The 1788 Morristown Ghost Hoax

The saga of the Morristown ghost has been told around campfires and dinner tables in Morris County for generations. Local legend claimed that British Loyalists secretly buried stolen Patriot treasure on Schooleys Mountain as they fled the oncoming forces of George Washington during the Revolutionary War. Years later, in 1788, a former schoolteacher from Connecticut, Ransford Rodgers, convinced local prominent Morristown families that a ghost was protecting the true location of the treasure and that he alone could exorcise 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.