Haunted Places in New Jersey: 24 of the Most Haunted to Visit
A 200-year-old jail, a battleship, the Jersey Devil’s forest, two of the most talked-about roads in America and a coast full of haunted Victorian inns. These are New Jersey’s best-known haunted places, with what is history, what is legend and how you can visit.
New Jersey’s ghost stories split neatly in two. In the north are the legends that Weird NJ made famous: Clinton Road, Shades of Death Road, the Devil’s Tower and the Devil’s Tree, places where the stories have grown far beyond any record. In the south are real institutions with hard histories, led by the Burlington County Prison, plus the Pine Barrens and the haunted inns of Cape May and the shore. We have checked every place below against current sources, so you know which you can walk into, which run tours and which you should only see from the road. Haunted Rooms runs its own ghost hunts aboard the Battleship New Jersey in Camden, and at Fort Mifflin just across the Delaware in Philadelphia.
Open to the publicParanormal investigations allowed
Address 128 High Street, Mount Holly, NJ 08060
Where to look The Death Cell on the third floor, the basement dungeon and the yard where Joel Clough is said to be buried
Reported ghosts Joel Clough, hanged in 1833; a tall uniformed figure in the basement
Visiting A county-run museum, self-guided at your own pace, with an audio tour
Tours Self-guided or audio tour; guided tours by email request; a Halloween event on October weekends
Hours and season Thursday to Saturday 10 AM to 4 PM, Sunday noon to 4 PM (closed on legal holidays)
Tickets Adults $5, seniors and military $3, students $2
Ghost hunting Burlington County rents the building to paranormal groups for evening investigations through its parks department
Robert Mills, who later designed the Washington Monument, drew up this stone jail on High Street as a model of prison reform, and it took its first inmates in 1811. It held prisoners for more than 150 years, until November 1965, when it was the oldest jail in continuous use in the country. It reopened as a museum in 1966 and is now a National Historic Landmark run by Burlington County.
Its best-known ghost is Joel Clough, who stabbed a woman in Bordentown, was held in the windowless Death Cell on the top floor and was hanged in 1833. The museum says guards and prisoners reported moaning, rattling chains and cigarette smoke afterward, and that workers restoring the building in the 1990s heard voices, saw figures and found their tools locked inside empty cells.
Haunted Rooms tip: Stand in the Death Cell on the top floor and look for the iron ring in the floor, then step out to the yard where Clough is said to lie under a big tree.
Where to look The enlisted berthing, the engine rooms, Turret II and the top deck
Reported ghosts Sailors said to be still manning their posts
Visiting A museum ship on the Camden waterfront, across the Delaware from Penn’s Landing
Tours Four self-guided or guided tour routes, monthly evening tours of Turret II or an engine room, and overnight encampments for groups
Hours and season Fall: Thursday to Monday, 10 AM to 5 PM (last tickets 4 PM)
Tickets Online through the museum’s ticket page
Ghost hunting On Haunted Rooms ghost hunts
The USS New Jersey was launched at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on December 7, 1942, a year to the day after Pearl Harbor. The Iowa-class battleship served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, off Lebanon and in the Persian Gulf, and with 19 battle stars she is called the most decorated battleship in US Navy history. She was decommissioned for the last time in 1991 and opened as a museum on the Camden waterfront in 2001.
The stories are of sailors who never left: footsteps on empty ladders, voices in the berthing decks and figures on the top deck. TAPS investigated the ship for the 2022 Ghost Hunters episode “Ship of Lost Souls,” and students at Rutgers-Camden have long passed the stories around. Haunted Rooms runs its own ghost hunts aboard; see our event page for dates.
Haunted Rooms tip: Walk the Blue Line tour down into the engine rooms, the part of the ship most often named in the stories.
Where to look Room 10 on the first floor, the Union Park dining room and kitchen, the basement
Reported ghosts Miss Irene Wright, the "Trunk Lady" of Room 10; a waitress in an old-fashioned dress; the basement "Growler"
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
Hotel Macomber is the big shingle-style hotel on Beach Avenue, across the road from the ocean in Cape May. Built in 1916, it was the largest frame structure of its day east of the Mississippi, and it is described as the last landmark building erected in the town’s historic district. The Union Park restaurant is on the ground floor, the rooms sit on the top three floors (stairs only), guests must be 16 or older and the season runs mid-April to mid-December.
