Welcome to Hell: The Essex Mountain Sanatorium

IN 1896, ESSEX COUNTY PURCHASED 325 ACRES OF FARMLAND on the border of Verona and Cedar Grove to establish the Essex County Asylum for the Insane. In1907 the Newark City Sanitarium or the Newark City Home for Consumptives was established just up the hill on the border of Caldwell and North Caldwell. This was a facility aimed at curing tuberculosis, and was known mainly throughout its history as the Essex Mountain Sanatorium, or simply the Hilltop.

After advances in medicine made tuberculosis a treatable disease, the number of patients at the Essex Mountain Sanatorium decreased dramatically. Eventually, all of the buildings at the top of the hill would be left abandoned, and would remain so for almost two decades. Rumors spread throughout the area of this isolated asylum. Tales were told of escaped lunatics that roamed the hallways of the derelict buildings and made their homes in the subterranean tunnels that permeated the facility’s foundations.

One afternoon I decided to investigate this abandoned sanitarium. I parked my car at the foot of the hill and began to walk up the long, arrow-straight road before me, Sanatorium Road.

I began to see the tops of buildings poking up through the forest ahead of me. The first was a three story, yellow brick structure. Every window was broken, and the parking lot behind it was piled high with pieces of office furniture. I came upon another building. The sun was sinking low in the sky as I approached the open front door. Upon entering the building, I looked up to see the spray-painted greeting, WELCOME TO HELL.

The building’s shadowy hallways were lined with rooms, each containing a bed, dresser, and locker. I was surprised at how intact the furniture was. At the end of the hall I found a pile of patient records strewn about the floor. I picked one up and read it. It was a night report dated 1978; “All Quiet,” it said. All quiet it was, I thought, perhaps too quiet, and that was starting to bother me.

I started up the stairs to the second floor and at the top, was greeted by the disapproving gaze of a horned demon. The pig-nosed, spray-painted portrait seemed to harbor a genuine contempt for my presence. I begged its pardon and descended to the lower regions of the building.

I made my way down the dim corridor, pushing open one door after another. Some of the rooms had been torched and were charred black from floor to ceiling. I was becoming aware of the intense quiet that surrounded me. It was then that I saw it, there in the dust where I hadn’t yet walked–a single footprint.

I froze. Then I heard my father’s voice, coming to me from when I was young and used to explore the forgotten corners of my hometown. “Someday,” he had said, “you’re going to disappear in one of those places, and no one is ever going to know what happened to you.” I hadn’t told anybody where I was going. I didn’t know who might call this dank home. What if the lunatics had indeed taken over the asylum?

Heading back toward my car I encountered another explorer. I asked him what he could tell me about the old hospital.

“Well,” he said, “everything was left intact when it closed; beds, instruments, gurneys. There were even padded cells with leather restraints. All of the buildings are connected by an underground network of tunnels. But I won’t go in them. I’ve been in every inch of this place, I’ve even been down to the old morgue and that was really frightening. But I won’t go in those tunnels. Some friends of mine wanted me to go down there with them once, bring all the lights and spelunking equipment, but you never know–there could be gas in there now, or God knows what!”

“Did you ever hear any stories of escaped lunatics roaming around up here?” I asked.

“I don’t know if they were escapees or not, but there were homeless people and vagrants living up in the sanitarium. They couldn’t keep them out. I heard rumors that they were former inmates that had been released, then came back after the place was closed and moved in. Anyway, between them, the vandals, and the satanic graffiti all over, the place was getting quite a reputation. One time, I heard that they even found a dead body up here somewhere!”

The main hospital of the Sanatorium at the Hilltop was demolished in the early 1990s. The remaining outlying buildings were razed ten years later.

Remembering “The Bin”

The sanitarium, or "The Bin" as we used to call it, was a mental hospital in Caldwell. There was one building that had an evil air surrounding it. I think it was a caretaker’s quarters. The energy in there was very intense and very dark, more so than anywhere else in the complex. There were primitive looking restraint devices, operating tables, even some physician’s tools strewn about the place. We never did have the nerve to check out the underground tunnels, even though we did find an entrance to them. – Joe R.

The Gooseman’s Hidey Hole at Essex Mountain

Deep within Overbrook, something evil lurks. A half-human, half-goose creature makes its lair in one of the abandoned rooms. My friends and I stumbled upon this unholy abomination's hidey-hole on a summer night, and have never been the same.

A nook under a dusty stairwell held Right Guard deodorant. The Gooseman obviously seeks to cover its natural, fowl aroma. Next to it, a serviceable hairbrush, which let us know that this half-breed was centaur-like with a human head of featherless hair.

"But," you say, "These are normal things for any person to have! There is nothing remotely gooselike in what you describe!"

Well, listen to this. A heap of tattered clothes lay on the ground (no doubt tattered in order to fit the mutant's waddling physique). Surrounding them—webbed foot prints and goose droppings. A yell of "GOOSEMAN!" and we fled the scene. - Anonymous