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Hudson Valley Ghost Stories 

Kingston, NY

I recently purchased a Kingston Victorian and we've had some stuff happening. I figure something would happen in a house that over a 100 years old... what got me talking to others is I can hear people talking and moving furniture over my baby monitor at night. Not every night, but there is a female voice and another voice- that are speaking just low enough that I cant make out what being said, and the sound of heavy furniture scraping along the wood floor. The house itself has a great "feel" to it- everyone who has come to see the house has said so- and there have always been children here... so I'm not scared- just, well, CURIOUS! Anyway, being that it is happening to me, I got to talking to other people and I was blown away by the number of stories that other people have as well... We're just starting a blog on MySpace: www.myspace.com/hauntedhudsonvalley

The Good Ghost

One night I was going to bed and my mom died. I said a prayer and then I said, "Jesus when I lay down, I am expecting to get a good night kiss from my mom and a hug." Maybe 2 minutes later I felt something hug me then it felt like something gave me a kiss on the cheek.
H. R.

Scrub Oak, NY

The Ghost of the "Old Leather Man" April 2, 1889

Spuyten Duyvil

Anthony's Trumpet

Clarkstown, NY

For centuries upon centuries as legend goes, in a house in Clarkstown, near the Clarkstown South high school. A boy was killed by his butch step mother in a pond outside the house.

Every night his body rises from the pond and searches the streets for a little boy to take his place.

Till this day kids aren't allowed near this pond past dusk.

Hudson Valley, NY

Hello My name is Phebo, I have a ghost problem. Here is my story.

I was outside one day just after we moved into our house 2 years ago. I found a mound of dirt in the backyard. So me and my older sister dug it up only to find burnt pieces of wood.

That night my sister went upstairs to get a drink then the unthinkable happened, she went over to shut the TV off and looked down and saw the buttons on the nintendo were being pushed.

The next day she told everyone but they were in doubt. Later that day my parents went to the grocery store and left me and my sister at home. We went downstairs to do the laundry and I locked her in the laundry room just to scare her but she busted the door open and pulled me inside.

Just as I got in the door it happened. The most horrifying scream. It was the ghost.

My sister slammed the door and while doing so sliced her hand open on a piece of wood. Just then my parents pulled in the driveway and my sister and I ran upstairs and she screamed again when we hit the top.

Since then lots of weird things have been happening like cupboard doors and drawers opening and toilets being flushed and things (cigarettes / lighters / cloths) have been going missing and we've been hearing someone walk / running around the house.

Me and my sister had dreams about her the same night and she told us her name was Claire. We later found out that there had been a fire on my property and a little 7 year old girl who's name started with a C had died in.

Right now, I know not what the reasoning behind it is and all I have done is search the net to find someone's story, some tale about haunted trails in Ulster County, with little success, I found your site and figured you would appreciate this little story and the attached photos.

Jewett, NY

There is a house, The Jewett Heights House which burned down in 1965. It was a 40 room boarding house owned and operated by the Baldwin and later George H. Chase family. Chester Hull, was the first postmaster of Jewett Heights in the 1800's and is buried in the Peck Cemetery behind where our house was. The house was a transition point between the Jewett Presbyterian Church and the Peck Cemetery.

The house used to have a post office attached which was the site of the original Jewett Heights Post Office. All the Jewett history books and history of Greene County books have pictures of this house

This was a very scary house to grow up in. Late at night when the wind blew, doors on the upper floors would defy logic and open and close very rapidly. We used to tell ourselves that the wind was responsible but the wind should have either opened or closed the doors.....not slam them open and closed in rapid succession.

Aaron Burr was supposed to have made a speech from the upper door of the old Post Office sometime in the late 1700's. A hand carved bed we owned in one of the rooms was supposed to have been a bed that General Grant slept in.

All I know is that this house always had an eerie presence in certain rooms. Some parts of the rooms would be cold and other parts of the same room, warm. People were afraid to go in certain rooms in the house upstairs and as children, they sensed the eerie presence of apparitions in certain rooms. Other rooms were cheery and friendly while others were cold and foreboding.

