Blairsden
Four students from Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey were discussing a group project assigned to them by the professor of their Feature Filmmaking class, trying to select an interesting subject for a student documentary. While each of them came up with several good ideas, they had trouble finding one that all four of them could agree on.
"How about the history of slavery in New Jersey?" asked Holly Flynn, the only girl in the group, who had aspirations of becoming the next Ken Burns. "Did you know ours was the last Northern state to abolish the practice? In fact, there were slaves here until 1865."
"I have a better idea," claimed Dylan Smith, who wanted to follow in the footsteps of his hero, Martin Scorsese. "Since our field of interest is filmmaking, why not shoot a documentary about New Jersey being the first movie capital of the world? Most people don't realize that the first movie camera and viewer, the kinetograph and the kinetoscope, were invented at Edison's lab in West Orange."
After hearing four more ideas, Trevor Larson, the least academically inclined of the group and one who had no lofty ambitions about someday moving to Hollywood and winning an Oscar, was beginning to wonder if they'd ever reach an agreement. He certainly hoped so. After all, it was March already, and he was eagerly looking forward to the end of the semester.
"How about this?" he asked impatiently. "Let's take a couple of cameras down to the Pine Barrens and question the local people about the legend of the Jersey Devil."
"Great idea!" Holly joked. "Then the four of us will disappear in the woods, and our footage will be found a year later beneath the foundation of a one-hundred-year-old cabin, right?"
"I've got the perfect title," Dylan added, joining in the merriment. "We'll call it The Jersey Devil Project."
"You know, all kidding aside, our friend Trevor has come up with a pretty good idea," said Scott Lloyd, whose main area of study was computer-generated special effects. "Why don't we do a documentary about a little-known New Jersey legend? Let's face it, history is interesting to some people but not to everyone."
"Are you serious, Scott?" Holly asked. "Do you really want to do a take-off on The Blair Witch Project?"
"It wouldn't be a take-off at all. Blair Witch was fiction. I propose we do a real documentary. Find a legend, research it, question the state and local historians and film the locations. No script, no actors and, most of all, no getting lost and running around in circles in the woods."
"Sounds good to me. What legend should we pick—the Jersey Devil?" Dylan asked.
Holly immediately rejected the idea.
"I think the whole concept of the Jersey Devil has already been overplayed," she contended. "If this is the idea we all agree on, then I think we should choose a legend a little less well-known."
"I've got an idea," Trevor announced. "Did any of you ever see a magazine called Weird N.J.? It features articles on local legends, abandoned buildings, UFO sightings, hauntings and other bizarre things that go on in this state."
"Sounds like a good place to look," Dylan agreed. "See if you can get a copy and bring it to class with you."
The following week the four students thumbed through the pages of several back issues of Weird N.J. that Trevor had brought with him.
"UFOs in Wanaque," Dylan read. "I remember my parents saying something about this."
"Whoa!" Holly suddenly exclaimed. "Did you know there were Nike missile bases beneath Route 23 in Wayne? We used to take that road to my grandmother's house all the time. To think we were driving over nuclear missiles without even knowing it! It makes you wonder what else there is out there that we don't know about."
"Maybe we're better off not knowing about it," Trevor offered.
"Look at this one," said Scott, pointing out an article on the mystery of Blairsden.
"What's so mysterious about that place?" Dylan asked after looking at a photograph of a circa 1900 mansion.
"According to the article," Scott replied, quickly scanning the information on the page, "a wealthy banker built the mansion sometime around the turn of the century. When he died, his family sold it to an order of nuns, the kind who stay shut away from the rest of the world. The legend is that these nuns were either murdered or committed suicide, and now the place is supposedly haunted."
"You mean the house is still standing?"
"Yeah, and according to this magazine it's still owned by the order of nuns."
"I don't think we're going to find a more interesting legend than that one," Holly declared, and Dylan and Trevor concurred, making the decision unanimous.
* * *
The first segment of the documentary on Blairsden was filmed in the school's sound studio. The scenes included background information, architectural renderings and full-color drawings of both the mansion and the surrounding area. Scott, who had starred in several productions in his high school drama club, was to provide the voiceover.
"Roll tape," called Holly, who had been given the role of director.
"In the late 1800s," Scott began narrating, "some of New York's wealthiest families built huge estates on this scenic countryside of Somerset Hills, New Jersey, only hours from the hustle and bustle of New York City. This magnificent building is Blairsden. Situated on four hundred and twenty-three acres, the sixty-two-thousand-square-foot Italian-style mansion was the home of investment banker and yachtsman Clinton Ledyard Blair. This magnificent house contained thirty-eight rooms, twenty-six fireplaces and both a full-sized swimming pool and a squash court in the basement. Its construction took three years to complete and the cost—back in 1900—was an astounding two million dollars. Factoring in inflation, that would be more than fifty-seven million in today's dollars.