Room 10 is one of the best-known haunted rooms in New Jersey. Guests describe knocking and banging on the door, doors slamming down the corridor and the sound of something heavy dragged across the floor, which local medium Craig McManus links to Miss Irene Wright, a longtime summer guest who arrived each year with a huge steamer trunk. Staff also tell of a woman in an old-fashioned dress who walks into the kitchen.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book Room 10 directly by phone; McManus says activity peaks in June and November, so the shoulder season is the time to go.
Where to look The dining room window, the kitchen, the third floor and St. Peter's graveyard nearby
Reported ghosts A little boy in blue, a woman at the dining room window, a Revolutionary War soldier
Visiting A house museum run by the Proprietary House Association; the upper floors are offices
Tours Guided tours, normally Sundays at 1, 2 and 3 PM and Wednesdays by reservation; the museum says it reopens in late 2026, so check first
Ghost hunting No public investigations; the museum runs October lantern walks
Proprietary House, finished in 1764, was built as the official home of New Jersey’s royal governors. William Franklin, Benjamin Franklin’s loyalist son and the last royal governor of New Jersey, lived here until he was put under house arrest in January 1776 and then taken away as a prisoner. The house later became a hotel called the Brighton, a home for ministers’ families and a rooming house; it is now state-owned, with a museum on the lower floors.
The stories here are of a little boy dressed in blue said to have opened the door to a delivery man and led him up to the third floor, a woman seen standing in the dining room window and a Revolutionary War soldier. TAPS investigated the house for Ghost Hunters, and the museum runs a Haunted Lantern Walk each October from the house to St. Peter’s graveyard.
Haunted Rooms tip: Come in October for the museum’s Haunted Lantern Walk, which ends among the old stones of St. Peter’s churchyard.
Address Clinton Road, from Route 23 near Newfoundland to Upper Greenwood Lake, West Milford, NJ
Where to look The bridge at Dead Man's Curve by the Clinton Reservoir, Clinton Furnace and the site of Cross Castle
Reported ghosts A drowned boy who throws back coins, phantom headlights, a ghost Camaro
Visiting A public road through Newark watershed land and state forest; Clinton Furnace is fenced off and the castle site is on watershed property
Hours and season Public road, always open
Tickets Free
Ghost hunting No organized investigations; do not trespass on fenced watershed land
Clinton Road runs about ten miles through Newark’s watershed woods in West Milford, from Route 23 near Newfoundland to Upper Greenwood Lake, with almost no houses along it. Its landmarks are real: the stone Clinton Furnace of 1826, the Clinton Reservoir, and the foundations of Cross Castle, a banker’s 1905 stone mansion that burned and was razed in 1988. In 1983 a cyclist found the body of a victim of the hitman Richard Kuklinski beside the road.
Weird NJ made it famous, once giving it a whole issue. The best-known legend says the ghost of a drowned boy under the bridge at Dead Man’s Curve throws back any coin tossed into the water. Drivers tell of headlights that chase them and then vanish, a ghost Camaro, and strange animals said to have escaped from the old Jungle Habitat park. None of it has any record behind it beyond the stories.
Haunted Rooms tip: Drive it slowly in daylight or early evening, stay in your car, and do not stop on the bends: the real danger is fast traffic on a narrow road.
Where to look Room 14 and Rooms 9, 10 and 12, the ballroom and kitchen
Reported ghosts Ester Mercur, the last of the Allen family; a man in military uniform; a talking couple in Room 14
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Southern Mansion is an Italianate villa set in gardens on Washington Street. Philadelphia industrialist George Allen built it in 1863 to a design by Samuel Sloan, and his family kept it for 83 years. After Ester Mercur, the last of the line, died in 1946 it became a run-down boarding house; a Philadelphia family bought and restored it in 1994, reopening it as an inn in 1996 and adding a South Wing with ten suites in 1997.
The inn’s own blog calls Ester a happy ghost who enjoys the restored house, and guests describe a strong smell of perfume, laughter and cold spots. Older reports place a murmured conversation between a man and a woman in Room 14, while other writers name Rooms 9, 10 and 12. A chef has told of a man in military uniform in the ballroom and kitchen.
Haunted Rooms tip: The inn talks about Ester on its own blog, so it is fine to ask staff which rooms guests mention most.