Many guests stayed here during the 1800's and no doubt, perhaps the spirits of some of the more unsavory guests still pervaded in the rooms we were afraid to go into. I believe that when the house burned down, the spirits took up residence in the Peck Cemetery which is the present site of a lot of paranormal activity. Specifically, when my brother took a digital picture of the cemetery, in the trees and surrounding landscape, hideous faces appeared. The photos were untouched and if you search the internet for other photos of the Peck Cemetery in Jewett Heights, you may see what I'm talking about.

When my brother and I have returned to the site of our old Boarding House in Jewett, NY, we have taken numerous digital photos of the cemetery, our front yard, and back yard. In many of the photos, there are ORBS. It doesn't matter whether the digital images are taken in the day or night....the orbs appear. I researched the significance of orbs and they are a sure sign of paranormal activity. Several photos of the Jewett Heights House are on the Town of Jewett's website. I like visiting the house and believe that the spirits that reside there are friendly and don't mind us poking around. I used to play in that cemetery as a kid in the 1950's until a tombstone fell over on my toe....a friendly warning perhaps to stay out.

Both stories and photo By John Slevens Jr.

Saugerties, NY

The Patch Road Witch

Word has it that in the turn of the century, a witch lived in a house in west Saugerties. Years later this house was sold and a young couple moved in. The witch who was immortal did not have a place to live and wandered the road and the surrounding woods.

The husband that moved into the house disappeared, and the wife did soon after.

The house was burned down, but every now and then you can see a strange being walking down the road. When you turn around, it disappears.

I have seen this strange being one night with my x-girlfriend. It was the shape of a young lady, who was dressed in the style of the 60's. This women had a pale complexions, and when I turned around she vanished.
Kris

Stamford, NY

I live in a log cabin in Stamford NY. It is about 40 years old. I have had a few strange encounters in my house.

Once I saw a toddler running down the hall. He was a very happy little child.

In my bedroom one night I felt someone sit on the end of my bed. The bed physically moved.

Another time I woke up to find an older gentleman, in 1940 clothes, he was talking to me. He told me to leave the building, it was unsafe and I should go left. He didn't say anything about taking my husband with me. I ignored the warning and nothing happened.

I have always wondered what he was trying to tell me and who he was. I truly believe their are spirits in my house. I find things in places I know I didn't leave them. Brand new light bulbs suddenly blow out.

One time I lost a very unusual button. I was really upset about it. When I went to bed that night I kept hearing a voice telling me that it was by the steps.

In the morning I checked the spiral staircase and the front steps. Still I couldn't find it. I was about to give up when the voice told me it was by the other steps. I was really confused. Then I remembered I had gone into the motor home the day before. I went out to look and there in the grass, by the steps was my button. I can't explain it.

I did thank the spirits for being helpful though.
Kristy

Ulster County

My name is Michele, I think you'll find this little story interesting. Let me start by giving you a brief background of myself. I have always had an interest in the 'paranormal.' For some reason, I have always experience strange happenings, noticed things or sensed things that others haven't. I have always read and explored this area and lately I have been experiencing much more 'happenings'.

I was married in February, 2003, at the Estherwood Mansion in Dobbs Ferry, NY. You may think this is irrelevant but it does tie up with my ghost story of a camping trip in Ulster County. So here we go...

My fiance, at the time and I took a camping trip up in Woodstock the weekend of October 6th to the 8th of 2001. Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of the camp ground but what I can tell you is that It was about 15 minutes outside of the town of Woodstock. It was on a river in a heavily wooded area. Across the road from the camp ground were hiking trails. My fiancee and I went on a hike, it was a Sunday morning, we were leaving this day. His intentions were to ask me to marry him when reaching the very top, supposedly a lovely peak with fantastic views, however, it was beginning to get late and we still had to drive on down to Dobbs Ferry. Regardless, After a few miles of hiking we sat down on this trail and began taking pictures of one another.

