P . 18 | OCTOBER 2022 | THE HAMMONTONIAN
Some Hammonton ‘ ghost stories ’ for Halloween
HAUNTING , from P . 17 all the windows were open , and I said , ‘ Oh my gosh . I smell a horse !’ It ’ s been decades since it was a horse barn , but you can still smell horses in there ,” she said .
Jones-Rodriguez was quick to reiterate that these happenings are never scary ; if anything , they ’ re comforting .
“ There ’ s only two or three people , when I worked here , that are still alive . Everybody else has since passed . To me , that is fate — destiny — telling me that I ’ m the person who ’ s supposed to go forward with the property , the home , with what ’ s going on inside . I ’ m the caretaker of the home . The building . The property . I feel like I belong here . I love it here ,” she said .
One of the individuals who worked with Jones-Rodriguez at the Cornucopian was Millicent Sofia , who opened her own flower shop — Our Expressions Florist — at 128 Bellevue Ave . Her son , Sam Sofia Jr ., said that building , too , had its share of unusual activity .
“ There had always been weird stuff that happened in my mother ’ s flower shop ,” Sofia said .
Sofia said that when the business first moved into that location , his grandfather , Charles DeMarco , worked in the basement to build a walkin cooler for the flowers .
“ He was on the ladder , and every once in a while the ladder would get a little shake to it , and he ’ d look down and see a little something taking off . He didn ’ t describe it perfectly , but he could see something , and he ’ s say , ‘ Get out of here ! Leave me alone ,’” he said .
That , Sofia said , continued for a number of days .
“ The last day he was getting ready to finish it up , and whatever it was almost knocked him off the ladder . He came upstairs , and never went back down there again . When he came to the flower shop to visit , he ’ d never go down there ,” Sofia said .
Sofia noted that the building was once the location of Mark Press ’ s clothing store .
“ There was a very strong presence in that store , and the word was that it was Mrs . Press . That ’ s what everybody always said . Mrs . Press haunted that whole block ,” he said .
Sofia said that his mother would also have the occasional encounter .
“ Sometimes my mother would be working there in the middle of the night and something would happen . My mother would yell , ‘ Go away !’ and it would stop ,” he said .
Though he himself never encountered anything unusual there , Sofia said that his mother and grandfather were not alone in their experiences .
“ You hear other people talk through the years ; a lot of people who worked down in basement would see or notice something weird . Nothing was ever malicious ; it was little things , little tiny things , just to let you know that someone was there ,” Sofia
SAM SOFIA JR . IS PICTURED BESIDE THE FORMER LOADING ENTRANCE OF THE BUILDING THAT ONCE HOUSED HIS MOTHER ’ S FLOWER SHOP , OUR EXPRESSIONS FLORIST . said . Sofia said that such instances “ went on for years .”
“ I don ’ t know if the people there today have noticed anything , but that went on for as
long as my mother was alive ,” Sofia said .
Millicent Sofia died in 2006 , and was buried at Oak Grove Cemetery . Carlton “ Skip ” Measley , the president of the Oak Grove Cemetery Association , said that strange occurrences have long been reported there , as well .
“ We like to say that we have spirit but we ’ re not haunted , but sometimes you hear things . We ’ re closed from dusk ‘ til dawn for more than a few reasons ,” Measley said .
According to Measley , nights at the cemetery can sometimes be chilling .
“ Our board has had a few night meetings here , and sometimes there ’ s knocking or scraping on our office door . When we go to look to see who it is , nobody ’ s there ,” Measley said .
Measley said that one particular part of the cemetery brings noises of its own .
“ In the back along the treeline from Old Forks Road , it gets so dark that moonlight doesn ’ t even shine through the trees . We hear sounds that are probably animals , but it sounds like giggling . We ’ ve had reports of people back there , but there ’ s nobody there when we go look ,” Measley said .
That section , Measley said , was the location of a gruesome discovery in 1939 . The body of a man who died of a gunshot wound was found in that area ; the man was never identified and was buried in an unmarked grave at Greenmount Cemetery a week later .
“ Our grounds crew sometimes comes out here at night to do a property check , but that ’ s the one area they don ’ t like to visit ,” Measley said .
Unexplained phenomena aren ’ t limited to nighttime hours at Oak Grove Cemetery , either , Measley said .
“ Our caretaker has said that , a few times , his whole body broke out in goosebumps for no reason . He takes it as a sign to go home for the day ,” Measley said .