Its been known for years as one of, if not the most "haunted" roads in America. Clinton Road, West Milford is found after a few quick turns off of Route 23. I had heard about this road, at first, through word of mouth and then after a bit of research.
After some digging online I unearthed more about this seemingly unknown stretch of pavement before venturing on it for the first time.
This is "Cry Baby Bridge." It was named because of a legend that rumors of a boy who was playing underneath the bridge and drowned tragically. Legend holds that if you throw a quarter off of the bridge at night and get back in your car, the boy will throw it back to you and it will hit the roof of your car with a loud ding. More recently, my friend and I slid under the bridge and began to pluck quarters and nickels out of the water below. We only managed to thieve three dollars and fifteen cents from the ghost.
"If you drive on that road, a truck chases you and tries to make you crash" stated a friend of mine.
Late one night I had a friend over to visit Clinton Road with me. We set out to the town of West Milford where the road is located. I took several pictures on this night but none of them came out the way I had expected because of the eery mist that filled the air. While we were out I was reminded of some of the tales I had read and heard about what had happened along this road and in the woods nearby. They were stories of Nazis, Klansmen, witches and even a nudist colony.
Not long ago, a woman was found along this road and was brought to the hospital near West Milford. The EMT's said there were cuts and wounds all over her body and she was extremely delirious and showed signs of hard drug use. She was continuously screeching about her supposed encounter with a group of witches she had been captured by along the road. The story of the woman has been proven a fact, though her encounter with witches is little more than a bad trip on meth.
Another true tale is of the nudist colony that used to reside deep within the woods off Clinton Road. Another blogger I followed online has pictures to prove its former existence.
I found a documentary on youtube of some amateur "ghost hunters" on Clinton road searching for supernatural phenomena with their spirit hunting equipment. The next day they interviewed a woman who had lived on the road for several years and informed them of the real story behind the drowned boy and the bridge. She stated that it was actually two boys that drowned one winter. They were playing out on the reservoir and one of them fell through the ice. The other boy clambered to save his brother and drowned as well. The woman said that this event happened nowhere near the bridge but she could understand why this tale would have been spun into a legend.
Though it is obvious that no ghostly apparitions or magical spells have ever existed here, what keeps me interested in these sort of places is trying to nail down the reasons why people begin these tales and how the feelings they experienced on this road bring them to the conclusion that the road is indeed haunted. Clinton Road has certainly had its share of ghostly tales and legend to earn its place among the most haunted roads in America.
