The Haunting of New Jersey

"Do you know you live in one of the most haunted houses in the country?" a woman informed me.

To be honest I was a little surprised and didn't have a response right away. Instead, I nodded my head awkwardly as I dug into my candy bucket to plop a few pieces into her child's trick or treat bag.

Sitting on my porch watching her leave I had the thought to point out how wrong she was, but then didn't want to spoil her clear excitement at the notion of a haunted house in her neighborhood.

Instead, I looked back at the house and the front door that was directly behind me, and patted it gently as if to say, "Don't worry I won't let the mean lady make fun of you anymore" before going on with my favorite night of the year, Halloween.

My whole life I have been stuck between this world and the next and I was desperate to see a real live ghost just to prove that I wasn't crazy.

So when my husband's military orders took us to Philadelphia, and the first house I found for rent was a three-hundred-year-old brick beast in the heart of one of the oldest towns in New Jersey, I didn't hesitate.

I signed that lease agreement without so much as a flinch before even seeing the place.

From the moment I walked through the door, I was in love with it! From the original hardwood floors made out of sixteen-inch long planks to the dusty old fireplaces, I knew that it was special.

I also had an instant dread of forboding.

Not that chill up your spine that alluded to a misty disembodied owner from years past breathing down my neck, but the pure terror that my very real and physical children were sure to break a monument that stood longer than most anything else in this country.

The house had sat vacant for three years before the recent owners bought and fixed it up. Being the first to move in after renovations I was even more excited! Ghost hated when you messed with their stuff.

So after the first few weeks of moving in and figuring out where everything was in our new little town, we began to settle into our routine.

I picked one of the rooms at the front of the house on the second floor with a fireplace and stairs up to the attic as our homeschool room. It was the original house built in the early 1700s and for some reason the section that just seemed the homiest.

It wasn't a month into our new life that we began to hear little scurring in the thick wall next to us.

Oh man, I clapped for joy like a toddler about to receive an ice cream cone.

Turns out it was a bird that had made a nest in the gutter next to the window.

Then there were scratching and leaves dropping down the schoolroom chimney and I knew this was really it. Any moment a full-fledged apparition was going to appear before us.

But it was wood ducks who had made their nest inside the three-story high chimney. Another disappointment.

Finally, I knew the time had come when we entered our beloved schoolroom to hear the running of little feet overhead.

This was it! Maybe they had been quiet up until now to feel us out, but I was 100% positive that I was about to meet some sweet little ghost children playing in the attic.

Instead, I found a pair of squirrels looking to make a soft home from the insulation.

Unfortunately, every time I thought I was sure to see a ghost, or at the very least an object moving on its own accord, we only found more residence from the house's years of vacancy.

Nearly two years into our time living in the Woodbury House, as we had come to call it, I was no closer to seeing a ghost than I was the day I arrived.

I remember sitting up in bed, practically in tears, and asking my husband if the ghosts were hiding because they didn't like me.

Desperate to prove that wasn't the case, I joined the local historical society and learned everything I could on the house. It had been built by a pair of brothers who owned most of the land leading up to the Delaware River where a famous Revolutionary War battle had ensued.

The brothers had been Quakers. A group I knew little about. Focusing my research on them and the religion I soon learned that Quakers were a peaceful people who disagreed with fighting for any reason.

They had been persecuted badly during the Revolutionary War because their religious beliefs kept them from joining or helping the fight in any way.

It was a defeating blow to me. Obviously, if the brothers were still in the house, which my spidey sense told me that at least one person had to be, of course, they would avoid me and my family at all costs-- We were military!

Depressed and pouring my troubles out to my husband yet again, I moaned about how I was sure it would be hard enough for the ghost to be heard over the ruckus of the kids all day every day, but now I was convinced they weren't even trying out of protest of his military affiliations.

"Maybe it would help if you didn't put your uniform on before you left for work. Could you just take it with you and change when you got there?"

My husband just shook his head, "I'm not making my life more complicated to please a supposed ghost. Who gets upset when they don't see ghosts, anyway?"

It wasn't till the week we left I realized that they had been there all along.

I walked the house checking to make sure that all our things had been packed, everything was cleaned and ready to go. As I passed the grand staircase at the front of the house I paused as I always did on the top landing where the schoolroom door met the hallway and I let my fingers run along the wall.

It was an automatic action, something I did daily as I passed this portion of the house on my various trips up and down the stairs. This time I paused however and realized that I had been doing it for a reason.

Everything about this house had felt warm, welcoming, and inviting. Everything about the neighborhood, including the neighbors, had grown to be an extended family in just a few short years.

Our kids visited our next-door neighbor on a daily basis and had affectionally started calling her 'Gran.'

Santa rode a firetruck every year and made personal present deliveries while letting the kids sit on his lap and push the siren.

Front porches were common spots where any passerby might stop and chat a while while the kids ran and played in the yard.

If there ever was a town in all of America that still had the Mayberry feel, it was this one.

Touching that wall, I realized that it wasn't just the people and the history that created that energy, but the house itself. I even talked to it regularly like it was a living breathing person!

Letting my hand run along the wall I could feel the love, joy, and happiness oozing out like the ectoplasm in Ghostbusters.

How many babies had been born in this house? Toddlers taken their first steps? Or newlywed husbands carried their wives over the threshold?

I never saw an apparition, but I could feel the presence of those two brothers just as sure as I could hug my own child. They had been there all along sharing that positive energy with us making Woodbury House a home.

Whoever said a haunting had to be scary?

I know for me, that a haunted house in New Jersey was one of the best hometowns I was ever lucky enough to live in.