A while ago I wrote an article about my adventure of investigating , with a bunch of my family members, the legendary Mt Misery Road here on Long Island , New York.
The road is known for being haunted by way of being a place with lots of old history including being the location of a civil war Hospital among other things.
For years people have been claiming to see ghosts along the road especially around the area of a very old cemetery
A handful of relatives and I decided to take a trip along this road about a year or so ago and found it to be very interesting. The road is located in the middle of a very busy part of Long Island however stands out like a throbbing sore thumb as soon as you travel for a few minutes down the road and away from civilization.
The area of this road has been preserved by old homesteads that have become locked in time. The road and those around it are narrow country roads lined with lots of open land belonging to the old houses that make up the area. There is a great deal of state owned property mixed in along the road making it very desolate and blocked from what the rest of Long Island has grown to be.
Traveling down this road is like stepping back 200 years in history. Not only is it locked in a time warp it is also a very bleak eerie place that without question made my skin crawl. I did not enjoy my trip to this road or the area around it , in fact I could not wait to leave .
My family and I did not see anything we found ghostly during our first visit to Mt Misery Road and decided to track back to look at the old homestead of Walt Whitman in the area. When we reached the house we pulled over off the road to look in at the house and grounds.
This was when two odd things occurred. While looking at the house we heard an old time train whistle coming from the large state own preserve across from the house. My brother was in the back seat and commented that there were no train lines in the area. We all thought it was odd but knew there could have been many reasons for hearing it including the fact someone in the area may own an old train whistle and uses it to call in kids or to announce the time. People do this kind of thing when living in a open country area.
The second thing to occur is a bit more confusing. As my car full of family were all looking to the right side of the car towards the old homestead , I could feel something on my left and turned towards the driver’s window where I was sitting. There right in front of my face an Asian man in a small black vehicle had driven right up to my window and was screaming at me. I did not hear him I watched him. His mouth was moving and his hands were over his head just raging at me. I was stunned and said to the others in the car ” What the ..?.”
I looked quickly towards my family sitting with me in the car to get their attention . It could have only been a second or two. I turned back to look at this crazy man to see only the back end of his car quickly pulling away.
Again I turned to the others in the car asking if they had just seen that? My partner in life was sitting next to me in the front in the passenger seat. He told me he saw the end of a dark vehicle driving off but nothing else. I tried to look in my mirrors to see where the man went. From where I was parked it was impossible to see down the road.
I pulled away and did a U turn to see if I could see where this odd man went. The road was empty in both directions . We decided to ride down the road as it was impossible for his car to disappear from sight that quickly. We concluded he pulled in to a driveway.
The man had no reason to be screaming at me as we were completely pulled off of the road and not blocking his passage. His rage was strange so we wanted to see if he was a local who lived on the road and angry at our tourist behavior in his community
It became apparent once we started driving down the road that this man did not pull in to a close driveway or another homestead as there were none. We drove up and down the road trying to figure out where this man disappeared to in his little black car who was screaming at us without sound or reason. I will never forget his rage or how although yelling at us we heard nothing.
That event cured my need to visit Mt Misery Road. . I found the area depressing and the event with this strange man uncomfortable . I wrote about the event and forgot about it.
One of my sisters and her husband both work in medicine. They are science minded people who until proven otherwise keep a rather skeptical view of things considered unknown.
She told me once about a year ago that every now and then they use Mt Misery Road as a short cut across Long Island to travel from the North to the South Shore. She told me it was very unusual due to the fact it is like stepping back in history and time and she was captivated to have a living view of what life was like a few hundred years ago.
She did not mention this road to me since she told me that and I thought nothing about it – until recently.
My sister called me and told me she had a very strange experience with her husband driving along Mt Misery Road. She told me they were slowly making their way along the road as it was very overgrown in areas and the foliage was overtaking some of the already narrow passage the cars had to travel along the old road.
My sister told me her husband had her pull off the road along the state land as a large branch was blocking most of the road and her husband felt it made for a dangerous obstacle and wanted to hop out and throw it back in to the woods.
She said her husband was in the process of tossing the old limb back into the wooded area along the side of the road when out of nowhere ahead of them about 40 or 50 feet down the road an Asian man appeared in the middle of the road. He was shirtless with black pants on. He was waving his arms at them and appeared to be angry with them.
My brother in law was a bit stunned for a second and stood and looked at the man. He put up his hands in a no problem gesture and yelled down to the man ” I do not want any problems buddy – just clearing the road. We are leaving now”.
My sister’s husband got back in the car and told my sister to lock the doors and to keep driving. My sister hesitated for a moment as the man was ahead of them and frankly he frightened her.
The Asian man walked to the side of the street . Her husband thought he went back up his driveway and told her to simply stay in the middle of the road and drive on. He wanted to leave the area as to not upset the man any further. Obviously he was not completely normal or he would not be shirtless or yelling in the road.
My sister started the car and gunned it down the road. They drove past the area the man was standing only to find congested woods on both sides of the road. They kept driving but did not come to another driveway or street for about a half of a mile . They were confused about what they saw and found a police care once they drove back to the populated area and told him what had happened.
Of course the police were not interested but did agree to drive down the road to see if the man was harassing cars and drivers.
We have no idea if he did go or if he did find anyone or anything. I found their experience as odd as our own and think that Mt Misery Road has yet another strange ghostly inhabitant protecting the area.
I told the story of what happened to my sister and her husband to my brother who is visiting me for the summer. He wanted to take a trip over to that area to take some pictures of the old homesteads and history that is part of the area. I had little interest in returning but agreed to take a quick ride down the road so he could take his photos but told him anything at all odd and we were out of there.
The road remained as I had last seen it locked in the past and for me bleak and eerie. I do not like being there at all.
My brother took the photos he wanted and we were leaving the area when he was drawn to a very old house that was abandoned sitting along the side of the road. He insisted I stop the car and we both got out of the car and stood directly in front of the old place.
I stood looking clearly at it and did not see anyone or anything around. It was extremely quiet around the old house. I noticed I did not even hear birds or the normal sounds of summer while I stood in front of the house. I did not like the house and it made me extremely uncomfortable.
My brother was captivated by the old place and kept taking photos of it. I finally felt so creepy at this old place that I got in the car and threatened to leave my brother there if he did not get in the car with me. He agreed the place had a bad feel and jumped in the car when I started to drive away.
Days went by before my brother decided to load his photos into his computer. When he did he sent me a few photos with this question ” What is that in the upstairs window? Did you see anything when you were standing there?”
I looked at his photos and quickly saw what he was questioning. There in one photo is how the house appeared to me when I was standing in front of it. I walked with my brother and stood next to him when he took the second photo which in time were only about 15 seconds apart when he took them. I was looking at the house carefully both times and did not see anything.
It may be nothing however on the one photo it clearly looks like something is in the window second to the right on the second floor of this old house. I have no idea why this looks as it does. My brother does not think it is a trick of the light . I have no idea what to think. I will tell you I have no intentions of going back to find out.
Photos taken that day with one below showing odd shape in second floor window that was not there seconds before.
My brother wants to return to take careful photos to see if he can capture anything else. I told him he is on his own . All I can say is that things are very odd on Mt Misery Road and I guess that is why is has the reputation as the most haunted road on Long Island.
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