Woodside, the North End of Newark, N.J.: Its History, Legends and Ghost Stories Gathered from the Records and the Older Inhabitants Now LivingHine, C. G. (Charles Gilbert)
History
Woodside, the North End of Newark, N.J.: Its History, Legends and Ghost Stories Gathered from the Records and the Older Inhabitants Now Living
Hine, C. G. (Charles Gilbert)
Hine, C. C. (Charles Cole), 1825-1897; Woodside (Newark, N.J.) -- History
THE GULLY ROAD.
As we travel northward the River road naturally begins with the Gully
road. As far back as tradition goes and the old maps show, the Gully
road has existed, but there is a theory that the Indian trail, of which
the River road is an expansion, continued down the river bank, and one
bit of folk-lore which remains indicates that this may have been so.
A GULLY ROAD GHOST.
The legend tells us that so long ago that those who tell the story
cannot compute the time, there lived at the present junction of
Washington avenue and the Gully road an aged couple in a simple cot that
hardly kept them from the weather. There was then a small stream that
claimed the gully for its own, but as time went on the brook gradually
dried up, and as gradually people from the back country began to use its
bed as a highway. As traffic grew the cottage was found to lie in the
way of travelers, and one night it was ruthlessly torn down over the
head of its defenseless occupant, for by this time only one was left.
The resultant exposure proved fatal, the old settler being unable to
survive the shock, and ever after has his ghost walked the Gully road.
The ghost has not been seen for thirty years or more, but one who has
actually met the vision, a lady of years and education, tells me that
she distinctly saw it one dark Sunday afternoon, about 1879, while on
her way to church.
Though a resident here for several years she had never heard of the
Gully road ghost, nor did she know that the region was haunted, but in
the darkest and loneliest part of the road she encountered a nebulous
shape about the size of a human being, standing at a gate which gave
entrance to one of the few places along the road. My informant was young
then, and more easily frightened than now, but she saw too distinctly to
believe that she could have been mistaken. It appears that the lady had
disregarded the biblical injunction to obey her husband, for he did not
wish her to go to church at that particular time, but she, being
contrary minded, insisted, and it seems highly probable that the ghost
was sent to warn her back into path of obedience. Hurrying back she
informed her husband, but nothing more was seen of the apparition and it
was some time later that she learned that the road was haunted and heard
the above story from an old settler.
INDIAN RELICS FOUND IN THE GULLY ROAD.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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