Kristi Kantorski is fascinated by historical past, particularly if it includes the macabre, true haunts and the tales behind all of it, she mentioned.
Director of the Bordentown Historical Society, she has created “Harrowing History,” a 90-minute theatrical storytelling showcase targeted on true tales from the “darker aspect” of Bordentown’s previous.
“It’s about Bordentown’s creepy, scary and infrequently hushed historical past, as pulled from century-old native and nationwide information,” she mentioned. “It’s a cross between a play and straight-up storytelling.”
Kantorski gathered the data by poring over previous newspaper clippings, obituaries, census information and extra. She’s the creator, director and author of the storytelling showcase, and is within the midst of sharing extra creepy tales this season.
“I’ve all the time been a type of individuals — you’re on the town, you go on the Gettysburg Ghost Tour or the ghost stroll or issues like that,” Kantorski mentioned.
“I really like the historical past behind these excursions. Particularly, what makes a ghost a ghost? What’s the story behind the story?”
And Bordentown is a perfect place to be if you wish to unearth some hauntings.
“Bordentown has its ghost tales and there are books on the topic, so I didn’t actually need to do this per say,” she defined. “I wished to dig a bit of deeper … What’s the actual historical past behind it? I began digging into Bordentown’s [history] — mainly, it’s your homicide, your mayhem, your tragedy. We also have a scandal on this season’s tales that we’re telling.
“I cannot contact on any subject material that has not been recorded in historical past on some stage … she continued. “I delve by means of all the things … I am going again and have a look at previous native newspapers. That’s the place I discover a few of these tales, and I begin digging. I look by means of obituaries, census information, family tree reviews.”
Kantorski scripted the tales. Then shedesigned and constructed a stage for the costumed performers, because the setting the place they inform the tales. This season they inform six of Bordentown’s “most surprising true tales,” she promised.
The set is within the previous Metropolis Corridor constructing at 11 Crosswicks Road. The shows run Saturdays by means of Nov. 6. It has been so common that it offered out after the opening week (Sept. 18). There’s a ready record.
Final 12 months, the season ended withthe “Bordentown Specter” story.
“Principally, it was an 8- or 9-foot specter that wore a black shroud,” Kantorski mentioned. “It had no palms, no toes, no facial options. It might stalk sure streets in Bordentown in November of 1877; this was reported for a month straight. Individuals would report they had been chased down the road by this factor, or it will come out of a tree or out from the fencing of a specific space. It was very creepy. I’ve newspaper information. It was truly reported as far-off as, I believe, Indiana.”
For some, a couple of creepy Bordentown tales will present sufficient Halloween chills to final til subsequent Halloween.
For the remainder of you ghost hunters on the market, we have rounded up a few of South Jersey’s different most haunted locales:
Absecon Lighthouse, Atlantic Metropolis
At 171-feet tall, Abescon is the state’s tallest lighthouse and the nation’s third tallest. It opened in 1857.
The construction was engineered by George Meade in Atlantic Metropolis. He went onto lead Union forces through the Battle of Gettysburg through the Civil Struggle.
The lighthouse is alleged to be haunted by ghostly keepers, who watch over issues.
Legend has it {that a} keeper noticed the Jersey Satan atop the lighthouse in 1905. There have been different odd happenings, which have prompted visits by SyFy’s Ghosthunters and the New Jersey Researches of Paranormal Evidence.
Over time, individuals have reportedly seen apparitions, smelled cigar and pipe smoke and heard spooky laughter and footsteps within the tower.
Dimes even have appeared in odd locations.
Go: 31 S. Rhode Island Ave., 609-449-1360; abseconlighthouse.org/
Burlington County Jail Museum, Mount Holly
This jail earned its place among the many most haunted buildings within the state after an investigation by a mystical workforce, in response to the Burlington County Prison Museum Affiliation’s web site. The jail closed in 1965 after working for 150 years.
Maureen Carroll, co-director of Jersey Paranormal Investigations, has had a number of experiences on the jail. Carroll, who has investigated hauntingssince 2006. She beforehand labored for South Jersey Ghost Research.
“We used to research there,” mentioned Carroll, whose analysis is finished as a volunteer.
When she is not in search of ghosts, she’s spending time with cattle. Primarily based in Lumberton, she works full-time as a dairy investigator on the New Jersey Division of Agriculture.
“The upstairs, I imagine it was one of many demise row cells, was for me essentially the most, I don’t know if intense is the best phrase … I simply occurred to be on my own on this one room. To me, it felt like a presence. You understand how someone will get up actually shut in your face? It felt like somebody was getting up actual shut in my face, attempting to intimidate me. You sort of push again on it. Ultimately it backed off, so the sensation went away.”
