Clinton Furnace

A conical stone structure built in 1826 for iron smelting, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The ruins sit just off Clinton Road near the reservoir, contributing to the area's haunted reputation.

In 1826, entrepreneur William Jackson purchased roughly 1,000 acres of wilderness in what would become West Milford, New Jersey, establishing an iron smelting operation that would fuel the young nation's industrial growth. The Clinton Furnace rose from the forest floor—a towering conical stone structure originally standing over 20 feet high—fed by charcoal from the surrounding timber and powered by nearby Clinton Falls. The iron-mining community that grew around it, simply called Clinton, has long since vanished, but the furnace remains, now surrounded by dense woodland along what Sixt.com has ranked as the second most haunted road in the world.

The furnace earned its sinister reputation through Weird NJ magazine, which published reader accounts claiming the structure was a 'Druidic Temple' where occult practitioners gathered for midnight rituals. According to local legend, anyone who looks in on these rituals uninvited will suffer terrible consequences. While the National Register of Historic Places definitively identifies the structure as an industrial iron furnace (listed June 18, 1976), the temple mythology persists. The furnace's isolation, its ancient appearance, and its location on Clinton Road have fused industrial history with supernatural folklore.

Visitors report an oppressive atmosphere around the furnace, describing the sensation of being watched by unseen presences in the surrounding woods. Strange lights have been witnessed emanating from within and around the structure—white streaks and glowing orbs that seem to move with intention through the trees. The 1905 account of writer J. Percy Crayon warned that the woods near the furnace were 'never advisable to pass through after dark' due to tales of 'robbers, and counterfeiters, to say nothing of the witches that held their nightly dances.' These warnings have only grown more ominous over the decades.

The furnace sits at the southern end of Clinton Road, just above a bridge that carries its own legend—the Ghost Boy Bridge, where visitors throw coins hoping for a response from a child who allegedly drowned in Clinton Brook. The furnace amplifies the supernatural energy of the entire corridor. Nearby Cross Castle, built by Richard Cross in 1905 for $1.5 million (demolished 1988), was documented as a gathering place for Satanist ceremonies, with the official Lex Satanicus of the La Veyan Church of Satan found scrawled on its interior walls. The 1976 closure of Jungle Habitat, a Warner Bros. safari park just miles away, spawned legends of escaped animals crossbreeding into 'hellhounds' roaming the woods.

The area's dark history includes genuine tragedy. On May 14, 1983, a cyclist discovered a body surrounded by turkey vultures along Clinton Road—Daniel Deppner, murdered by contract killer Richard Kuklinski, 'The Iceman,' who allegedly used the road's isolation to dump victims. The discovery, just three miles from where Kuklinski's family went horseback riding, confirmed that Clinton Road's dangers weren't entirely supernatural.

Today, Clinton Furnace is fenced off by the Newark Watershed Commission, protecting both the deteriorating structure and curious visitors from each other. What remains is only the lower portion—the original 10 feet of brickwork that once rose above it has crumbled away. Yet the furnace endures as one of the best-preserved ironworks in northern New Jersey and the focal point of America's most haunted highway. Visitors continue to gather at the perimeter, photographing the moss-covered stones and reporting unexplained phenomena—the feeling of hostile eyes from the treeline, disembodied whispers, and lights that flicker where no light should be.