The 1788 Morristown Ghost Hoax

Download or read book The 1788 Morristown Ghost Hoax written by Peter Zablocki and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2022-07-18 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Fabulous Fable of the Supernatural Kind The saga of the Morristown ghost has been told around campfires and dinner tables in Morris County for generations. Local legend claimed British Loyalists secretly buried stolen Patriot treasure on Schooley Mountain as they fled the oncoming forces of George Washington during the Revolutionary War. Years later in 1788, a former school teacher from Connecticut, Ransford Rodgers, convinced local prominent Morristown families that a ghost was protecting the true location of the treasure and he alone could exercise it. Little did the victims know, Rodgers was perpetuating an elaborate hoax and eventually extorted large sums of money from the embarrassed local elite. The tale has been recounted in various sensational pamphlets and publications ever since, leaving behind a mystery of what is true or myth. Author Peter Zablocki separates fact from fiction in the story of the great Morristown ghost hoax.