Visiting a haunted place by day is one thing. Investigating one after dark is another. On a Haunted Rooms ghost hunt our team takes you through a historic building with professional ghost hunting equipment, runs EVP sessions and vigils, and gives you time to explore on your own. These are the nearest ones we run.
Where to look The second-floor hallway and bedrooms, the family graveyard, Robert Erskine's tomb and Sallie's Pond
Reported ghosts Robert Erskine, a housemaid on the second floor, Peter Hasenclever
Visiting The grounds are part of Ringwood State Park; the house is seen on guided tours
Tours Guided interior tours spring to fall (the 2026 season ended November 1; tours resume in spring 2027), plus holiday events
Ghost hunting No public ghost hunts
Ringwood was an ironmaking center long before the house went up. Robert Erskine ran the ironworks from 1771, supplied the Continental Army and became George Washington’s first Geographer and Surveyor General, drawing more than 275 maps before he died young during the war; he is buried near the manor. The house itself was begun in 1807 and grew to 78 rooms under the Cooper and Hewitt families. Erskine Hewitt gave it to the state in 1936, and it is now a National Historic Landmark in Ringwood State Park.
Its ghost stories go back decades. Erskine is said to walk the grounds near his tomb, a housemaid is said to haunt her old second-floor bedroom, and a psychic who visited with the writer Hans Holzer described a woman upstairs who disliked the tour crowds. Visitors mention cold spots in the second-floor hall, and New Jersey ghost hunting groups have recorded what they call voices in the small graveyard.
Haunted Rooms tip: Take a guided tour of the house in season, then walk out to Erskine’s tomb and the little graveyard by the pond.
Address 719 East 11th Street, Ocean City, NJ 08226
Where to look The lobby and the second and fourth floors; the old lower-level passages
Reported ghosts Emily, the Lady in White; a red-haired woman, a small child and a middle-aged man
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Flanders is Ocean City’s grand Spanish Mission Revival hotel on the boardwalk at 11th Street. Twenty-four local businessmen built it, architect Vivian B. Smith designed it, and it opened on July 23, 1923, named in honor of the Allied troops who fought in Flanders in World War I. Its fireproof concrete saved it in the 1927 boardwalk fire. Today it is an all-suite condominium hotel with full kitchens, the town’s largest heated pool and a place on the National Register since 2009.
Its famous ghost is Emily, the Lady in White, a cheerful young woman with long dark hair who is said to dance and sing in the lobby and on the second and fourth floors, unscrew light bulbs and play with door locks. A portrait of her hangs on the second floor. Ghost tours say she waited in vain for a sweetheart who never came home from the war.
Haunted Rooms tip: Look for Emily’s portrait on the second floor, and eat at Emily’s Ocean Room downstairs.
Address 1048 Washington Street, Cape May, NJ 08204
Where to look The family rooms of the Physick House
Reported ghosts Dr. Emlen Physick, his mother Frances Ralston and his aunts Emilie and Isabella
Visiting A house museum run by Cape May MAC; the house is seen on guided tours
Tours Daytime house tours and evening ghost tours, including Voices From Beyond and Haunted Tales of the Cape
Ghost hunting No public investigations; staff share their own recordings on the tours
Frank Furness, the great Philadelphia architect, designed this Stick-style mansion in 1879 for Dr. Emlen Physick Jr., who moved in with his widowed mother and his aunt Emilie. By the 1960s the estate was close to demolition; a group of residents formed the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts and Humanities in 1970 to save it, the city bought it, and the center has run it as a museum ever since.
Cape May MAC calls it the town’s haunted house. Dr. Physick, his mother Frances Ralston and his aunts Emilie and Isabella are all said to still be about, and the medium Craig McManus, MAC’s resident ghost expert, talks of thumps, sighs and cold drafts. MAC’s registrar told the Philadelphia Inquirer he once heard two women talking in the locked, dark house, and local reports add phantom dogs. Evening Voices From Beyond and Haunted Tales of the Cape tours are the easiest way in after dark.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book the evening Haunted Tales of the Cape combo: a trolley ride through the historic district that ends inside the Physick House.
