that all trespassers
will be prosecuted
Abandoned slaughterhouse
holds legend of old farmer
VERONICA YANKOWSKI Marlboro Police Lt. Kenneth Gann (r) and Mayor Matthew Scannapieco inspect the condition of a one-time pig slaughterhouse on the grounds of the former Marlboro State Psychiatric Hospital.
Police dept. warns
that all trespassers
will be prosecuted
By karl vilacoba
Staff Writer
Deep in the overgrown brush of the former Marl-boro State Psychiatric Hospital property, Route 520, Marlboro, a one-time pig slaughterhouse has experienced an afterlife of sorts in local lore. But while visitors see the building as a place for paranormal pilgrimages to experience legends of ghosts, revenge and murder, local officials see a reality more of this world: a decrepit structure that someone will eventually get injured in.
Police said the building was once an attraction mainly for bored teenagers from Marlboro. But as the legend grew, arrests for trespassing on the Mon-mouth County-owned property included addresses from Ocean and Middlesex counties, even as far as Warren County. Over the past year, 30 to 40 mostly juveniles and young adults have been charged during the late night hours with defiant trespass on the property, according to Marl-boro Police Lt. Kenneth Gann.
"We’re worried that kids are going to get hurt here, or an officer will get hurt chasing someone here," Gann said. "It’s been going on all year. We’ve been arresting people after people."
Recently, Weird N.J. magazine ran a feature story on the slaughterhouse that caused a buzz among local officials. The legend is also the focus of several Web sites, complete with photos and message board testimonials ("I would totally like to get together with some of you and make a trip to the slaughterhouse. … I have some tech equipment that would be ace in capturing any paranormal activity," wrote "Gina," a prospective visitor from Boston.).
According to local lore, the piggery was once owned by a farmer named "Mr. Allen." The state of New Jersey seized the man’s property through the process of eminent domain and began using it to supply foodstuffs for the hospital. But Allen, bitter at the government, often showed up at the farm, scornfully eyeing workers before he eventually went insane.
Allen was committed to the hospital, and like several patients at the time, farmed the property he once owned. But he soon disappeared, and an unsolved and unexplained chain of crimes followed. Pigs were killed, their blood used to scrawl cryptic messages on the wall. According to some, a night watchman was murdered there, while others believe a worker was mysteriously mauled to death by pigs after falling in a pen.
These events have been blamed on the vengeful farmer Allen, who was never located. Legend has it that Allen often visited the building at night, and his ghost still stares out from a hole in the wall over the fields he feels were taken from him unjustly.
Of course, officials assure, there is no farmer Allen. A reporter’s check of the succession of deeds that comprised the hospital properties, some dating back to 1816, revealed no record of any owner with the first or last name of Allen. Local historians also said they know of no farmer named Allen ever owning a farm in the hospital area.
"It’s been totally manufactured," Gann said. "I’ve lived here for 48 years and nothing ever has happened out of the ordinary here."
What is perhaps not a coincidence is the slaughterhouse’s location on what was once Allen Road. Today, only a nub of Allen Road is controlled by the township and leads to a fence at the property border. In the past, Allen Road stretched on through the hospital’s expansive farm operations, now Big Brook Park, all the way to Boundary Road.
According to Gann, the remnant of Allen Road outside the park is a popular entrance for often intoxicated teens who climb over the fences. As recently as Oct. 3, a group of teens and young adults were charged with defiant trespass on Allen Road after an anonymous caller reported suspicious late night activity there.
Marlboro Mayor Matthew Scannapieco recently toured the slaughterhouse with Gann, Township Council Vice President Ellen Karcher and Public Information Officer Stephanie Luftglass and walked away concerned about its dilapidated condition. Empty beer cans, graffiti and cigarette butts were everywhere.
"The building is in such disrepair that it may need demolition," Scannapieco said. "People are using this as a hangout and it’s dangerous."
Officials said that since the county purchased the 365-acre tract for $4 million in 1997, it has been neglected and remained closed because of environmental problems. However, the mayor said he plans to reach out to county officials to see what can be done to address the slaughterhouse situation.
Gann remembers the slaughterhouse in its heyday as a state-of-the-art facility, one of the many farming operations on the property when the hospital was a largely self-sufficient community. Because Gann’s father was a doctor there, his family was once entitled to live in housing on the hospital property. Gann recalled the deteriorated road to the slaughterhouse being surrounded by apple orchards, which are now unkempt fields of tall grasses and shrubs.
Today, the slaughterhouse and nearby pig pens, chicken coops and other farm buildings are so overgrown with vines and trees that they are almost invisible from a short distance. The insides of the unlocked building, especially the ceilings, have rotted away since it closed more than 20 years ago. Only the stainless steel doors and fans of a walk-in freezer remain in any condition indicative that the facility was actually once usable.
Gann warned potential visitors that defiant trespass, the act of purposely and knowingly entering an off-limits property, is not worth the tradeoff.
"As an 18-year-old, whenever you apply for a job and it asks if you’ve ever been arrested, you can check off that box for the rest of your life," Gann said. "I don’t want to do it, but you will get arrested. I don’t care if we need to bring in 20 people at a time, it makes no difference. We’ll catch as many people as we can."