Batsto Village

A remarkably preserved 19th-century iron-making village deep in the Pine Barrens, Batsto was founded in 1766 and supplied the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. The 33 historic buildings include the Batsto Mansion with 32 rooms.

Batsto Village was founded in 1766 as an iron-making settlement deep in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, positioned where three essential resources converged: water to power the mills, abundant timber for charcoal production, and naturally occurring bog iron deposits in the surrounding wetlands. During the Revolutionary War, the Batsto ironworks produced essential military supplies including cannon and cannonballs for the Continental Army, making it a strategic target for the British. In 1784, the property was purchased by William Richards, whose family would own and operate the ironworks for ninety-two years. Batsto was organized as something between an extended farm and a company town, with small two-story worker houses, a general store, a post office, and employees paid in company scrip. When New Jersey's iron industry collapsed in the 1840s, Batsto attempted to reinvent itself through glass manufacturing, but that venture closed by 1867. The village passed through several owners before the State of New Jersey purchased the entire property in 1958, opening the restored fifty-room mansion and surrounding buildings as a historic site within Wharton State Forest in 1961. The last resident vacated the village in 1989.

Since then, visitors and paranormal investigators have reported encounters with spirits who seem unable or unwilling to leave. The Richards family, who shaped the village for nearly a century, is said to linger near the old ironworks, with unexplained phenomena in the mansion attributed to members of the dynasty. One of the most colorful local legends involves Frank Peck, known as the Water Wizard, a dowser from the nearby community of Indian Mills who was famous among Pine Barrens residents for his ability to locate underground water sources. Down-country folk who could not always remember his name simply called him the Water Wizard. His ghostly presence is still reported in the areas between Indian Mills, Tabernacle, and Batsto.

The village's connection to Native American history runs deep as well. Indian Ann, a Lenape woman who lived in the area during the nineteenth century, became legendary for her basket-weaving skills and her deep knowledge of the Pine Barrens landscape. Her presence adds what many describe as a mystical quality to the village, and some visitors report sensing an older, pre-colonial spiritual energy in the surrounding forest that feels distinct from the industrial-era hauntings.

The Pleasant Mills Cemetery adjacent to Batsto Village is another focal point for paranormal activity. Floating orbs of light are frequently reported among the gravestones, particularly on autumn evenings. Photographs taken in the cemetery have captured light anomalies that investigators have struggled to explain. The surrounding Wharton State Forest has long been associated with sightings of the Jersey Devil, the legendary creature said to have been born at Leeds Point approximately thirty miles to the southeast. Strange tracks in the woods, unexplained screams near the lake, and groups reporting a large creature crossing their path have all been documented in the Batsto area. The village hosts annual "Jersey Devil Bound" twilight hikes that take visitors into the forest to explore both the natural history and the paranormal legends of the Pine Barrens.