Address Batsto Village, 31 Batsto Road, Hammonton, NJ 08037 (Wharton State Forest)
Where to look Batsto Village, the sand roads of Wharton State Forest and Leeds Point, the legend's birthplace
Reported ghosts The Jersey Devil
Visiting State forest and a state historic village, open to all; the sand roads need care
Tours Batsto Mansion tours and October lantern tours of the village
Hours and season State forest daylight hours; check Batsto Village for mansion tour times
The Pine Barrens cover about 1.1 million acres of South Jersey, around a fifth of the state, across seven counties of pitch pine, cedar swamp and sand road. In 1978 Congress made them the country’s first National Reserve. Scattered through the woods are the remains of towns built on bog iron, glass and sawmills, and Batsto Village in Wharton State Forest, an ironworks from 1766 that made supplies for the Continental Army, has been restored with its 50-room mansion.
This is the home of the Jersey Devil. The legend says that in 1735 a Mrs. Leeds of Leeds Point, pregnant for the thirteenth time, cursed the child, which was born with wings, hooves and a tail and flew off into the pines. In one week of January 1909, newspapers printed hundreds of sightings across South Jersey and Philadelphia, and some schools closed. Historian Brian Regal traces the tale to the unpopular Leeds family of almanac makers, not to any real birth.
Haunted Rooms tip: Start at Batsto Village, then drive one of the sand roads into Wharton State Forest an hour before dark; carry a paper map, as phone signal is patchy.
Where to look Upstairs hallways, especially the third floor; empty guest rooms
Reported ghosts A woman in old-fashioned dress in the halls; children heard playing
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
Congress Hall is Cape May’s oldest big hotel, a long yellow building with a tall white colonnade facing the beach. Thomas Hughes opened it in 1816 as a wooden boarding house locals called “Tommy’s Folly”, renamed it when he went to Congress, and after the Great Fire of 1878 it was rebuilt in brick. Presidents Pierce, Buchanan, Grant and Benjamin Harrison stayed here; Harrison made it his Summer White House. A $22 million restoration reopened it in 2002.
Housekeepers describe radios, televisions and voices behind closed doors on the third floor, with no one inside when they knock, and guests tell of a woman in old-fashioned dress who walks down an upstairs corridor and disappears around the corner. Children are sometimes heard playing when none are staying, which local ghost tours connect to a boy who drowned off the beach in 1876.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask for a third-floor room and have a drink in the Brown Room, then join a Cape May ghost walk outside.
Address Shades of Death Road, from Hope Road (County Route 611) near Great Meadows to Long Bridge Road, Allamuchy, Warren County, NJ
Where to look Ghost Lake and Haunted Hollow, the Fairy Hole cave and Lenape Lane
Reported ghosts Figures in the Great Meadows fog, the mists of Ghost Lake, a deer spirit
Visiting A public road; Ghost Lake is inside Jenny Jump State Forest. Lenape Lane and the farms along the road are private
Hours and season Public road, always open; state forest daylight hours
Tickets Free
Ghost hunting No organized investigations; keep off private land
Shades of Death Road is a narrow, 6.7-mile country road in Warren County that runs along the foot of the Jenny Jump ridge, past the old swamp of the Great Meadows, through Liberty, Independence and Allamuchy townships. Nobody knows for sure where the name came from. The stories blame highwaymen, wildcats, malaria (the swamp had a deadly fever season until it was drained in 1884) or a string of murders in the 1920s and 1930s.
Ghost Lake, a small man-made lake in Jenny Jump State Forest, takes its name from the mist that rises off it, and the gap beside it is called Haunted Hollow. Visitors tell of figures walking in the fog, a cabin by the lake where a piano played itself, and a deer that charges drivers who will not slow down. Residents got so tired of sign thieves that they greased the pole.
Haunted Rooms tip: Park in Jenny Jump State Forest and walk to Ghost Lake on a cool morning, when the mist that gave it its name is most likely.
Address Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, Lakehurst, NJ (tours only)
Where to look The long hangar floor and side passages, and the chain-outlined crash pad
Reported ghosts Footsteps and slamming doors in the hangar, said to be linked to the Hindenburg dead
Visiting On an active military base; visits only on pre-registered Navy Lakehurst Historical Society tours
Tours Hangar No. 1 and Hindenburg crash site tours, registered at least two weeks ahead
Hours and season Tours on Wednesdays and selected Saturdays, 9:30 AM to 1 PM
Tickets Donation-based
Ghost hunting No ghost hunting on the base
Hangar No. 1 was finished in 1921 to house the Navy’s rigid airships, and at 966 feet long and 224 feet high it is still one of the great buildings of the early air age. On the evening of May 6, 1937, the German airship Hindenburg caught fire as it came in to land beside it, and 36 people died: 13 passengers, 22 crew and a civilian on the ground crew. A black ground marker edged with yellow chain and a bronze plaque now mark where the gondola came down.
