South Jersey is a weird place. That is partially why I love it. Obviously.
There are loads of Revolutionary War locales and significant
pieces of both state and national history. Not to mention the birthplace of our
beloved Jersey Devil in the Pine Barrens, the bizarre ecological environment
native only to our New Jersey. It's a place that both inspires and creeps out
tourists. It's sort of a rite of passage to get lost on the long
"country" highways through the scraggy woods. During the Monolith days, we spent plenty of time just driving and getting lost ourselves. Before
then, late night summer drives, desperately and unsuccessfully looking for
pieces of urban legend and folklore was a staple.
Looking back at the places I've written about on this page,
something kind of shocked me. I would have guessed that a majority of these
stories took place in South Jersey. But there are actually a lacking few. Most
of them involve the northern part of the state or even the Pocono Mountains. I
couldn't believe it.
So that brings us to a place called Mount Holly where, of
course, you can find something weird in the woods. In remedying that - - -
Mount Holly itself was crucial in the story of the American Revolution, but I won't delve too deep on that topic. It's been significantly covered (and much more factually) elsewhere, plus that's an area that I might let speculation cross over too heavily with the supernatural and folklore. I must maintain some semblance of reality. Mostly.
But there is one story I'll share that's based in both
bullshit and fact. Only in the last few years did I realize that one of the
most prominent founding fathers of the country was more or less a carnie, also
dealing in both bullshit and fact. Benjamin Franklin, in nearby Philadelphia,
was obviously a prolific writer and owned newspapers in Pennsylvania. He wrote
of alleged witch trials over the river (and through the woods?) that occurred
in Mount Holly, New Jersey. Reading them now is sort of hilarious, but it's
wild to think that this kind of yellow journalism was once possibly heralded as
fact. I kind of love that... but it also makes you question plenty of other
stories you hear about these kinds of locations.
There were never any witch trials in Mount Holly (further,
there were never in New Jersey itself) but that doesn't stop the whisperings
from Franklin's articles still circulating today, influencing modern folklore.
Perhaps inspired by these stories, spurring a game of
historic telephone that was never resolved, people today tell of the origins of
a curious fixture in the woods of Mount Holly, a stone slab featuring the words
"Holy, Holy, Holy." They say that the location was the scene of witch
trials and hangings. Or that the slab actually covers an opening which contains
the Jersey Devil, shackled and banished.
The altar is on top of what is called the Mount (perhaps the "mount" in Mount Holly) which is now a wooded, low-stress hiking trail. It's a beautiful area and in the winter it remains just as pretty, but with an added creepy factor when including the dead trees and rolling hills. It offered a vast line of sight, which made it useful during the Revolutionary War. I believe that control of the mount and the town itself was wrestled between redcoats and the Americans, with the British briefly occupying the town. Either way, there in the woods surrounding the Mount, the altar waits.
Nearby, there's also the so-called "Witch's Well,"
which feels out of place and foreboding. Never mind the water tower or
municipal chain-link fence around it, but it's fun to buy into the legends
surrounding it. That there was (again) a witch that was charged and thrown down
a well within the structure. Like something out of the Ring, she screamed and pleaded
for release, but found no salvation, and now haunts the area. You could
allegedly knock on the heavy, iron door and hear a response years ago, similar
to how you could also hear the chains that constrain the Jersey Devil from
within the Holy, Holy, Holy altar itself. I'm sensing a trend...
While the established lore of the altar and the Mount is
questionable, and could continue to change and evolve today, it's a unique
piece of New Jersey. Of course, you can do just a bit of digging, and find the
objective source and origin of the structure, but where's the fun in that?
Isn't it that much more exciting to believe that New Jersey
not only has its own piece of cryptid folklore, but also condemned it on a hill
somewhere? And that a nearby witch is also freaking out about it? I choose to
believe in those weird friends. Mostly.
Additional reading:
The Holy Holy Altar and the Witch’s Well
Holy, Holy, Holy –The Creepy Stone Altar in Mount Holly | PHL17.com
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| Bonus shot of me and the boys in the Pine Barrens, circa 2012 |
