Is New Jersey Weird?

I have lived in New Jersey all of my life! 

I was born in Orange, New Jersey, and lived in Nixon in Edison Township on a little street off Route 1 called Gurley Road.  When I was 14 we moved to Hillsdale, NJ and I started High School there at Pascack Valley High School.  Then at age 21 I went out on my own, and moved..moved and moved again.

Started out at a little college in Teaneck, and during college years spent some time living in Teaneck, South Hackensack and Montclair. 

After a couple years of college, I got a little apartment in East Rutherford, and while living there met my husband.  We moved from there to North Haledon, then finally moved to West Milford where we have settled in for the past 22 years.  The picture you see above was taken from our bedroom window in the fall.

Why would I think of starting a lense about New Jersey being weird?

Well, our local Weird NJ lore takes place on Clinton Road.  The road is in West Milford, NJ, and runs for about 10 miles between Rte. 23 in Newfoundland, NJ, to Upper Greenwood Lake. 

Tales of ghost sightings, gatherings of witches and satanists, bodies and the Klu Klux Klan abound.  One source I read indicated that as early as 1905 people were warned about traveling the road as there were many bandits in the area and witchcraft practiced.

We have driven the road during the daytime, and it's actually quite a beautiful, wooded stretch, with no buildings, homes, lights, just beautiful woodland, but at night, I would warn my teens not to drive the road...and wouldn't drive it myself...as it is dark and desolate, no street lights, and no way to easily get help.  But you know how teens are, it was always a daring adventure to go as a group and drive Clinton Road just to see if all that they heard was true.

If you read the book, Weird New Jersey, or other writings about the area, you are likely to find stories about the ghost boy at the bridge, a structure that was believed to be a Druidic Temple (which it really is not, but makes for great lore), cannibal kidnappings, ghosts of park rangers, a ghost car...a camaro driven by a girl who died when she crashed in the car, unusual creatures in headlights of cars running across the road, a castle that was burned down but still is a  popular destination of hikers.

There are stories of bodies found in the woods...one is a true store of a man discovered when someone saw vultures hovering, the body was frozen after killed to throw off figuring out time of death...the man was killed by a hit man doing work for the mafia operating in Rockland County, NY.  He was captured, but claimed to have killed at least 100 others and frozen many, giving him the title "the Ice Man".

If your curious about weird occurrences in NJ or any other state, or weird things in general, maybe some of the items below will interest you.