s back many of the people had been convinced that an occasional
witch had appeared among them, getting into the churns and preventing
the butter from coming, breaking the legs of sheep in jumping over the
fence, causing their horses to become suddenly mysteriously sick, and
making themselves obnoxious in various ways. But it was not until the
year 1788 that New Jersey ghosts determined to go regularly into
business at this place.

Supernatural occurrences of this period attracted a great deal of
attention, not only in the town itself, but in the surrounding country;
and an account of what happened in Morristown during the time that the
spirits were holding their visitations at that place is related in an
old pamphlet published in 1792, written by an anonymous person who had
no faith whatever in ghosts, but who had a firm belief in the efficacy
of long words and complicated phraseology. We will take the story from
this old pamphlet.

For a long time there had been a tradition that a vast treasure was
buried on Schooley's Mountain, or, as it was then spelled, Schooler's
Mountain, which was at that time a wild and desolate region more than
twenty miles from Morristown. It is said that there were two gentlemen
of the place who were particularly strong in their belief in this
treasure, and they felt sure that all that was necessary in order to
obtain it was to find some man who had knowledge of the habits and
customs and requirements of the spirits in regard to treasures. Having
their minds on this subject, it was not long before they heard of such a
man. This was Mr. Ransford Rogers, a schoolmaster in Connecticut, who
knew many things, and who pretended to know many more. He really did
understand something about chemistry, was very ingenious and plausible,
and had been frequently heard to say that he was not afraid of spirits,
and was able to call them up, converse with them, and afterwards cause
them to disappear. This was exactly the man needed by the two gentlemen
of Morristown, and they went to Connecticut to see him.

When the business of the visitors was made known to Rogers, he was
delighted, for here was an opportunity to get into a good business,
which would probably be infinitely more pleasant than teaching. So he
gave up his school and came to Morristown, being under contract to the
two gentlemen to do what he could to induce the spirits to reveal the
place of the concealed treasure in Schooley's Mountain. But