When I got them back, I thought nothing of them, exact that it was a perfect weekend and I had a bunch of photos to remember it by. So, regardless, that Sunday, we did drive down to the town of Tarrytown and then the following morning we made out way over to Estherwood Mansion where my fiance proposed. It was perfect. So in with this hiking photos are photos of where he proposed and I supposed those pictures I cherished a bit more and paid little mind to those of the hiking trip.

Now here we are, married in 2003 and when getting back a number of photos from the wedding we found that my intuitions that day he proposed were right, I had Felt a presence at the Estherwood. Confirming those intuitions with a NUMBER of photo's containing numerous orbs, and better yet and actual photo of a women in a mirror the has existed since the home mansion built back in the 1800s. So incredible is the picture that it stirred up many of my beliefs of the paranormal and such that I have since discovered the Estherwood is said to be one of the most haunted homes on the Hudson River and have photographed such things as faces, orbs, angels, etc., in random places. So let's call me an active 'Ghost hunter' or 'Spiritualist' is you will.

Now, I know your interest lies inside of Ulster County but of what I have been doing or what I may have captured or experienced lately is important because I am now starting to think, it is me these things happen to for a reason.

Okay, back to what has happened about 5 days ago.... I am here sitting in my office, doing my work and for some reason, I am compelled to find these photos of our ENGAGEMENT WEEKEND. (Back in 2001) Now I have a filing cabinet here with about 15 sets of photos from different occasions. I begin, STILL NOT UNDERSTANDING WHY, going through each package of photos until I come across those of our weekend. I'm shuffling through them when I stop at one. Immediately, I see that this picture has some green fog on the top and bottom, some yellow-orange fog behind me and underneath the yellow-orange fog are the COLORED FACE OF WHAT LOOKS TO BE TWO YOUNG MEN!

My stomach turned, my heart started beating and I was shocked for I could not for the life of me figure out WHY I had to find these pictures.

I then go to the next picture and see that there beside me, in another photo is an outline of an apparition!

I immediately thought there must have been some reason for finding these, especially the one of the two men. Perhaps, something had happen to them and I was supposed to find them? Or help to find them?

Right now, I know not what the reasoning behind it is and all I have done is search the net to find someone's story, some tale about haunted trails in Ulster County, with little success, I found your site and figured you would appreciate this little story and the attached photos.

Wappingers Falls, NY

Hi! I just moved to an old house in Wappingers falls a year ago. A great old house, I never feel alone here!

One day I was upstairs with my two small daughters, my father lives here but was out that day. I suddenly heard a mans voice down stairs, like someone was clearing their throat and foot steps and a door. My daughter jumped up and said pa is home! I went over to the stairs and yelled down but I got no answer, I looked out the window and my fathers car wasn't there.

Sometimes I feel cool breezes in the house for no reason and one night I felt someone walking behind me like I could feel their breath on my neck. I feel like it is a protective spirit.

One day we were about to cut a tree down because it wasn't looking too good, unsure whether to chop it or not my father started to cut limbs down and when he came back over to the tree after throwing some of the limbs away he couldn't find the saw, We looked every where and he swore he left it where he placed it and we noticed it up in another tree ,high up where no one could have put it!

I said please stop cutting it down! Someone obviously doesn't want it to be cut down! So we left it and a couple months later the tree started to look a bit better so we are leaving it alone. I found my computer turned on one night, and other little things happen now and then but other times nothing happens for a long time, I wonder who it is.

I don't mind, I kind of like the company!

Wappingers Falls, NY

Our first aging cottage on Myers Corners had only the easiest weirdness about it, but this new raised ranch was just awful, Shale Drive, Wappingers Falls, 1976.

From the time we moved in, it creeped me out. The furnace room was the source of heart-stopping chills. It would overwhelm you like a sudden rainstorm. It felt angry and intimidating and I hated going in to that room. There was in addition (downstairs) our family room and laundryroom, with a room in between that did little more than house my brother's Schlitz beer pyramid collection while he was away at B.U. The laundryroom was fine, but that family room backed-up to the utilities, and in that corner we placed the television.

