As Mary Post was hanged for
being a British spy during the Revolutionary War in 1777 she placed a curse on the tree used to hang her. Before she died, she stated if anyone harmed this tree, they
would suffer.
More about Mary’s story is
shared in Part l, here.
Camp Glen Gray in the Ramapo Mountains in northeastern NJ. |
The curse placed on this
tree was first documented after a Boy Scout camp was built in 1917 on the
site where Mary Post was hanged. The ancient maple tree still stood on the camp property.
Are the following stories
truth or legend?
In 1935, a scoutmaster
wishing to stamp down belief in this curse cut a limb off the tree to prove the
curse did not exist. Three days later he and his family perished in a house
fire.
Sixteen years later a camp
official attempted to chop down the tree, again to put an end to the legend. As
he fiercely swung an ax at the trunk, it flew back and sliced his throat. He
later died from this wound.
A camper that knew nothing
about the curse unwittingly carved his initials in the tree in 1940. Everything was normal until he
fell asleep in his tent that night. When he awoke the
next morning he felt severe pain, he discovered one of his legs had a
compound fracture.
Camp Glen Gray |
Fifteen years later a camp
worker decided to defy the curse. He chopped off pieces of the Mary Post tree
to sell as souvenirs. Soon after he started to have horrible nightmares—they
continued until he went insane. This man lived the rest of his life in an
asylum.
By 1969, this tree was so
diseased New Jersey officials decided to have it chopped down. Two men were
sent to do this job. The first professed he did not believe in the curse—the
night before they were slated to cut down the tree he died of a brain
hemorrhage. His partner left quickly.
Another six years passed and
the tree still stood, but by this time it was dead. Some believed the curse
would now end, but they were wrong.
In 1980 on Friday the 13th a group of 13 men including 3 scouts decided to tempt the old curse.
With chainsaws, they succeeded in felling the tree.
A portion of this tree can
still, be seen at Park Headquarters. When the boy scout camp closed in 2001, Bergen County turned the old camp into a public campground.
So what happened to the 13
who finally felled the tree?
One was killed in a car
accident two weeks after the tree came down. A second man perished in a ski
accident, and the third died of liver disease—he started to drink after he
participated in the felling.
The other 10 participants did
not escape misfortune all suffered bad injuries within 12 months after the tree
came down.
The locals now believed
that the evil that surrounded this maple had finally come to an end but something else
unusual began to happen.
Lake Vreeland |
Witnesses reported seeing
Mary Post’s ghost near where she was executed. Then others came forward to
state they saw her at Lake Vreeland near where her inn once stood.
Her ghost is seen floating
above the water unusually late at night in the autumn months. Her apparition
has also been spotted in the nearby-untouched forest.
In Part l of A Revolutionary Spy and a Cursed-HangingTree how Mary Post betrayed the American Patriots is shared.
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