Discovering Staten Island’s Haunted Places with Odd & Untold

Why did it take years before I talked about Staten Island’s haunted places with Odd & Untold’s Jason Stroming? Over the years (almost 15!), he’s often mentioned Staten Island’s haunted places and suggested places I should check out if (when) I ever visit his New York borough. It seems so obvious we should’ve recorded such a talk now, but for whatever reason, we never did. Until recently.

Even funnier, we came about it in a roundabout way. Every now and then we host each other on our podcasts. It was my turn to welcome Jason, and we thought we might like to discuss the fallacy of “most haunted” classifications, which we touched upon briefly.

“I feel like every state and every city is like, ‘Oh, we’re the most haunted,'” Jason said during our discussion. “What does that mean? And who determines that? I don’t think any of these rankings are official.” (They’re not. That’s one of the problems with most haunted lists.)

But beyond that, what’s really left to say? People are weird —and weirdly competitive. For whatever reason, we want to categorize and distinguish everything, even technically unquantifiable things, such as “most haunted” places.

So we brainstormed that maybe talking about most haunted places in New York that Jason has investigated would be fun. Until we had that forehead slap moment when we realized it was a perfect opportunity for Jason to talk about somewhere near and dear to his heart: haunted places on Staten Island.

The entire chat is embedded below. Here are some of the highlights.

The Forgotten Borough

As Jason explained, most people think first of Manhattan when New York City comes to mind, but there are four other boroughs: the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, a.k.a. “the Forgotten Borough.”

It’s the least popular of all the boroughs primarily because it’s hard to get to. It’s the only borough not connected by subway, so you need to take a bus or the ferry or drive. There’s also not a lot to do out there.

However, even though it gets a bad rap, it’s also called the Borough of Parks because it has many of them. (To me, that sounds great. Give me woodlands and nature over skyscrapers any day!)

Essentially, “Staten Island’s sort of the suburbs of New York City,” Jason explained.

“Staten Island is growing, but until the Verrazzano Bridge was built connecting Brooklyn and Staten Island in the 60s, this was like mostly farmland,” Jason said, blowing my mind.

“It’s just like this little pocket of forgotten New York that you can go through. And there’s woods out here…and if you don’t know where you’re going, you can get lost. Not for too long. But you can get lost…So it’s nice. But again, a lot of people don’t come out here because there’s really not a lot to see —except if you like spooky and haunted stuff.”

Yes, please!

Staten Island’s Haunted Places

Even for its residential, comparatively rural feel, Staten Island also boasts a lot of surprising history —including of the haunted variety.

“During the Revolutionary War, the British were coming in through New York Harbor, and obviously the Colonies were against the King, but Staten Island was actually very loyal to the King. So when the Red Coats came, they camped a lot on Staten Island,” Jason explained.

Much of the history Jason spoke about involved the Revolutionary War, and one of his favorite places is the oldest house on Staten Island: the Conference House in Conference House Park.

The Conference House

The stone house dates to 1680 and was so named because of the Revolutionary War peace conference that happened there on September 11, 1776. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Rutledge met with Lord Admiral Howe to try and broker a deal to end the war. It wasn’t successful, but is an impressive piece of history.

And, of course, such an old house has to have a ghost story, right? It doesn’t have anything to do with the Revolution, and Jason said years of retelling have altered it so there are different versions. However, the gist is a slave girl died after falling down the stairs. Was she pushed after an altercation with Captain Christopher Billopp? Was it an accident? Or did Billop outright kill her? Was he having an affair with her and a fight went awry? They’re all variations on the theme.

Whatever the reason for the fall, the outcome was the same: the girl died. Ever since then, some people have reported seeing candlelight coming from the upstairs window —which is even more alarming when the house is locked up tight and empty.

“A lot of the tour guides will tell you that they’re seen it too,” Jason said. “Because it’s maintained by an association, it’s a landmark, so there’s a board of directors, there’s a board of trustees that oversee it. They don’t really like to push forward the haunted aspect of it. The paranormal aspect of it. But I’ve been on a number of tours over the years at the Conference House with different tour guides and they will…most of them have told us stories of stuff that has happened there.”

