James Bechtold was one of Metuchen’s bravest, and dubbed the unofficial “Mayor of Metuchen.” A fireman since he was 18, he became the treasurer of the Metuchen Fire Department. “Everyone loved him,” says his brother Bob. “The funeral procession looked … Continue reading
Situated alongside a narrow seaside street in the tony Elberon section of Long Branch lies a curious footnote to United State history––a monument marking the death spot of the twentieth U.S. president, James A. Garfield. Garfield was shot on July … Continue reading
Poor Richard and Charles Hoopar. Some time in 1693, the brothers came across some mushrooms in the vicinity of Edison, New Jersey and decided to eat them. Maybe they found them in the woods and scarfed them down then and … Continue reading
New Jersey has plenty of history surrounding the Revolutionary War but not many people know about its Civil War connections. This Memorial Day weekend we take you to a place called Finn’s Point National Cemetery, located on the Delaware River … Continue reading
One of the very strangest tombstones in our state pays homage to Edgar Allan Poe, the master of the macabre, and his best known poem, The Raven. Continue reading
Almost anyone who has watched an MGM movie or television show has heard the roar of Leo the Lion just before the camera fades into the main event. You’d think that such a Hollywood icon would rate a burial in La La Land, but in Leo’s case, that’s not so. And thus begins the lion’s tale… Continue reading
If you’re heading southbound on the Garden State Parkway, at around mile marker 16, look for the grave of Noah Cherry, and African American Civil War veteran who was born in North Carolina 1831 and died in New Jersey in … Continue reading
It’s not unusual to find the occasional cemetery coexisting with homes in suburban New Jersey neighborhoods; it’s the byproduct of human history combined with an ever-growing living population that sucks up every remaining spot of Garden State real estate. It … Continue reading
An anonymous Weird NJ reader wrote to us and tipped us off to the mysterious grave stone of an unknown woman located in Egg Harbor. They said, “In Egg Harbor Township, Atlantic County, there’s a tombstone at the police station. … Continue reading
Traveling by a dark graveyard or cemetery at night can be a frightening thing, especially when the imagination comes into play and every crack of a stick or gust of wind lends the passer-by to think something more nefarious is … Continue reading
