No. 17 A New Jersey Haunting
No. 17 A New Jersey Haunting
Fall greetings from New England! And if you celebrate, Happy Samhain! October is one of my favorite times of year. The colors. The crisp air. The sweaters. The sense of mischief.
The newsletter is at 415 subscribers (Thank you!) and I would dearly love to reach an even 500 by the new year, #goals. If you can think of someone who might enjoy a ghost or travel mishap story, would you mind sharing it with them? I’d really appreciate it.
This month, I’m taking a detour to southern New Jersey for a ghost story experienced by family friends. I’ve changed their names, and filled in some likely details, but did not alter their encounter.
You can find last year’s ghost story—that time I discovered that my new house wasn’t quite empty—here.
A New Jersey Haunting
The Delaware River snakes south from the Catskill Mountains of New York through five states on its 330 mile route to the Atlantic Ocean. Its width varies between several miles and, wending its way between southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, several hundred feet.
While not its narrowest point, the close proximity of the city with the marshy, wooded shores of Salem County, New Jersey made the area especially attractive to foraging parties during the long, poorly-provisioned winter of 1777-78.
It was the second year of the Revolutionary War. British General Howe had occupied Philadelphia, the nascent capital of the United States, for several months by then. Though the winter had not been particularly cold or harsh, it was nonetheless difficult to sustain an army of 15,000. Howe sent detachments south of the city and across the river to supplement their food.
On a cold March night in 1778, one such foraging expedition led by a Lt. Colonel Mawhood, landed on the shores of Salem County. It was a sparsely populated area run through with miles of winding streams and waterways between the river and the King’s Highway, the main north-south thoroughfare that connected the small towns up and down the western border of New Jersey. Twelve-hundred British soldiers hoped to find berries, rabbits, deer, or isolated farms whose provisions they could strip.
The British presence on New Jersey shores hadn’t gone unnoticed. An American Colonel, Benjamin Holme, mustered the militia. Some three hundred locals answered the call in the dead of night and settled along the embankments of Alloway Creek at Quinton’s Bridge to prevent a northward advance into more populated territory. To further hinder the enemy force, Holme ordered the planks of the bridge removed. The only way for the British to advance north across the creek was to wade or swim toward the firing line.
Several miles away, local Loyalists to the British crown informed Mawhood of the militia’s whereabouts. He sent a small group north toward the bridge, and a second detachment to circle behind the Americans, pinning the militia at the creek. Just before dawn, the two armies met. Shots tore through the silent dark. Gray-blue smoke drifted in the cold, night air like an exhaled breath.
The Battle at Quinton’s Bridge and other Revolutionary War era skirmishes are evidenced today by historic road signs. Along King’s Highway, many of the same homes still line the road, their stone faces peeking below the fringe of sycamores to spy cars instead of carriages. On misty mornings, the feeling of a bygone era remains, and it was this lingering charm that led the Peterson family to choose one of the historic stone beauties when they moved to Salem County.
Shelley, Rob, and their five-year-old son, John, were delighted with the long rooms and low ceilings, hand-carved wood trim and wide-plank floors of their new home. By the end of a sweltering summer, they had unpacked and met the neighbors. Shelley’s one regret was that there didn’t seem to be any children nearby for John. She hoped that when he began first grade, he’d make some friends. In the mean time, he seemed content to talk to his action figures on the floor of his upstairs bedroom.
At the end of John’s first day of school, Shelley waited for him on the sidewalk as the bus pulled up, lights blinking. All the way up the stone walkway to the house, John chattered on happily about his new teacher and several children that he liked. Just inside the door, he kicked off his shoes and dropped his backpack on the floor before running upstairs. Shelley extracted several crumpled papers from the backpack including a book order form and an invitation to the school’s Open House the following week.
“How about a snack?” she called up the stairs. She’d made some chocolate chip cookies to celebrate his first day. She could hear him still talking away in his bedroom. “Johnny?”
He appeared at the top of the stairs. “Who are you talking to?” she asked as he descended.
“The man.”
“What man?” Shelley asked. Humming to himself, he didn’t offer any further explanation.
Everyday after school it was the same. John ran upstairs to his room and began a full blown conversation with his toys. One day when she crossed the landing with a basket of laundry to fold, she swung the door to his bedroom back a crack. John sat on the floor with Batman clutched in one hand and a smattering of green army men arrayed on the floor. He stopped speaking and looked up.
“Your guys sure have a lot to say.”
“Action figures don’t talk, Mommy,” John said.
“When you’re pretending they do.”
“I’m just explaining what they’re doing.”
“Explaining it to whom?”
“The man.”
“What man are you talking about Johnny?”
“The man.” John waved toward his bed. “But he’s very cold, Mommy. He’s always so cold.” The skin on her arms prickled.
“Is the man here now?” Shelley asked. scrutinizing the room.
“No, he’s hiding,” John said and began to hum to himself.
At dinner that night, Shelley repeated the conversation to her husband. “It might just be overactive imagination,” Rob suggested.
“His or mine?” Shelley said.
The following week, they attended the Open House as a family. John tugged at his parents’ hands, eager to show off his classroom. A number of other families milled around inspecting the book cases and cubby holes. John marched up to a portly woman in upper middle age.
“John is a pleasure to have in class,” Mrs. Hill said after they’d introduced themselves. “I was delighted when I heard him humming ‘Battle of the Kegs.’ You must be Revolutionary War buffs, too?”
Shelley and Rob shot one another a glance, confused. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean,” Shelley finally admitted.
“John is always singing a song from the late 1700s.”
“About beer?” Rob asked.
