Aunt Polly's ghost is believed to have haunted this Crane house, from "Reminiscences of Montclair" by S.C.G. Watkins, 1929.
Do you believe in ghosts? Baristaville, rich with historic old homes that have seen their share of notorious murders, bloody suicides and mysterious deaths, is loaded with them.
“When I was growing up, my mother’s friend – who was an expert on local ghosts – used to warn us that our area was ‘deliciously haunted,’” said Montclair history buff Frank Gerard Godlewski.
The only problem is, no one will talk about it.
“It’s dangerous because you don’t want to stigmatize a property,” said one local real estate agent. She noted that a dozen years ago, potential buyers would ask if anyone had died of AIDS in a home. Agents are required to disclose if anyone has died in the home, whether violently or otherwise.
Of course, some of these incidents are simply tragic and are best left alone. “Local murders are a taboo subject,” said Godlewski, “out of respect for the families.” But all bets are off it you go back 100 years or more. Take the case of “Aunt Polly,” which Godlewski readily discussed.
Munn was one of those buried in the West Bloomfield Cemetery and disinterred. They say his body never disintegrated. "Reminiscences of Montclair" by S.C.G. Watkins, 1929.
“‘Aunt Polly’ a former slave, lived at a Crane Farmhouse on Orange Road,” he said. “She apparently used to make trouble for trespassers, even from the afterlife.” Godlewski also told us that the Siena in Montclair is built on the site of the former West Bloomfield Cemetery, and the coffins were all dug up and re-deposited in Rosedale Cemetery. Maybe the condo complex’s chronic mold problems are caused by ghostly revenge. And there are other historic hauntings.
“Lady Guiness’s estate in Llewellyn Park was haunted by her daughter who died in a coach accident,” Godlewski said. “The main house was demolished as spelled out in Lady Guiness’s last will and testiment.”
When I lived in Maplewood around 15 years ago, a woman was brutally murdered in my neighborhood. Walking past the house, with bouquets of flowers piled on the front steps and police stationed outside, was a chilling and deeply sad experience. Eventually, a new family moved in.
Some houses boast a history that lends itself to paranormal activity. One Baristaville business owner told the tale of a haunted house he once lived in South Orange. “It was next to Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church. The house was quite spooky, and it used to be a schoolroom for the church with nuns occupying the top floor.”
One night, I was alone and got up late to use the bathroom. I went down the long corridor, which was lit by only a single, bare light bulb. Suddenly, I saw a mist swirling around the bulb.
I felt an immediate chill and the hairs stood up on my arms and the back of my neck. The mist took on a shape, like the outline of a person’s head and shoulders – but with no face.
The man, who said he does not believe in ghosts or paranormal activity, thinks the incident was connected to the house’s former occupants.
“I’m a Catholic, and I’ve heard a lot of stories about how tough the nuns could be on their students back in the 50s and 60s. Maybe it was some form of energy coming from one of the nuns,” he said.
Godlewski used to live in Montclair’s Evergreens Carriage House, formerly a Doubleday Family farmhouse. “I had ghosts,” he said. “It was a father and son with an Irish Setter hunting dog. They would appear in my dreams at dawn preparing to go hunting. The dog would come upstairs to my bedroom, wagging his tail and this would wake me from the dream.”
One Maplewood resident said she used to live in a house in Orange that was inhabited by the ghost of a 12-year-old girl. “She had blonde hair and wore a long dress,” she said. “She used to play tricks on us, like taking my jewelry and hiding it behind the stove. Our dog refused to go anywhere near the room when she was there.”
The family later moved to a circa 1875 house in Maplewood, and they started to hear strange sounds coming from the attic. “It sounded like a party going on, with furniture being moved around. My husband would look at me and say, ‘Did you hear that?’”
Recently, the family was in the kitchen when a bizarre light and energy passed through them. “Nothing can explain what happened,” she said. “We all just stared at each other.”
The woman hired a paranormal investigator to scope out the house. They are still awaiting the official results.
What are your ghost stories, Baristaville? Or are you not talking?
Many years ago, while helping a friend pack up her family for a move out of the area from a house on Midland Avenue in Glen Ridge, I kept having a feeling that there was someone in the basement whenever I went down there to get boxes. Then I saw a distinct shadow of a man pass by the basement window. I hadn’t said a word to my friend, but when I went up to join her in the dining room, directly above where I had seen the “shadow,” she told me that “the ghost was active today.” We had never discussed paranormal topics of any kind, and I was surprised at how casually she brought it up. She then explained that there had been an elderly man living in her home years ago and that he had died there. She had been aware of his presence for the years that she lived there, but only in a benign way. He liked her family, she thought. But since they had started packing up to move, the “ghost” had become restless and more present. She thought he was aware that they were leaving and wasn’t at ease about it. He seemed to always be in the area that I had seen him in. Don’t know the current owners, or if anyone else ever had “contact” with him, but I’m quite certain that I was in the presence of a Baristaville ghost.