Every time I walked over to turn the tube on, I was met with that feeling. If you've never been so spooked, it's hard to explain it without sounding like one of those crackpots spouting hocus-pocus on the web. The cold thing...It isn't just "BRRR, chilly in here." It's more like "*^#@!, my bones are frozen..." Something is WRONG here (eeeks) - and then an intense want to put your back against the opposite wall. It was just bad, plain and simple.

Something bad happened in that house and something bad was still in the house and everyone but my brother experienced some kind of uncomfortable happening.

My issue was that downstairs room...I would hang out down there after school and watch TV until my mother got home from work, but often I would feel "chased away" and go upstairs or outside. Not all the time, though that one spot was always, always cold.

There was a time, I am told around 8 years old, when I was upstairs and doing something near the kitchen (on the phone, what have you) and again alone in the house. I can remember the incident, but can not visualize the event. I think I have blocked it out.

Someone came up the stairs and went down the hallway to my parent's bedroom. I saw a glimpse of this and thought the person looked enough like my mother to call out to her. No-one answered me. I went down to her bedroom and there was no-one there - anywhere. I do seem to recall looking in the bathroom, etc...But for all I know, a different time. No car in the driveway.

I do not remember what I did after that, but I either called her at work or waited until she got home...Then asked her where she'd gone? She was alarmed by the query and went through that house entirely, looking for someone. No-one there.

She arranged to work a different schedule so she would not be gone so long after I got home, and I remember being resentful that someone had to stay with me until she returned. She did not want me alone in the house.

Here's why: I was not the only one who saw things.

We used to have small get-together on Friday night...A few friends and their kids would come over and have snacks and cocktails (kiddy for us youngins'). We'd all hang out and watch a movie or one of the variety shows that were so popular in the 70's.

More than once, Mom would come home to see a burner left on high heat, and think it was one of us kids being careless after cooking something. It wasn't. We were kids, but we weren't that stupid. Then it happened one of these nights, with everyone downstairs. She said the kettle was on the burner and the burner was hot.

It got to the point where in the morning, I would have to go downstairs before we left for the day and shut the breakers off. Why I had to do it... Go figure, but my parents decided this was the best way to avoid an "accidental" fire. The good news is that once we did that, it seemed to end the annoyance.

However, Mom and Dad both saw "her" before we moved out.

One night Mom woke up to see a light from the corner of her eye, coming from the hallway. She thought it was one of the kids using the bathroom right near there and that we'd forgotten to shut the door or turn off the light... It was late, the light was bright and she was cranky.

She turned to look directly at 'us' to tell 'us' to shut the light off, and instead saw 'something' standing right there in the doorway to her bedroom. That 'something' itself was glowing. Not 'us'. She yelled out (Mom's not a screamer) and roused my father right out of bed. He jumped toward and after whatever it was, but found nothing in the house. I do remember the commotion, as I can still see him running from their bedroom out in to the hall after I heard her - it had sprung me up, too.

Ok...

Dad is alone and in the livingroom towards the front of the house, playing the piano. I am at a friend's house...Bro' is away somewhere and Mom has gone grocery shopping. Because of the way the house is laid out as a raised ranch, we usually brought groceries in from the driveway through the garage and up the stairs in to the kitchen.

Dad sees someone again come up those stairs and turn. I don't know if she went down the hall or in to the kitchen...But he saw her and thought it was Mom (sensing a theme yet?) so called out to her offering help with the groceries. Now - this is Dad, who does not believe in ghosts. I don't know if the chase happened before or after this, but he remains cynical about such things.

What we all agree on is that he saw someone and when he got up to look for her, she wasn't there. Again - no car in the driveway. Mom came home much later and he asked her then if she had forgotten something at the store? She had not yet been home - that wasn't her.

You'd think that would have been enough, right?

It wasn't until Dad got that promotion and we were set to leave that we moved out of that house. We were there just about 3 years.

Here's the story behind that house, as reported by a neighbor who casually asked my mother if anything "weird" was going on in there. From what we could gather: No-one has loved living in that house since the first resident.