"In order to create the perfect setting for the mansion, the builders actually had to bring in heavy machinery to level the top of the mountain before constructing the house. Terraces were then carved into the hillside down to the Raritan River below where a massive stone dam was built across the river, creating a man-made lake, which has come to be known as Ravine Lake.
"Once a symbol of wealth and privilege, today this old mansion is shrouded in mystery. Daring teenagers sneak into the back entrance of the estate to discover for themselves if the bizarre tales of wandering ghosts and strange apparitions are fact or fiction. In this documentary, we are going to learn about some of those legends and, hopefully, get to see what has become of the once grand estate known as Blairsden."
"Cut," Holly yelled. "That was really good, Scott."
The next segment of the documentary was filmed in the Peapack-Gladstone area of Somerset Hills, where Blairsden was located. Trevor had been able to find a number of local townspeople who agreed to appear on film and tell their tales of weird sightings at Blairsden.
Early on Saturday morning Dylan, Scott, Trevor and Holly loaded their audio and video equipment into Holly's Subaru Forester and headed for Peapack. Dylan had already compiled a detailed schedule of people to be interviewed and a list of locations to be filmed.
"The first guy we're going to interview is Daniel Stewart, a high school teacher whose hobby is local history."
Within an hour, Scott and Mr. Stewart stood outside the local public library, ready to begin the interview.
"Roll tape," said Holly, nodding to Scott.
"With me here in Peapack, New Jersey, is Mr. Daniel Stewart, a language arts teacher and local historian. Mr. Stewart, could you tell us what this area was like at the time Blairsden was built?"
"Of course. Back in the 1870s to early 1900s, many wealthy industrialists and financiers from New York built country homes in these hills because of the scenic beauty of the countryside. Men such as Astor, Roebling, Squibb, Pfizer and Duke built huge estates around here and gave them names like Boulderwood, Renemede, Knollcrest, Cragwood, Honeyfield, Stronghold and Hillandale. These wealthy men lived up here like British aristocrats. They held horse shows, fox hunts and lavish parties. Politicians and society people—the rich and famous—came to visit at Blairsden."
"So it wasn't uncommon back then to find a mansion of this size in this part of New Jersey?"
"Not at all. Around the turn of the century, big estates were fashionable with the social elite who were building mansions and castles in places such as Newport, Rhode Island, and along the Hudson River. Of course, Blairsden was one of the biggest estates in this area. The main entrance had a three-hundred-foot reflecting pool where a flock of white swans used to swim. Around the pool were urns and busts of Roman emperors. A staff of seventy-five servants was needed to maintain the house and grounds."
"Mr. Stewart, would you tell us about the family who built this estate?"
"Clinton Ledyard Blair was the original owner of Blairsden. He was the grandson of John Insley Blair, one of the richest men in the world, with interests in banking, railroads and retail stores. A well-known philanthropist, John Insley Blair founded Blair Academy in what is now Blairstown, New Jersey, and contributed a great deal of money to the community. In gratitude, the townspeople named the town after him."
"And the grandson, Clinton Ledyard Blair?"
"He went to Princeton and after graduation followed in his father's and grandfather's footsteps by going into the family banking business. He was also a director of several railroad companies and assisted in the mergers of several major oil companies."
"Banking, railroads and oil: he sounds like a bit of a robber baron."
"As for his personal life, he married Florence Osborne Jennings, and the couple had four daughters, all of whom were married at Blairsden, which, by the way, was only one of Blair's homes. He also had a place in Bermuda and an elegant townhouse on Fifth Avenue. Then came the stock market crash of '29, and the country found itself in the grip of the Great Depression."
"What happened to Blairsden then?"
"Blair eventually lost his fortune and had to sell off his yacht, his private railroad car, his home in Bermuda and the New York townhouse. When he died in 1949, his heirs sold Blairsden. The house, its contents and fifty of the original four hundred and twenty-three acres were auctioned off. The new owners, the Sisters of St. John the Baptist, bought the whole package for sixty thousand dollars—which was quite a bargain."
"What can you tell us about the new owners of Blairsden?"
"The sisters belong to an order that requires them to remain cloistered behind the walls of the convent. They have little or no contact with the outside world. But from time to time, some wealthy Catholic women have been allowed to use Blairsden as a retreat. A local historic society has been trying to purchase the house, but as far as I know, the sisters are still the owners."