Ghost story sites claim footsteps with nobody there, doors along a passage of the hangar that open and slam on their own, and a Navy balloon pilot seen in the same corridor. We have found no named witness or base record behind any of it, so treat it as base folklore. The history is the reason to go: the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society runs tours of the hangar and crash site.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book a Navy Lakehurst Historical Society tour at least two weeks ahead: you must be security-registered to get onto the base.
Address 100 Hessian Avenue, National Park, NJ 08063
Where to look The attic of the Whitall House and the battlefield along the Delaware
Reported ghosts Wounded soldiers heard moaning in the attic
Visiting A 44-acre Gloucester County park open in daylight; the Whitall House opens for tours on a limited schedule
Hours and season Park open daylight hours
Tickets Free
James Whitall built this brick and stone Georgian house in 1748, just outside what became Fort Mercer on the Delaware. On October 22, 1777, about 500 Americans held the fort against some 2,000 Hessians; the Hessian commander, Colonel Carl von Donop, was mortally wounded and is buried in the park. Ann Whitall stayed in the house through the fighting and nursed the wounded, earning the name the Heroine of Red Bank. In 2022 the remains of 13 Hessian soldiers were found at the north end of the park.
After the battle the house served for several weeks as a field hospital, mostly for wounded Hessians, and the markers on site describe bloodstained floors and unmarked graves on the farm. The ghost stories center on the attic, where wounded soldiers are said to moan, whisper and leave cold spots. A local group, Perceptive Paranormal Research, told AAA they were touched and felt dizzy inside. The battlefield itself is a quiet county park on the river bank.
Haunted Rooms tip: Walk the earthworks along the river to von Donop’s grave, then take a tour of the Whitall House when it is open.
Where to look The hallways and the upper floors, including the fifth floor
Reported ghosts Laughing children in the halls, unseen guests talking in empty rooms
Visiting A working hotel with a restaurant and bar open to the public
Tours Channeling dinners and ghost walks with Craig McManus through Cape May MAC
The Church brothers opened the Inn of Cape May in 1895 as the Colonial Hotel, a boarding house of about 60 rooms at the foot of Ocean Street, said to be the tallest building on the coast at the time. A south wing added by 1905 roughly doubled it, giving the Second Empire front its towers and concave mansard roof. It has Cape May’s first elevator, still running, was renovated again in 2022, and still takes guests.
The inn tells its own ghost stories. Guests have asked staff about noisy children running and laughing in the halls when no children were staying nearby, and the Cape May medium and author Craig McManus says he saw light under a fifth-floor door of a room that turned out to be empty, and recorded what sounded like several people talking in another. McManus also hosts channeling dinners at the inn through Cape May MAC.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book one of Cape May MAC’s channeling dinners at the inn, or ask for an upper-floor room, where most of the stories come from.
Where to look The tower and the circle of road around it
Reported ghosts Harriet Rionda, said in legend to have jumped from the tower
Visiting Visible from Rio Vista Drive in a private residential neighborhood; the tower is gated and sealed
Tickets Free to see from the road
Ghost hunting No access: the tower is locked and stands among private homes
This stone tower is the last big piece of Rio Vista, the estate of Manuel Rionda, a Spanish-born sugar baron who made his fortune in Cuba. Designed by Charles Rollinson Lamb, it was a water tower that held the tank supplying the estate, with an office at the top reached by a small elevator. The estate was later broken up, and today the sealed tower stands in the middle of a wealthy residential street.
Legend says Rionda’s wife saw him with another woman from the top and threw herself off, and that driving backward around the tower three or six times at midnight summons her ghost or the Devil. The records say otherwise: Harriet Rionda died of the effects of a stroke in a New York hospital in 1922. The “Devil’s Tower” name seems to date from the 1970s, when teenagers broke in to party.
Haunted Rooms tip: See it from the road in daylight and keep moving: the tower is locked and the homes around it are private.
Address 4263 Atlantic Avenue, Farmingdale, NJ 07727 (Allaire State Park)
Where to look The Big House, the Manager's House and the visitor center basement
Reported ghosts Frances Allaire, Hal Allaire, Oscar Cheesman Smith
Visiting A living history village inside Allaire State Park, run by the nonprofit Allaire Village, Inc.
