Clinton Road. (All images by Daniel Case, Wikipedia.)
You’re driving down the long (10 miles), lonely, poorly paved Clinton Road in West Milford, New Jersey. It is late at night, but you’ve heard about the Ghost Boy, and you want to check it out for yourself. You stop along Dead Man’s Curve, near a reservoir, where a bridge overlooks Clinton Brook. It is said that a boy drowned there, and if you throw a coin into the water where he died, it will wind up back on the road. So too might the Ghost Boy, who might chase you back to your car, so be ready to burn rubber out of there.
NEW JERSEY’S MOST HAUNTED PLACE
This is just one of the legends involving the Ghost Boy of Clinton Road. The bridge draws numerous visitors, and the stories are varied. One couple insisted that, after dropping a quarter in the brook, the surface of the water rippled and the body of a boy appeared just beneath the surface. They tore ass back to their car. Others have sworn that a ghostly apparition pushed them into the water after they tossed their coins.
So how did Clinton Road achieve such notoriety? A skeptic would probably believe the words of a local law enforcement professional: “It’s a long, desolate stretch, and it makes the imagination go nuts.”
Desolate indeed. There are hardly any houses along its length, and few locals drive along it to get from one place to another. Still, the legends persist.
STRANGE RITUALS
The remains of an iron smelter, built in the 19th century, is located near the reservoir. The story goes that this building was a Druidic temple, where Druids practiced their rituals, and terrible things happened to anyone who might have come upon them. The Newark Water Department has the area fenced off at present.
The old smelter…or was it a Druid temple?
An Englishman, Richard Cross, built a huge summer home near the reservoir in 1905. Known as Cross Castle, it fell into ruin after a fire late in the 20th century. Abandoned, it became a destination for hikers and for teens looking to party. Sone of these folks reported having seizures while in or around the ruins, and also having bruises appear on their bodies, as well as terrifying visions. Others swear that they witnessed Satanic symbols appearing on the walls. The building was razed in the ’80s, leaving only the foundation, but hiking trails lead out to the site, and it still attracts visitors.
GHOST VEHICLES AND GHOST CREATURES
Reports of phantom cars, trucks, and other vehicles abound along Clinton Road. You see headlights in your rearview mirror, and you speed up, but they stay close behind. When you pull over, hoping they’d pass, they pull over with you. When you finally reach the end of the road, the headlights vanish.
A nearby theme park, Jungle Habitat, went out of business in the ’70s. Since then, an albino hellhound named “Wolfie,” an experimental wolf-dog, is said to haunt the road, as well as all manner of weird hybrid creatures, possibly the result of animals that managed to survive the closed attraction and crossbreed. Now that seriously gives me the creeps.
A website titled Weird NJ cannot get enough of Clinton Road. Check them out. As for me…well, I’ll just stay tucked into my cozy corner of Southern California.