by Donna Fitzpatrick

By Donna Fitzpatrick  10/23/11

 

With Halloween just around the corner along with the ghost and goblins I thought I would share some of the Legends of the road called Shades of Death. Yes, there is a real road by that name located out in Warren County, NJ. It’s a 2 lane county road that runs 7 miles through Liberty and Independence Townships in a north – south direction and then turns somewhat east-west in Allamuchy alongside Jump Jenny Jump State Forest, next to Ghost Lake and under Route 80.

If you dare go, the southern location is at County Route 611 or Hope Road in Liberty Township, about 2 miles north of where Hope splits off from Route 46 at Marble Hill just west of Great Meadows. From there it weaves it way past the low-lying flat lands of the Peaquest Valley and the base ridge of Jump Jenny Jump Forrest alongside of Ghost Lake. Then it continues to make its way through some sharp turns until it reaches its northern point ending at Long Bride Road.

There are many legends for this road, the most common being is that during the 1800’s the trees were growing over it causing them to be so dense, you could not see much day light coming through them to see the road. It was said that bandits would hid in the trees or shadows and wait for there victims to ride by, cut their throats and take what they had which sometimes, included their women. It’s been said that the local people would take revenge, hang the bandits and leave their bodies to rot, dangling from low – hanging tree branches as a warning to for other outlaws who may be inclined to rob or kill anyone who traveled the road.

Next is when the British gave the Lene Lenapie Indians (of the Delaware Nation) the flu by giving them contaminated blankets. Around 600 people in the tribe were killed off and they were all buried in one spot alongside the road.

Another legend is about a ghost who is a 9 year old girl walking up and down the side of the road at night. Rumor has it if you should stop your car and she sees you, she will come up to your car and ask you one question, which is where her parents are. If you do not say anything or if you drive away, you will die in 40 days. You must give her an answer even if you do not know – just point off in some direction and she will be on her way. No one knows what happened to her but it is suspected that she was kidnapped from her parents and killed there.

One thing is true, is that back in the 1850’s, the Peaquest lowlands and Bear Swamp, which is nearby and today is used for sod farming, was found to have malaria- carrying insects nesting in the cliffs along side the road. Annual outbreaks of malaria occurred with very high mortality rates. Rumors said that the death rate was so enormous that when people were near death, they just laid the bodies along side the road hoping for a traveling Dr to come threw to cure them. In fact the problem was so widespread that in 1884, the state funded a project to have the swamps drained, to end the threat and the problem.

In the 1920s and 1930s there were three brutal killings along this road. One, which was a robbery, where a man was, hit over the head with tire jack for his gold coins. The next was when a woman beheaded her husband then buried the head and body on different sides of the road. The third was when a local resident, Bill Cummins was shot and buried in a mud pile, which was never solved.

There are a few local legends surrounding the mystery of Ghost Lake next to Shades of Death Road, with the most famous one being that it was once an Indian burial ground. When the settlers came into the area, they built a man made lake over the Indians final resting place. Rumors have it that sometimes at night the mists of the lake take shapes to look like the spirits of the Indians walking around in an angry fashion.

Traveling the road during the day, you see the trees have been cut back, old stone pillars, a single old grain cement silo next to the road but no barn in sight and houses are sporadically alongside the road.  Ghost Lake looks beautiful in the fall to take a walk around, until a local fisherman explained to me he was more afraid of the increased bear population then the spooky legends of the lake. However, I myself would not want to live or ride on the road at night called, Shades of Death.

 

Link for more photos go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sussexnj/sets/

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 25th, 2011 at 6:11 pm and is filed under Community News, Front Page. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.