Historic Richmond Town

Another place Jason talked about was Historic Richmond Town, a living history village and museum. It’s a collection of old buildings from Staten Island’s past all brought together to recreate times gone by.

Among the places Jason said is rumored to be haunted is St. Andrew’s Church. The specter of a young British Red Coat is also said to be seen roaming in the graveyard.

“I guess he’s very young, like a boy, but he’ll sort of ask people questions in the graveyard, in the cemetery, and he’ll have the British accent. People say it’s like a Cockney accent.”

As far as inside the church, Jason shared how his team investigated it a couple of times and had some weird experiences. Even parishioners would report seeing things and hearing disembodied footsteps and such, but Jason’s team caught an EVP of a woman crying. But what makes it interesting is they were in another building at the time. They had cameras rolling so they know it wasn’t a person making the sounds, which is interesting.

There was also an incident with heavy brass bells that started ringing of their own accord during their investigation. There was no breeze to move them. It would’ve had to be a pretty hefty wind to move them even if there was. The chimes are substantial. No one from their team had bumped them either. They tried to debunk it but couldn’t. I say it was a strong ghost!

He also shared inside info about shenanigans Ghost Hunters got up to in the church, which was pretty revealing and eye-opening. (Jason explained it best so watch the episode. He talks about it around the 23:00 mark.)

Kreischer Mansion

Jason briefly touched on perhaps Staten Island’s “most haunted” house, which was built by Balthasar Kreischer in 1885. It’s endured some tragedies, which lends to its supernatural reputation, starting with the death of Balthasar’s son, Edward, who shot himself. Many believe his spirit still haunts the home.

But the more sensational component that really ratcheted up the claims came almost a century later, in the late 1990s, when new owners bought the house. Owners with crime family, a.k.a. mob mafia, connections. In 2008, it was discovered the then “caretaker” of the home, Joseph “Joe Black” Young, was a hitman for the Bonanno crime family who had murdered victims in the home. Yeah. Something like that is all it takes to fuel the paranormal rumor mill, right?

Fun fact: In addition to being investigated on an episode of the first season of Paranormal Lockdown, the house was also used as a shooting location in the TV show Boardwalk Empire.

Fresh Kills Dump

Trash has to go somewhere, right? Another reason Jason explained Staten Island gets a bad rap was because it had a landfill: Fresh Kills, which is now the Freshkills Park.

However, back in the 1980s and 1990s, more than trash was often found there. A lot of bodies were dumped there, too, courtesy of the mafia.

I thought the name “Fresh Kills” was a funny nickname the locals had given it. Nope.

Jason chuckled and explained, “Oh, no. So a ‘kill’ is what the Dutch would call rivers.” And then he named a bunch of the “kills” that New York has. In addition to the Fresh Kills, there are also Great Kills, Arthur Kill, Kill Van Kull, and even Catskill and Kaaterskill.

Speaking of the mob, Jason was reluctant to perpetuate any myths. As he put it, “I believe in Bigfoot, but I don’t believe in the mob. Don’t come after me.”

That speaks volumes when you’re less afraid of a big hairy beast, doesn’t it?

“Place of Bad Woods”

Something Jason has shared on his podcast about Staten Island that he shared during our talk was what the Lenape, the indigenous people called the island: Aquehonga Manacknong, which translates to “the place of bad woods.”

But what Jason (and many others) have wondered is what does that mean exactly?

He explained the island is comprised of clay, not bedrock. You can farm there, but it’s not ideal soil. They also endure a lot of flooding because of the ground. So is that why the Lenape called it “the place of bad woods,” or does it have another, more menacing reason? Is there bad energy there?

Jason said that’s an ongoing debate that may never be resolved.

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Have you ever visited Staten Island? And did you know “kill” was the Dutch word for river?