I think my apartment now is haunted. The lady who lived there before me passed away and I get a feeling that I’m not alone or that something is in the corner staring at me. Once my exes dog – who always slept under the covers – wouldn’t go under the covers but laid on me growling at that spot in the corner.
“THE OLD GRAVEYARD IN 1876″
“In 1876 and 1877 the old graveyard, was all dug up and the bodies were moved to Rosedale Cemetery. There was one case of old Mr. Munn who had been buried for many years and upon digging up his grave, it is said that his body was found to be petrified with the exception of one leg and the lower jaw, which was missing. It said that they stood him upon one foot and that a great many people went to see him. One of his descendents told me that he saw him and that there was no fake about it.”
(From Dr. Watkins REMINISCENCES OF MONTCLAIR 1929 pg 13.)
This book has fascinating stories written by Dr. Watkins, an old man who was the town dentist. He talks about Mr. Munn, the tavern owner in another essay, saying that Mr. Munn was often found about town inebriated, conversing with himself and who ever was passing by.
Mr. Munn is apparently quite a legondary character in Montclair History. He owned the Tavern and the Stagecoach house. The Tavern building (in the photo above) still exists, it was moved to behind the Unitarian Church Building, once the site of our first public library.
Aunt Polly’s house in the photo above, was moved to the opposite corner of Plymoth Street and Orange Road…you can still see it today, it has been modified and has a second story addition. It previously sat on an adjacent farm property that is now the Cranetown Garden apartments. My dear friend, Laurena, told me that she was driving down Orange Road the day that they were moving it and right before her eyes, the house fell off its dollies and landed right onto the street….(I think it was Aunt Polly’s doing!)
Can I list the ghosts at my house as dependents on my tax returns?
There is a house in Glen Ridge – I probably shouldn’t give its actual address, but it’s right off and visible from Bloomfield Avenue – which for many years had a “reputation.” Realtors always fudged the truth when offering it for rental, tenants never lasted very long there. This went on for about 25 years, though, oddly, there were never any murders or like sensationalistic disturbances reported there.
But the place nonetheless proved distinctly unwelcoming, and normally gabby and oblivious (one of many curses of the profession) realtors would shudder privately about it. Then, several years ago, someone finally bought it and, as far as I can tell. have continued to live there in amity with whatever “else” has long resided there. Reminds me of the old ASPR (American Society for Psychical Research)-promulgated theory that houses can sometimes act as sort of emotional storage batteries, and that unhappiness thus compounds itself in such situations.
I’ve visited houses that do truly feel like emotional storage batteries. Some even give you a weird headache or make you feel nauseous or that its hard to breathe.
Sometimes you can even feel a sharp slap on the forehead, from nowhere.
My house tested us when we moved there. It had been vacant for a couple of years.The first two years were active and unsettling. At night many pictureframes came apart and fell from the walls. I felt and heard a man cry when hanging a large mirror. My mother would be awakened at night by a woman’s crying from the woods. Then there was the bread being placed at the front and back door once a week. The local detectives worked on this, found no leads. An Easter ornament repeatedly springs into the air and onto the floor…every year. Now there is little to no activity except for a good feeling and funny things…like looking everywhere for a book or a letter…and finding it RIGHT in front of you as if it were placed there.
I’ll give an address, since this story is of a happy, mischievous ghost. 16 Rudd Ct, where I lived in the 80s-90s always had its share of ghostly encounters.
Like clockwork every Christmas Eve we would hear the piano play. The music was nice and it neutralized the terrifying feeling that otherwise we would have, that a ghost is playing the piano!
Pictures on the staircase would end up crooked. You could sometimes hear footsteps on the third floor. Other than that, if we were missing something like car keys, toys, books, jewelry, etc we would end up finding them in a storage room on the third floor. The door to the storage (attic) would sometimes be locked, and we would have to use a skeleton key to open it (We never locked the doors, but that one door would lock on its own) The bathroom next to the storage was never used, and yet the toilet would flush all the time. You could hear the chain of the toilet move and the toilet flush and repeat until you went upstairs… then it would stop