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Scott Anderson, a former workers photographer for the Courier Publish, is a mystical investigator with Southeast Paranormal Investigation and Research Team, and has achieved no less than two in a single day classes on the jail.
“It’s a really scary place,” mentioned Anderson, who says he grew up in a haunted home in Mount Holly. “One night time we break up up, there have been six of us. All of us went to totally different elements of the jail and stayed in cells. I might hear the leather-based footsteps of somebody strolling by me and I might hear their keys jingling.”
Go:128 Excessive St., 609-265-5476; prisonmuseum.net/
Collings-Knight Home, Collingswood
Witnesses declare to have seen shadowy figures and heard unexplained footsteps and voices in what’s now an historic home museum.
The house was constructed by Edward Zane Collings within the nineteenth century. The place developed with added wings for household enlargement.
Collings supposedly started building of the house for himself and his widowed sister, Rebecca Knight, and her youngsters on what was farmland north of Newton Creek. He had inherited it from his father in 1820, in response to the museum’s website.
Go: 500 W. Collings Ave., 856-858-6205; http://ckhouse.org/
Elaine’s, Cape Could
Legend has it that Elaine’s is among the most haunted locations in Cape Could.
Over time, there have been common “Ghost Hunter Weekends” at Elaine’s, a mattress and breakfast, the place visitors have non-public readings from psychics, a strolling tour of Cape Could’s hallowed haunts and their tales, dine with “ghosts” within the restaurant after which attend a ghost searching session.
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The white, Victorian house has an enormous wrap-around porch.
Identified for its well-known dinner theater ( the B&B was voted one of many High 5 dinner theaters within the nation by the Meals Community, Elaine’s presents eating, a bar and a store.
Go: 513 Lafayette St., 609-884-1199; elainescapemay.com/
Flanders Resort, Ocean Metropolis
Some of the well-known ghosts mentioned to hang-out Flanders Resort is Emily or The Girl in White.
In accordance the hauntedrooms.com, she’s described as being in her early twenties with lengthy brown hair. She’s been seen throughout the lodge, generally showing and disappearing by means of partitions. The lodge even has a restaurant named after the spirit.
The “Flanders Catacombs” are basically a full basement beneath sea stage that features a maze of as much as eight giant areas.
“You’ll really feel sort of in numerous rooms, different types of energies …,” recalled Carroll. “One of many issues that we had picked up on, I’m undecided if it was Emily or what, however there was a toddler that had drowned and the individual that we had been choosing up on, she was in search of her daughter, the kid that had drowned.”
Positioned on the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations in 2009, the lodge will have a good time its one hundredth anniversary in 2023, in response to its web site.
It was constructed on the Ocean Metropolis boardwalk in 1923 and is called for Flanders Fields in Belgium. The realm now holds a cemetery with rows of graves of American troopers, who died there in World Struggle I.
A hearth in 1927 destroyed 12 blocks of Ocean Metropolis’s waterfront, however the lodge survived.
Go: 719 E. eleventh St, 609-399-1000; theflandershotel.com/
Fort Mifflin, Philadelphia
Paranormal investigator Scott Anderson printed a photograph essay guide, “Fort Mifflin:Philadelphia’s Hidden Gem.”
Anderson has spent numerous hours at Fort Mifflin, many instances in a single day, and has “skilled all the things you may probably expertise so far as ghosts go.”
“I’ve been touched. I’ve been pushed. I’ve been yelled at. I’ve seen issues,” he mentioned.
Anderson mentioned investigators make voice recordings and expertise a variety of digital voice phenomena (EVP) at Fort Mifflin, situated on the Delaware River close to the Philadelphia Airport.
“I get a variety of totally different voices,” he mentioned. “You don’t hear it however if you play again the recording, it’s there. I’ve had a bit of lady chuckle a few instances. I haven’t seen her. However Rebecca (Brumble), who’s the chief of my group, has seen her.”
Go: 6400 Hog Island Street, 215-685-4167; fortmifflin.us/
Gabreil Daveis Tavern Museum Home, Glendora
William Schuck, an artist and craftsman, died in 1976 and left the property to Gloucester Township. The three-story brick and fieldstone Georgian-style construction is listed on each the state and nationwide registries of historic locations.
Carroll was doing a public ghost hunt as a fundraiser a couple of years in the past for the museum home and everybody was sitting in what had been Schuck’s bed room.
“We’re all sitting on the ground and the rocking chair began rocking by itself,” Carroll mentioned.
“…That was a Revolutionary Struggle tavern. I imagine it was a subject hospital sooner or later. The final proprietor was Mr. Schuck, so he’s one of many presences that stay there. There’s one other spirit we have now encountered named Joseph. We are inclined to get exercise when members of the historic society come and browse letters that they’ve discovered from former residents like within the 1800s.”
