Читать книгу Woodside, the North End of Newark, N.J - C. G. Hine - Страница 13

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.