Mrs. Hill laughed. “Powder kegs, not beer kegs. Maybe you know the song by another name?” She hummed a bar of the melody and then sang, “Gallants attend, and hear a friend,/Trill forth harmonious ditty,/Strange things I'll tell,/ which late befell,/In Philadelphia city.” Mrs. Hill waited a beat looking for a sign of recognition. “I assumed you taught it to him.”
An involuntary shudder ran through Shelley. “I thought he learned that at school.”
“Maybe in music class, then,” Mrs. Hill said. All eyes turned to John.
“Buddy, where did you learn that song?” Rob said.
“From the man,” John said.
“What man?”
“The cold man. He used to sing it with his friends.” Though John had never seemed frightened, that night, Shelley and Rob moved his bed into their room. Shelley researched the house at the town hall, but when that brought her no closer to the answers she sought, they hired a local genealogist.
About a month later, the genealogist met Shelley over coffee to discuss the information she’d discovered. In the 1700s, their house had been a tavern. Though it hadn’t played a direct role in the Revolutionary War, there had been a skirmish not too far away at Quinton’s Bridge. An American militia had been outmaneuvered, and was outnumbered four to one.
The American forces took heavy fire from across the creek, and from a surprise attack to the rear. Many of them sought shelter by scampering down the embankment near the water. The British fired from the higher ground into the soldiers entrenched below.
The shooting halted only when the late arrival of a second militia drove the British forces off. Both sides scattered into the woods.
In the silence that followed, one man dragged himself from the freezing water beneath the bridge. Wounded and shivering, he wandered through the woods until he stumbled onto the King’s Highway, and a tavern where he’d once sung with pint of ale in hand. The windows were dark, the door locked. He collapsed on the threshold, and while the bodies of his fallen comrades floated away toward the Delaware River, slowly froze to death.
The Petersons lived in the house for twenty more years. John can still sing the song that he learned as a child from a Revolutionary War soldier.
‘The Battle of the Kegs’ referred to a military action undertaken by the British in January of 1778 in Philadelphia. American Daniel Wadsworth, the father of the torpedo, had devised an explosive inside a wooden barrel that detonated when it came in contact with any other object. The devices were deployed in the Delaware River to destroy British battleships moored outside Philadelphia.
Tragically, it was two boys who discovered the first device, which exploded when they tried to drag it into their boat. British forces spent the rest of that day firing upon any object floating in the river. The American Francis Hopkinson penned the song below to commemorate the day.
BATTLE OF THE KEGS.
GALLANTS attend, and hear a friend,
Trill forth harmonious ditty,
Strange things I'll tell, which late befell,
In Philadelphia city.
'Twas early day, as poets say,
Just when the sun was rising,
A soldier stood, on a log of wood,
And saw a thing surprising.
As in amaze he stood to gaze,
The truth can't be denied, sir,
He spied a score of kegs or more, 1
Come floating down the tide sir.
A sailor, too, in jerkin blue,
This strange appearance viewing,
First damn'd his eyes, in great surprise,
Then said, "some mischief's brewing.
"These kegs, I'm told , the rebels hold,
Packed up like pickled herring,
And they're come down, t' attack the town,
In this new way of ferrying."
The soldier flew, the sailor too,
And scared almost to death, sir,
Wore out their shoes to spread the news,
And ran till out of breath, sir.
Now up and down, throughout the town,
Most frantic scenes were acted;
And some ran here, and others there,
Like men almost distracted.
Some fire cried, which some denied,
But said the earth had quakèd;
And girls and boys, with hideous noise,
Ran through the streets half naked.
Sir William, 2 he, snug as a flea,
Lay all this time a snoring;
Nor dreamed of harm, as he lay warm,
In bed with _______. [a local’s wife]
Now in a fright, he starts upright,
Awak'd by such a clatter;
He rubs his eyes, and boldly cries,
"For God's sake, what's the matter?"
At his bedside, he then espied,
Sir Erskine at command, Sir, 4
Upon one foot he had one boot,
And t'other in his hand, sir.
"Arise! arise, Sir Erskine cries,
The rebels - more's the pity -
Without a boat, are all afloat,
And rang'd before the city.
"The motley crew, in vessels new,
With Satan for their guide, sir,
Packed up in bags, or wooden kegs,
Come driving down the tide, sir.
"Therefore prepare for bloody war;
These kegs must all be routed,
Or surely we despis'd shall be,
And British courage doubted."
The royal band, now ready stand,
All ranged in dread array, sir,
With stomachs stout, to see it out,
And make a bloody day, sir.
The cannons roar from shore to shore,
The small arms make a rattle;
Since wars began, I'm sure no man
Ere saw so strange a battle.
The rebel dales, the rebel vales,
With rebel trees surrounded,
The distant woods, the hills and floods,
With rebel echoes sounded.
The fish below swam to and fro,
Attack'd from every quarter;
Why sure, thought they, the devil's to pay,
'Mongst folks above the water.
The kegs, 'tis said, though strongly made
Of rebel staves and hoops, 5 sir,
Could not oppose their powerful foes,
The conquering British troops, sir.
From morn till night, these men of might
Display'd amazing courage;
And when the sun was fairly down,
Retir'd to sup their porridge.
An hundred men, with each a pen,
Or more, upon my word, sir,
It is most true would be too few,
Their valor to record, sir.
Such feats did they perform that day,
Against those wicked kegs, sir,
That years to come, if they get home,
They'll make their boasts and brags, sir.
Francis Hopkinson, 1778
Housekeeping
This month, I’m visiting my daughter at the University of Edinburgh where she’s doing a semester abroad. We’ll be traveling to the Glasgow Gallery of Photography to view two of my photographs included in the upcoming exhibitions Abandoned, and Blue.
If you’d like a sneak peak before next month’s newsletter, you can follow me on Facebook and Instagram where I’ll be posting pictures from the exhibition.
I hope you get some time to visit the Scottish Highlands. They are gorgeous. Happy travels!