"Cut," called Holly, who then thanked Mr. Stewart for his help on the project.
"That pretty much covers the history of the place," Dylan announced.
"Good. Now we get to talk to the crazies," Trevor laughed. "And if anyone tells me he's seen Elvis or Big Foot hanging around the front gates, I'm outta here."
* * *
When the tape started to roll, Scott made a blanket introduction to what Trevor jokingly referred to as the crazies.
"Now we're going to hear from the people who have grown up in the vicinity of Blairsden, those who have heard its bizarre legends and have even seen its formidable exterior and, in some cases, the interior as well."
The first speaker was a young woman, about nineteen years old, with pierced eyebrows and tall spikes of yellow hair.
"Well, I've never actually been there myself," she admitted, "but I once dated a guy from Flemington who sneaked inside one night. He told me that the floors were all made of marble and that antique tapestries covered the walls. The thing that most impressed him was a seven-foot-high statue made of solid gold."
The next speaker was an eighteen-year-old male student at Raritan Valley Community College.
"The story I heard was that a group of nuns bought Blairsden and turned it into a convent. The head nun was reportedly into some ancient pagan religion and tried to convert her fellow sisters. The other nuns didn't want to have any part of it, so the mother superior tortured and murdered them. My uncle told me that other people were staying at the convent at the time, people who had paid to use the rooms as some sort of religious retreat. The head nun was said to have killed them, too, before she finally killed herself."
A twenty-seven-year-old auto mechanic spoke next.
"Parents used to tell their kids frightening stories about the place, probably to discourage them from trespassing. I went up there once with a bunch of my friends when I was about fifteen. There's a path from the bridge to the back entrance where people report seeing the ghost of a man who was murdered inside the house by a group of nuns. He appears about halfway up the path and tries to warn people away. Those who don't heed his warning later come across the ghost a nun who tries to take them inside and kill them. When we walked up there, we didn't see any ghosts, though. Back then I was a lot braver, and I found it pretty disappointing. Now, I don't know if I'd really want to encounter a ghost in those woods."
Another student, one from Centenary College, followed.
"When the Blair family sold the place, it was turned into a convent and orphanage. There were about twenty-five nuns and twenty-five orphans living there. On the property, there are a dam and a waterfall. One day the nuns brought the kids to the edge of the dam, lined them up and pushed them over the edge. Then the sisters jumped in after them."
The next speaker was a twenty-six-year-old secretary.
"Blairsden became the home of a group of nuns who took the vow of silence. Once a week one of them went down to the gate to get the groceries from the local delivery boy. For two weeks straight, the nun didn't show up, so the grocery boy told the sheriff. When the sheriff broke into the house, he found blood and dead nuns everywhere. I heard that their bodies were so torn up that it was almost impossible to identify the remains. The police never solved the case; they just locked the place up."
The rest of the people the students filmed told tales of being on the property and having strange feelings of being watched or hearing odd sounds.
When Trevor contacted the local police department to see if someone there would consent to be interviewed, he was told only to stay away from Blairsden. It was, after all, private property.
"So, what do we do now?" Dylan asked.
"After we're done filming down here, maybe we could get one of the psychology professors at school to present a few theories on how a lot of these stories get started and why people are so fascinated with hearing tales of murder and seeing spooky old houses," Holly suggested.
"Great idea," Scott exclaimed. "Now, the last thing we do down here is see if we can get some footage of the house itself—the outside anyway. I'm not about to risk getting arrested for breaking and entering."
"Yeah," Trevor joked, "trespassing is bad enough!"
* * *
"Roll tape," Holly called, as the four film students stood on the road leading to one of the entrances to Blairsden.
Once again, Scott was narrating.
"This guardrail blocks off the main entrance to Blairsden. As you can see, the driveway is completely overgrown with weeds and vines. I'm going to try to make my way through here to get a glimpse of the main gate." After a short time, he announced, "There it is."
Trevor pointed his video camera at the entrance and commented, "Look at that face engraved on top of the gate. It almost looks like it has fangs. No wonder kids sneaking in here at night get the shit scared out of them."
"Cut," Holly yelled.
"Sorry, guys, I forgot the cameras were rolling. I guess we'll just have to edit my remarks out."
"No problem, Trevor," Scott said. "Look, we can't get onto the property this way. Let's go around to the back gate. One of the guys we interviewed said that there is a path that leads up the mountain to the house."
"You mean the path with the ghost warning everybody to stay away?" Dylan laughed.
"Don't forget the ghost of the murderous nun that comes after him," Holly added.
"I'm not going to worry about her. If I see the first ghost, I'll beat you all back to the Subaru."
* * *
Holly cued Scott to begin.
