Branch Brook Park

America's first county park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, is famous for its cherry blossoms and 360 acres of natural beauty. But the park harbors a tragic ghost story that predates its design.

Branch Brook Park, established in 1895 as America's first county park, occupies 360 acres of land with a dark history long predating its transformation into a public green space. Before the Essex County Park Commission acquired the site, much of this area was a dismal marsh known as Old Blue Jay Swamp, surrounded by bleak, unhealthy tenements where residents drew drinking water from the contaminated swamp—conditions that contributed to Newark's devastating cholera epidemics of the 1800s. During the Civil War, the land served as Camp Frelinghuysen, a training ground where six New Jersey regiments prepared for battle between 1862 and 1864, and some never returned from conflicts at Antietam and Appomattox.

The park's most enduring ghost is known as the White Lady, or as longtime residents of Newark's Roseville section call her, "Mary Yoo-Hoo." The legend centers on a tragic accident that occurred on a sharp curve along the park road. Several variations of the story exist: in one account from 1976, a bride and groom were traveling through the park after their wedding reception when the chauffeur lost control on the treacherous turn. The vehicle slammed into a tree, killing the bride instantly while the groom and driver survived. Another version tells of a couple on their way to have wedding photos taken in the park when their limousine hit a patch of ice and skidded into the same fateful tree. A third variant describes a young woman killed while heading to prom when her date lost control of his V8 Ford Mustang in heavy rain.

The tree in question became legendary—locals painted a large white patch on its trunk to warn drivers of the dangerous curve, and a white X marked the spot where the bride died. For decades, the tree served as a beacon for both the curious and the terrified. On foggy and rainy nights, motorists reported seeing a translucent figure in a bloody wedding dress standing beside the white-marked tree, sometimes beckoning drivers toward her, sometimes crossing the road in front of their vehicles. The apparition was said to appear with her gory gown billowing in an otherworldly breeze that witnesses couldn't feel.

Generations of Newark residents grew up with midnight drives through Branch Brook Park as a rite of passage. One longtime resident who lived on Highland Avenue across from the park recalled: "We would pile in a car at midnight and drive through looking for the lady in white. You had to go really slow near the sharp curve by the tree and it would be pitch black out. I swear one time we saw her, her white flowing gown in the dark wandering looking for her dead husband." The legend became so embedded in local culture that Weird NJ magazine documented the White Lady in no fewer than seven issues.

L'Aura Hladik, founder of the NJ Ghost Hunters Society in 1998 and author of "Ghosthunting New Jersey," investigated the phenomenon and offered a possible explanation. She noted that the park's origins as Old Blue Jay Swamp meant the area was prone to swamp gases and unusual atmospheric conditions—fog and humidity that, combined with passing headlights on rainy nights, may have produced the spectral images witnesses described. The park's history of death—from cholera victims in the tenements, to Civil War soldiers who never returned, to the fatal car crashes—created a psychological landscape ripe for supernatural encounters.

Today, the original White Lady Tree has been cut down, and the dangerous curve has been rerouted to improve safety. With these changes, sightings of the Lady in White have largely subsided. Yet the legend persists, and some visitors still claim to glimpse a shimmering white figure among the trees on misty evenings. Branch Brook Park remains one of New Jersey's most beloved green spaces, famous for its 5,000 cherry blossom trees donated by Caroline Bamberger Fuld in 1927. But those who know the park's haunted history still feel a chill when driving through after dark, wondering if Mary Yoo-Hoo might still be searching for her lost love.