Tours Costumed interpreters in the historic buildings; Halloween and evening events in October
Hours and season Open year-round; check the village website for building hours
Ghost hunting The park does not officially acknowledge the hauntings
In 1822 the New York steam engine builder James P. Allaire bought the Howell Works, a bog iron furnace in the pines, and built a self-contained company town around it with mills, a bakery, a blacksmith, a school, a church and rows of workers’ houses. His wife Frances died in the Big House in 1836. The works failed in the 1840s, the village emptied, and it became known as the Deserted Village before the state took it over in 1941.
Volunteers have told Weird NJ that the Big House has company. Hal Allaire, the youngest son, who died here in 1901, is blamed for moving books and playing with candles; a locked bookcase is said to have swung open in the middle of a tour; and faces and candlelight have been seen in the windows after closing. Guides say goodnight to “the ladies of the house,” Frances and Allaire’s second wife, Calicia, when they lock up.
Haunted Rooms tip: Come for the October evening events, when the village opens after dark and the Big House windows are lit by candles.
Where to look The third floor (Rooms 303 and 304), the dining room and the front porch
Reported ghosts Children heard laughing in the lobby; a young woman in a 1920s white gown
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Grenville is a gingerbread Victorian hotel on Main Avenue in Bay Head, a short walk from the beach at the north end of Barnegat Island. It opened in 1890 and is one of the last 19th-century seaside hotels on the island, with gingerbread trim, a wraparound porch, a restaurant that hosts dinners and holiday buffets, and Bay Head’s first elevator. Owner Harry Typaldos has run it since 2004, and it is pet friendly.
Its ghost stories are about sound more than sight. Guests and staff describe children laughing and running through the lobby when no children are staying, footsteps and voices on the third floor and the front porch, and glasses and silverware moved in the dining room. Rooms 303 and 304 are the ones people ask for, after a guest in 304 described a young woman in a 1920s white evening gown at the foot of his bed.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask for Room 303 or 304 when you book by phone; they are regular guest rooms, so availability is not guaranteed.
Where to look The upper floors of the second building, the stairs, guest rooms including Room 17
Reported ghosts A young woman who fell from a window in the 1960s, often called Miss Brown; a girl looking out to sea
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
Angel of the Sea is the pink Victorian with the twin towers half a block from the beach on Trenton Avenue. It began around 1850 as the summer cottage of Philadelphia chemist William Weightman Sr., was cut in half to be dragged closer to the ocean in 1881, and was rescued after the 1962 storm, when Reverend Carl McIntire moved both halves here. It reopened as a 27-room bed and breakfast in 1989 and 1990 and is run today by the Stanton family.
The ghost story dates from the 1960s and 1970s, when the houses were a dormitory for Shelton College. A young woman, usually called Miss Brown, is said to have locked herself out and fallen while climbing through a window. Guests describe beds that shake, footsteps on the stairs, flickering lights, coughing and an alarm clock in Room 17 going off by itself at 2:30 in the morning.
Haunted Rooms tip: Breakfast, afternoon tea and evening wine and cheese are included, and the porches are the place to watch the sea at dusk.
Where to look The third floor and its cedar-lined room, the attic ladder, the grand staircase, the old basement bar
Reported ghosts Earle Shields, the builder's 15-year-old son, once called "Ernest" by staff
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Peter Shields Inn is the white 1907 Georgian Revival mansion at the quiet east end of Beach Avenue, across the road from the ocean. Peter Shields, the Pittsburgh businessman who helped found East Cape May, built it as his family’s summer home, and Philadelphia architect Lloyd Titus designed it. It became a bed and breakfast in the 1980s and today has nine guest rooms above a well-known oceanfront restaurant.
Its ghost is a boy. In 1907, fifteen-year-old Earle Shields was fatally wounded in a hunting accident on a boat off Cape May, and the family left town a few years later. Earlier owners and staff called the presence on the stairs “Ernest”, and Cape May medium Craig McManus believes that was Earle, who he says haunts the third floor and the attic.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask for a room on the third floor, and book dinner downstairs: the restaurant is a destination in its own right.