"This is the back gate to the estate. You can see the ram's head fountain with the name Blairsden engraved above it. To the side of the fountain are the iron gates. The mansion itself is about a mile up this drive. We're going to take a path through the woods to see how close we can get to the house."
Dylan and Trevor followed Scott's movements with the two video cameras. Holly was in the rear, trudging through the woods, behind the three young men.
"I think I see the house," Scott cried with excitement.
The four students scrambled through the heavy underbrush to get a glimpse of the mansion they had heard so much about. Dylan started filming the fountain at the base of the mountain. Then he slowly panned the stone stairways around the fountain, continuing up the stairs to the terrace and, finally, the mansion itself. From what he could see from his position in the woods, the house was indeed magnificent.
"It reminds me of a castle in a fairy tale," Holly said fancifully. "I can imagine Cinderella running down those stairs, losing her glass slipper on the way."
"Hey, where's Trevor?" Dylan asked. "He was right behind me a minute ago."
"Trevor? Trevor!" Holly shouted.
"He's probably playing a joke on us. You know him," Scott laughed.
From the woods around them came the eerie sound of a woman crying.
"Is that you, Trevor? This isn't funny. We're supposed to be working here, not joking around," Holly yelled.
The three students heard more crying voices and one that was praying.
"I don't think that's Trevor," Dylan said.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour ...."
The woman's prayer was cut off by a terrifying scream.
"Let's get the hell out of here," Scott shouted.
"We can't go and leave Trevor here," Holly protested. "Trevor!"
When she turned, she saw him standing there, silent and still, almost hidden by the wildly growing trees and vines.
"Trevor! Why didn't you answer? Didn't you hear us calling you?" Dylan asked. "What's the matter with you?"
Trevor did not reply; he simply stared vacantly ahead. When he did speak a few moments later, it was in a woman's voice.
"My sisters are all dead. I brought them here, and they died. It's all my fault."
"It must be one of the dead nuns speaking through Trevor," theorized Holly, who was frightened and yet fascinated at the same time.
"Leave here, now. This place is cursed. I was raised a good Catholic and never believed in pagan superstitions, but many of those old religions claim that trees, water, rocks and animals—all things in nature—have spirits. when this place was built, the workmen cut deep into the mountainside and dammed up the river. Consequently, the ancient spirits put a curse on Blairsden. And my poor sisters, just young girls ...."
There was another blood-curdling scream, followed by silence. Trevor continued to stare straight ahead. Then suddenly, he pitched forward. Scott ran to him.
"He's dead," a stunned Scott announced with disbelief.
Dylan grabbed Holly by her wrist and yelled to Scott, "Let's get out of here."
As the remaining film students frantically ran down the path, the brush and weeds seemed to reach out toward them, tearing their clothes and scratching their flesh. The attack was not meant to keep the young people imprisoned at Blairsden; on the contrary, it was a warning to discourage them from ever returning.
* * *
Trevor Larson was officially listed as a missing person. Although the state and local police searched the woods thoroughly, they could find no sign of the young man's body.
Back at Fairleigh Dickinson, the three surviving film students viewed the footage they'd shot at Blairsden.
"I can't explain it," Dylan announced with perplexity. "Everything we shot in the studio is here. So are the interviews with the teacher and the crazies. But look, something really weird happened when I filmed the mansion. You can't see the house, the gates, the fountains or the terrace staircases. The audio is intact, but the only things visible on the video are the trees, vines and weeds."
Neither Holly nor Scott asked Dylan if he had inadvertently pointed the camera lens toward the woods instead of the house. They both knew the fault was not his. Whoever or whatever killed Trevor and those nuns made sure Blairsden would not be seen on the tape.
* * *
In the Somerset Hills of New Jersey, the once grand Blairsden still stands, its view obscured by dense foliage. But it is neither human neglect nor the ravages of time that caused the estate to become so overrun with weeds and vines. Rather, it is the spirits of the mountain, the forest and the river reclaiming what is rightfully theirs.
This fictional story was based on an article I read about Blairsden in an issue of Weird N.J. For several years, I have been a fan and avid reader
of the magazine. I'm delighted that the writers and editors have now expanded their efforts to cover the entire Weird U.S.!
Note: Blairsden is PRIVATE PROPERTY. The home has been restored and was purchased in 2012 by a private homeowner for $4.5 million. Please respect the owner's rights and do not trespass. Besides, there is no evidence to suggest there is anything of a paranormal nature on the property.
The image in the top, left-hand corner of this page is of the rear of Blairsden.
Salem, you'd better stay away from Blairsden before the spirits of nature reclaim you, too.