A women built the house in the earlier 70's and lived there with her boyfriend. She was friendly and talked with the neighbors. Then one day she wasn't there anymore. Just gone, without a word. The house went up for sale. Someone else and maybe another lived there before we moved in. When this neighbor saw my mother for the first time, she was taken by the way my mother resembled this original owner.

Gossip? Real life drama?

I don't know. All I do know is that I hated that room...And have been curious as to what happened to the folks who moved in after we left. I wonder if anyone has been able to tolerate the 'environment.' And I wonder what ill fortune that woman came upon, if that was indeed her that we saw.

Patricia / April 11, 2005

West Camp, NY

I was born in NY and shortly after moved to West Camp / Saugerties area.

I'd have to ask my mother exactly where we lived, but I'm sure it was in West Camp. We lived in an older home and I was fairly young at the time. My mother would put me to sleep and I would call out to her, "Mom, Mom". She'd come in to ask me what it was and my reply was, "there's a lady in my room".

I saw this lady several times. The last time I was sleeping in my room with my hands folded across my body when I felt something cold touch my hand.

When I awoke I saw a lady sitting in the rocking chair next to my bed. Astonishingly I wasn't frightened, but intrigued.

She was wearing white and had golden hair. She was quite beautiful. I noticed she was weeping and asked her why she was crying. She replied something about a cat and I can't remember what else she said to me. She got up, walked over to the window, and gazed out of it and so I followed.

We stood there side by side and I have no recollection of how I got back into my bed and what else happened. To this day I wonder what we talked about and if she needed my help or was there to help me.

I know that several other people who lived on the road have seen her walking down the road.

Jennifer / April 21, 2005

Wurtsboro, NY

I was at home with my best friend one day while my Mom was at work. It was the middle of winter, so my windows were closed. We got bored and went outside, near the back of my house, near the woods. I sent the ball flying high, and it went into the woods. Elizabeth yelled she would get it and ran into the woods. I saw her tremble on a white bag that we had thought had been leaves, we knew it was leaves because we had looked under it 3 years ago when we moved into this house. So she came running back out and she ran over this bag.

So we went back inside and made some cocoa. While we were sitting at the table drinking it, my dog started to bark. She has 4 kinds of barks, one back when people she doesn't know is close, when shes barking at nothing, when my mom gets home, and when there are animals outside. So we were sitting at the table and she started doing her bark like someone was outside. I looked out the window but I didn't see anything except some leaves blowing (it hadn't snowed yet that year).

So we went back to the table and when we finished, we went into my room. We were sitting on my bed, Jackie, my dog was in there with us, then the door closed. It shut, and then the lock locked. I found that strange because the lock was on the outside of my door, the fault of the previous family.

Then someone, or something started banging on the door. My dog was barking, and we were screaming. I ran over to my window to see if I could open to get out, but then the banging stopped. I was still scared and I still wanted to get out of my room. The door unlocked and opened a crack and everything was quiet. Neither of us was brave enough to go out, so we just stayed near my window. Then as I was looking out, I saw a group of leaves coming off my porch, across the yard, and back to the white bag. My friend and I stayed in my room until my mom got home, 3 hours later.

We never did find out what happened, but needless to say, we don't go into the woods anymore!

Michelle, Wurtsboro, NY

Yonkers, NY

I grew up in Yonkers. NY, and lived there until my early twenties, I must have been 5, I was with my uncle and my father. Being the youngest, my father took me everywhere, and that particular day, we had gone to the house my uncles mother, and my fathers mother-in-law, had owed.

It was empty expect for some bits of trash around, and there on the floor was a Rudolph the red nose reindeer decoration.

As I stood there waiting for them to finish, whatever they had come to get from the house before it was sold, I hear clear voices of an older women, who was heavy, and I went to where the noise was coming from and it was a bathroom, I could hear the voices, it was two children and a grandmother type, giving the toddlers a bath.

I could hear it and see it, but I didn't even know what it was a house my grandmother had owned. She had passed away, shortly after I was born. Being so young, I was confused and a little be frightened.