Address Mountain Road at Emerald Valley Lane, Basking Ridge (Bernards Township), NJ
Where to look The fenced oak and Heat Rock nearby
Reported ghosts A curse on anyone who harms the tree; a phantom pickup truck
Visiting A small township park; the trunk is fenced, and police patrol for trespassers after hours
Hours and season Posted park hours (reported as until 30 minutes after sunset)
Tickets Free
Ghost hunting No investigations; the tree is fenced and night visits count as trespass
The Devil’s Tree is a lone, half-dead oak at the edge of a field on Mountain Road in the Martinsville area of Bernards Township. Its trunk carries graffiti, burn marks and ax and chainsaw cuts from visitors. The township chose to keep the tree when it considered building on the land, made the field a park and put a chain-link fence around the trunk after the vandalism.
The legends say Klansmen hanged men from its branches, a farmer hanged himself here after killing his family, snow never settles beneath it and anyone who harms it will crash on the way home. Local historian Brooks Betz told Patch none of the hangings or murders was ever recorded, and that the phantom pickup truck story was invented in the 1960s by local boys to scare people away.
Haunted Rooms tip: Look from Mountain Road in daylight, keep your distance from the fence and leave the tree alone: that is the whole point of the curse.
Address 719 Port Monmouth Road, Port Monmouth (Middletown), NJ 07758
Where to look The upstairs windows facing the road
Reported ghosts A boy in an old-fashioned shirt at an upstairs window, a man reading by a rocking chair
Visiting Part of Monmouth County’s Bayshore Waterfront Park (park open daily from 7 AM); the restored house is used for county nature and history programs and opens on a limited seasonal schedule
Hours and season Seasonal: historically Sundays 1 to 4 PM, April to October; check Monmouth County Parks for current open days
Ghost hunting No investigations; the county presents it as a history museum
This white clapboard farmhouse stands alone on the shore of Sandy Hook Bay in Bayshore Waterfront Park. It grew from a small cabin of around 1720 and became an inn and tavern in the early 1900s until it stood empty by the mid-1960s. Its nickname comes from a 1960s story told by its colorful part-time curator, Gertrude Neidlinger, that patriots spied on British troops from here; historians say there is no evidence for it.
Neidlinger’s candlelit tours also made it famous for ghosts, and some paranormal writers went on to call it the most haunted house in America. The stories mention a weeping woman, a lady in white and a sea captain, and readers have told Weird NJ of a boy in an old-fashioned shirt at an upstairs window and a rocking chair moving beside a man reading in the dark. None of it has any record behind it, and the county now presents the restored house as plain history.
Haunted Rooms tip: Visit on a summer Sunday afternoon, then walk the shoreline of Bayshore Waterfront Park at sunset with the house behind you.
Address 800 Long Beach Boulevard, Surf City, NJ 08008
Where to look Upper-floor windows and the beachfront side
Reported ghosts A woman holding a baby at an upper window; voices linked to the 1854 Powhatan wreck
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Surf City Hotel is a Long Beach Island institution: a historic hotel, restaurant, pub, clam bar and Beach Club with live music, a short walk from the ocean. The first building went up in the late 1800s and was known as the Mansion House, the Long Beach Inn and the Marquette Hotel before taking its current name; that structure later burned. Colleen and Greg Gewirtz have owned it since 2017, and rooms are open April through October.
The ghost stories go back to the April 1854 wreck of the emigrant ship Powhatan off the island, when hundreds died and, local lore says, the keeper of the old Mansion of Health was suspected of robbing the bodies. Whether that hotel stood on this site is unclear, but people describe a pale woman holding a baby at an upper window, and voices and footsteps at night. The owners say they have tried to meet the ghosts, without success so far.
Haunted Rooms tip: It is a lively summer bar and music venue, so book a midweek or shoulder-season night if you want quiet.
Where to look Guest bedrooms and the upstairs hallway
Reported ghosts An invisible cat that jumps onto beds; the grand lady; a man in the Tuccamirgan room
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Widow McCrea House is a small 1878 Italianate Victorian bed and breakfast in Frenchtown, a riverside village on the Delaware in Hunterdon County. Frances McCrea, a widow, built it, and later owners restored it with period antiques, fireplaces, featherbeds and Jacuzzis across three guest rooms, several suites and a private cottage. The inn says its guests are watched over by “the grand lady” herself.
Its best-known ghost is not a person. Guests describe hearing a cat meow in the night, feeling one walk across the covers or settle at the foot of the bed, and finding nothing there when they switch on the lamp. Others hear soft movement in the upstairs hallway. With only a handful of rooms, every guest is close to the action.