The home, inbuilt 1756 close to Large Timber Creek, usually housed boatmen, who used the creek to maneuver merchandise.
Go: 500 third Ave., 856-228-4000; facebook.com/glotwphistory
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Greenfield Corridor, Haddonfield
The Kings Highway mansion, listed on the Nationwide Historic Registry, is the headquarters for the Historical Society of Haddonfield.
There have been a number of reviews of unusual happenings and ghostly sightings on the historic corridor.
Throughout the Revolutionary Struggle, greater than 1,200 Hessian troops camped on the encircling fields of the property on Oct. 21, 1777, and their chief slept within the house. They failed of their try the subsequent day to take Fort Mercer at Crimson Financial institution. Greater than 1/3 of the Hessian troops died.
Haddonfield resident and historic society member William Meehan leads Haunted Haddonfield Walking Tours in the month of October, which begin on the home.
Meehan’s guide “Haunted Haddonfield” initially got here out in 2002 and a “Haunted Haddonfield Quantity II”, additionally published by the historic society, is now obtainable with extra haunting tales.
Remaining dates for the Haunted Haddonfield Strolling Excursions are Oct. 22, 23, 29 and 30, with a rain date deliberate for Oct. 31. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for youngsters 12 and below. Proceeds profit the Historic Society of Haddonfield.
Go: 343 Kings Freeway East, 856-429-7375; haddonfieldhistory.org/greenfield-hall-history/
Previous City Corridor, Mullica Hill
The Harrison Township Historical Society holds a preferred guided Mullica Hill Ghost Stroll every year and ghostly Previous City Corridor is among the stops.
Previous City Corridor was constructed by the City Corridor Affiliation in 1871 and served because the township’s seat of presidency for practically 100 years, in response to the historic society’s web site.
Numerous small companies had been housed in its downstairs rooms. A second-floor auditorium held dances, lectures, graduations and providers for the Mount Calvary Baptist Church.
The landmark constructing is listed on the Nationwide and New Jersey State Registers of Historic Locations and recorded by the Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress.
In 1971, the Harrison Township Committee created the Harrison Township Historic Society to protect and develop a brand new goal for the constructing, which was reinvented as a historic society museum.
Go: 62 South Predominant St., 856-478-4949; harrisonhistorical.com/
Scottish Ceremony Auditorium and mansion, Collingswood
The ghost of William Hurley is alleged to hang-out this mansion.
A furnishings retailer magnate, Hurley bought the property in 1909 and his household was the final to reside within the mansion, which is adjoining to the Scottish Rite Auditorium and Collingswood Grand Ballroom. The property is leased and run by the Collingswood Basis for the Arts. The inspiration workers refers to Hurley as “the gentleman.”
“Orbs” have been seen in images, and performers on the Scottish Ceremony Auditorium have reported sensing spirits.
Go: 315 White Horse Pike; collingswood.com/things_to_do/arts_and_events/scottish_rite_theatre.php
Smithville Mansion, Eastampton
The mansion was as soon as the house of Hezekiah Smith, an inventor and industrialist from Massachusetts, who got here to New Jersey in 1865, bought the village of Shreveville for $20,000 and renamed it Smithville, in response to the mansion’s web site.
Smith expanded his woodworking machine firm on the property.
“That’s one other place that’s pretty lively,” Carroll added. “…There’s a variety of historical past round Smithville Mansion, even the outlying buildings. Within the schoolhouse on the second ground, there’s all the time a variety of exercise.”
She remembers an incident about six years in the past when she was doing an investigation with SJGR there.
“We had a movement detector arrange outdoors a room,” she mentioned. “One of many investigators noticed a pair of disembodied legs strolling in my route. A minute later, my movement detector was triggered. It was certainly one of these conditions the place an investigator sees one thing and we have now tools backing it up.”
Go: 803 Smithville Street, 609-265-5858; smithvillemansion.org/
Whitall Home, Nationwide Park
The 18th-century Quaker homestead, initially owned by James and Ann Whitall, grew to become a short lived subject hospital for troopers injured within the Revolutionary Struggle through the 1770’s.
Ghosts of the lifeless troopers are mentioned to hang-out the attic.
The Perceptive Paranormal Analysis group investigated the home and reported ghosts touching them, a dizzying feeling, and proof of sturdy paranormal exercise.
Go: 100 Hessian Ave., 856-853-5120; facebook.com/whitallhouse/
Celeste E. Whittaker is a options reporter for the Courier Publish, Day by day Journal and Burlington County Instances. The South Jersey native began on the CP in 1998 and has coated the Philadelphia 76ers, school and highschool sports activities and has received quite a few awards for her work. Attain her at 856.486.2437 or [email protected].
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