I didn't understand what was happening to me. I left that area, still hearing the voices, and my uncle and father called to me and said lets go. I never said anything to anyone. But I was to find out, that my grandmother had owned that house, and she use to take care of my older brothers and sisters. When they were toddlers.

I recently heard the house and be torn down totally, and a new one built in its place. I often wondered if the people that lived in that house, ever sensed she was haunting it.

I have had experiences like this, and have found out I am psychic, but I didn't know it as a child, because it was really spooky to me then, I am glad I never said anything to my father or uncle, but, I wondered what they would have thought, if I could describe what my grandmother looked like, as I had never seen a photo of her, and knew nothing about her.

Yonkers, NY

I live in Yonkers on Palisade Ave. in a two bedroom. apt. overlooking the Hudson River. I have lived here for a lil over 9 yrs.

I live with my husband and my daughter. Shortly after moving in my daughter, at the time 12 yrs. old, began to complain she was hearing voices. It was the voice of a small child calling out to her while she played in her rm.

This particular day I was coming in and out washing clothes in the laundry in the basement. At one point I came in while waiting for clothes to dry and I heard her cry out to me from her room.

She was so scared and asked why I did not answer her. I told her I just came in. She told me weren't you just playing with me calling out my name like a lil kid. I said no. I continued to calm her down by trying to think of anything any explanation.

Another time we had stayed up late I was catching up on some school work and she decided to have a late night snack. My apt. is L shaped my dining room is situated at the end of the living rm right hand side. My kitchen runs through both dining rm. and the entrance as well as a hall w/leads to her bdrm. and bathrm. at the end. I have come to name this hall which extends from the bathrm thought the kitchen and dining rm the hotspot because mostly all activity takes place there.

On this particular night about 11:30pm while I wked. on my reading my daughter literally flew across the rm to where I was sitting clinging on to me shaking.

She kept repeating a small boy just walked into my bedrm. My husband was asleep and the door was closed. I tried to assure her she was probably tired and thought she saw something but she gave me a full description of the child and what her was wearing. I have to say, I was very creeped out and stayed up that night till 3:00am.

I heard a psychic once say you can talk to spirits or ghost and tell them to leave. So the next day when no one was home I told them they could stay as long as they did not scare me or my daughter ever again.

Throughout the years the activity dies down and returns almost as if to remind us they are with us. I had a small stuffed toy thrown at me across the room which sat on my daughters computer in front of both my shocked mother and daughter.

My daughters bed shakes almost like a vibration with no known explanation. My daughter again, when she was younger had her glasses knocked off her face right in front of me all this in broad daylight. Friends, relatives, and neighbors have also heard voices seen shadows.

I have things touch my feet and touch my forehead awakening me. Lights flicker for no reason, there are loud noises like equipment. being dropped in the next rm. When I or my husband check nothing is out of place. I hear footsteps see foggy white cloudy forms in the hallway. I've never spoken about any of this to anyone except my mom, brothers, and sister.

That is because they have seen -in the light of day- things. Also, I have seen my husband come in from work approaching me, only to turn, when I go to where he is he is not there. When I told him this he told me I was crazy.

Three years later when my daughter was about 19 yrs. old the same happened to him. He thought he saw her come in after she'd left to go out and when he called out to her she did not answer he went straight to her room while I watched and he approached me, stared and asked I am not playing where is she? I replied you must be crazy like me.

I have to admit I get scared sometimes but they've, because I think they are many, have never really harmed any one.

My logic is there are way more dead folk then there are living. I would hate to think death as an end. So, for nine yrs. we have lived with activity that to me anyway proves there is some existence beyond the here and now.

The building where I live was built sometime in the 1930s. I do not know what was here before that. I had one neighbor who moved some time ago from an apt. on my same floor.

When I first began to have activity I confided in her and she told me she had a similar problem at her place. She would hear a group of people talking in her living room. One night her husband woke her and told her to listen that he heard what sounded like a party going on in their living room. She said she became enraged because she had to go to work the next day so she screamed and cursed at them and never had a problem again.

Related Links

Haunted Hudson Valley
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