Monmouth County, New Jersey, is marked by dark and traumatic events that have shaped its remarkable history.
Hotspots of paranormal activity are filled with tortured and unsettled spirits. These are but a few of those stories.
The Spy House-
The man and his wife were standing in the front yard of the Seabrook-Wilson house Museum in Port Monmouth, NJ. It was nighttime and he was filming the house to show his friends back home. He didn’t believe that the house was haunted, but he wanted to document his trip. Through the camera reticle, aimed at the first-floor window, he saw a man with a grey beard dressed as an old-time sea captain walking through the room with a lantern. “I don’t believe this…” he whispered. His wife saw the man too. Suddenly, the man whipped around, looking straight at them…and vanished. The visitor and his wife stood in stunned silence. Then suddenly, a cannon shot roared from somewhere nearby. The tourists jumped and ran for their car, never to return to the Spy House again.
For the last 50 years, ghost stories have haunted the Seabrook-Wilson House (Built in 1720), commonly known as the Spy House. There are stories that say the house was built on an Indian burial ground. Chief Popamora is buried there. Captain Morgan used the basement as a torture chamber and his first mate, the Dread Pirate Roberts haunts the basement, while Morgan himself wanders the house, frightening children. There is a young boy in period clothing watching from an upstairs window. They say a lady, dressed in white, walks through the house carrying a crying child. Furniture and knick-knacks move unaided by human hands.
Parapsychologists conduct investigations at the Spy House quite regularly, along with psychics, and claim that the house is very active to this day.
But there is a problem.
Gertrude
In the early 1970s, the Seabrook-Williams house had been abandoned and was in a dilapidated state. Local resident, and president of the Leonardo Taxpayers Association, Miss Gertrude Neidlinger saw the house’s historical value and spearheaded community involvement to save the house from demolition and have it restored. Neidlinger became
the new museum’s caretaker/curator. In 1974, the Seabrook-Wilson House was registered with the National Register of Historic Places. However, there were few visitors. Gertrude began advertising and conducting tours, telling the history of the property. It had been a tavern during the Revolutionary War, and Thomas Whitlock (the original owner) would get British soldiers drunk and pry information out of them for the Patriots. (Note, Seabrook Wilson was a tavern, but not until around 1910. She told tales about every artifact, the house’s construction…and the ghosts. Word of mouth spread, and visitors soon came
knocking.
Gertrude expanded her branding of the house, now known as The Spy House, by holding seances and children’s sleepovers/ghost challenges.
It was some years later that Gertrude admitted that she had made up the stories and the ghosts to bring in visitors and to entertain them.
In recent years, historians and the press have lambasted Neidlinger for her tall tales. It is easy to create a villain in hindsight, not acknowledging the time period or challenges that they faced.
Before she was the spirited caretaker of the Spy House, Gertrude Neidlinger had already been a star of sorts—a trained soprano who made audiences howl with laughter by turning musical flubs into art. She called herself a concert comedienne, the first of her kind in America. She performed with the New Jersey Symphony, sang children’s concerts, did voice-over work for radio and early television, and was celebrated in the press for her gift of laughter.
When she finally settled near Port Monmouth, she brought that same theatrical sparkle to the old Seabrook-Wilson House. Her ghost tours were part séance, part stage play, and part history lesson—pure Gertrude: dramatic, warm, a little mischievous, and utterly unforgettable. Miss Gertrude was no villain. She was an entertainer and the champion of the house she loved. There should be more people like Gertrude in the world to keep us young, inspired and to keep the magic alive.