Haunted Rooms tip: It is a small, phone-booked inn that was listed for sale in 2022: call ahead to confirm it is taking guests on your dates.
These places appear in older lists of haunted spots. We keep them here so you know the facts before you go, but you cannot (or should not) visit them.
Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, Morris Plains
Opened in 1876 as the State Asylum for the Insane at Morristown and once crowded with more than 7,700 patients, including Woody Guthrie from 1956 to 1961. Its vast Kirkbride building was demolished in 2015. A modern state hospital still runs on the campus, so the grounds near it are not for exploring.
Trenton Psychiatric Hospital, Trenton and Ewing
Founded in 1848 through Dorothea Dix as the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum. Under Dr. Henry Cotton, director from 1907 to 1930, staff pulled teeth and removed organs in the belief that infection caused madness, and hundreds of patients died. Stories say Cotton and his patients still walk the halls, but it is a working state hospital and closed to visitors.
The Gates of Hell, Clifton
A storm drain tunnel under Weasel Brook, said to be guarded by a spirit called Red Eyed Mike. Water can rise in it almost instantly in heavy rain, and Clifton police arrest trespassers. Do not go in.
Lambertville High School, Lambertville
The 1854 school, closed in 1960 and gutted by fire in 1992, was said to be haunted by a football player called Buck. It was demolished in 2012; there is nothing left to visit.
Union Hotel, Flemington
The 1878 hotel where reporters stayed for the 1935 Lindbergh kidnapping trial across the street closed in 2008. Staff told of shoes climbing the stairs on their own and children heard in empty rooms. It has been under redevelopment for years and is not open; you can see the facade from Main Street.
Corrected: older versions said the Devil’s Tower was built so Mrs. Rionda could watch New York and that she jumped from it; she died of the effects of a stroke in a New York hospital in 1922. The story that workers died trying to demolish it has no record behind it. Greystone’s main building is gone (demolished 2015) and Lambertville High School was demolished in 2012, so both are now in the off-limits list.
Visited one of these places? Tell us what happened
We collect first-hand accounts from visitors and add the best ones to our guides, with your first name and the date of your visit. We read every story before it’s published.
The Burlington County Prison in Mount Holly is the strongest candidate: a jail from 1811 to 1965 whose museum openly tells the story of Joel Clough, hanged in 1833, and of restoration workers who found their tools locked in empty cells. Clinton Road in West Milford is the most famous haunted place, but its stories are legend with almost no record behind them.
Can you go ghost hunting in New Jersey?
Yes. Haunted Rooms runs ghost hunts aboard the Battleship New Jersey in Camden, and at Fort Mifflin across the river in Philadelphia. Burlington County rents the Burlington County Prison Museum to paranormal groups for evening investigations, and Cape May has nightly ghost tours run by Cape May MAC.
Is Clinton Road really haunted?
Clinton Road is a real, remote road through Newark’s watershed woods with some dark true history, including a 1983 body dump by the hitman Richard Kuklinski. Its ghosts, a drowned boy who throws back coins and phantom headlights, are legend popularized by Weird NJ. Drive it slowly and stay in your car.
Where is the most haunted hotel in New Jersey?
Cape May has the best-known haunted hotels: Room 10 at the Hotel Macomber, the Southern Mansion and Congress Hall. Further up the coast, the Flanders Hotel in Ocean City has its Lady in White, Emily. See our haunted hotels in New Jersey guide.
Can you visit Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital?
No. The huge Kirkbride building was demolished in 2015, and a modern state psychiatric hospital still operates on the campus. Part of the old grounds is now a Morris County park, but there is nothing of the famous building left to see.
Where does the Jersey Devil live?
The legend places its birth at Leeds Point in 1735 and its home in the Pine Barrens of South Jersey. Batsto Village in Wharton State Forest is the easiest place to start exploring the pines.
Sources and how we research
Every place in this guide is checked against its official website, historic register listings and news coverage, and we confirm whether it is open, closed, private or gone before we list it. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and local historians tell them; we say so where records contradict a story.
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About the authors
The Haunted Rooms Team runs public ghost hunts and overnight investigations at historic venues across the United States. We research every place in our guides using official sites, historic registers, local archives and news coverage, and we report ghost stories as the stories they are. We review each guide regularly so you are not sent to a place that has closed, changed hands or banned visitors. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
