of her group). Then, on the hike, we kept hearing these strange rumblings, like a truck bouncing along. There are no trucks in the Pines.''
Cue the creepy music!
4. Henry Leddel's gravestone in Hilltop Cemetery at Hilltop Church, Mendham Borough. Cemeteries and mausoleums are morbid enough; but the state's most gruesome gravestone is in a league of its own. The 23-year-old suffered Leddel from "the most acute pain'' from an unknown disease for three days, according to the stone, and died:
in the [undecipherable] agony of [several words undecipherable] vomiting black cholera and excrement on the 30th of January, 1799.
5. Shades of Death Road, Warren County. The state's scariest-sounding road can be found in Warren County, minutes from the town of Hope. There are many legends of how the road got its name; the most outlandish one says a band of wildcats mutilated and killed early residents.
Henry Charlton Beck, that unrivaled chronicler of 1930s, 40s and 50s small town and backroads New Jersey, discovered a more likely explanation: malaria. In 1849, an outbreak struck Independence and the nearby area.
There was once a Route 666 in Rockaway, but the signs were stolen so often Morris County officials changed Route 666 to 664. You can still find Route 666s in Burlington, Camden, Salem and Cumberland counties.
A moody, atmospheric photo of the Devil's Tree in Bernards
6. The Devil's Tree, Mountain Road, Bernards. The legend goes that a local farmer killed his wife and kids, then hanged himself from the tree. Anyone who cuts down the tree, the legend continues, will come to an untimely end. Apparently many have tried; the tree is covered with ax marks.
Dave Hochman, who grew up in Bridgewater and also shared his story on Twitter, remembers a Halloween trip to the Devil's Tree with buddies when he was 17, "when the area was much less developed.''
"Pitch black, nothing around,'' he says. "A friend of ours had an axe and was going to chop the tree down. We get to the tree, and walk up to it, the guy takes a big swing, axe head breaks off as soon as it hit the tree.
"The axe head went flying back,'' he continues, "and missed the neck of the axe swinger by about 3 inches. "The tree trunk was unscathed. We left very quickly.''
7. Camp Pahaquarry, Warren County. What is it about Boy Scouts and murderous backwoodsmen — and women? In the current issue of Weird N.J., several readers not-so-fondly recall Hatchet Annie, a famed ghost in Daretown (we kid you not), Salem County.
One story goes that she was a girl attacked by Indians in colonial America; a hatchet aimed at her heart ended up in her shoulder. Another that she was a mad hermit living deep in the woods who attacked trespassers with her ax.
But Annie is no match for Buck. He was a bloodthirsty fiend who apparently loved to carve up Scouts at Camp Pahaquarry. At least that's what our counselor told me and my fellow Scouts one night: I can still remember sitting around the campfire, scared you-know-what. I've never spent a more restless night; I was absolutely convinced I'd be slaughtered in my sleep.
Camp Pahaquarry closed in 1972. Will I ever go back and camp out in those woods? Not a chance.
8. Clinton Road, West Milford. No other road in the state, according to Weird N.J., has had more rumors and tall tales attached to it than this long, lonely stretch of asphalt. There was once a castle-like mansion here, named after its owner.
Weird N.J. readers have reported albinos, strange chants, mysterious writings, witches, ghosts, bodybags and hundreds of blue and white lights in the area. And don't forget Dead Man's Curve.
Here's the Weird N.J. report on Clinton Road and Cross Castle.
Dare you enter the Gates of Hell?
9. The Gates of Hell, Clifton. Need any more proof Jersey is a spooky state? The very Gates of Hell are located here! It's a name given to a passageway leading to a series of underground tunnels and storm sewers in the Passaic County town.
Thoughtfully marked by a "Gates of Hell'' spray-painted sign, it's still a popular urban exploration outing.
10. The Spy House, Port Monmouth. Often dubbed "the most haunted house in America,'' the Spy House has long been the home of ghostly apparitions and paranormal presences.
Proprietor Thomas Seabrook spied on British troops during the Revolutionary War, and pirates buried their dead in the cellar. The house has been called "The Grand Central of Ghosts."
The Seabrook-Wilson Homestead, as it's also known, now houses the Bayshore Waterfront Park Activity Center, which will host upcoming programs on seals and snowy owls. There is no mention of the building's ghostly history on the park web site. Hmmm, what are they trying to hide?
Peter Genovese may be reached at pgenovese@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @PeteGenovese or via The Munchmobile @NJ_Munchmobile.
Find the Munchmobile on Facebook and on Instagram.