The Ghost of Duck Pond

6/12/2025

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
The ghost of Duck Pond in Jamaica, N.Y. had been sighted for many years. He'd been frightening people who saw him when he appeared like a "mournful shade from the treetops when there is a ring around the moon."

Story of haunted pond in Jamaica, NY c.1928

The ghost is seen raising its arms in supplication towards the heavens. The appearance of the ghost is limited to when the moon is framed in a haze, and not all can see it. The ghost appears at the little park lake, and comes only during the hottest night. The appearance of the specter signals higher temperatures and a dry spell. He only materializes for a week.

The descriptions vary. The older residents of the "Hill" section of Jamaica claim that it's normal for ghosts to change their appearance. It's described as a gauze like vapor with a "skull-like head and leering eyes of greenish tint."

Is the ghost that haunts the Duck Pond a farmer who lost his way in the forest?

Others say it looks like the ghost that haunted Scrooge, another version says the ghost is shrouded in white and carries a crooked staff.

The most interesting story is that the phantom was once a farmer's son during pre-Revolutionary times. He lost his way in the forest while traveling to meet a neighbor's daughter. The trail in the forest that covered Jamaica in that far away time led him astray.

Fifty years passed and he was never heard from again until his ghost appeared one summer pointing to the place he failed to reach so many years before. But the true identity of the apparition remains a mystery as well as to whom it will appear.

In 1910, William Morland a New Jersey farmer living on the Rancocas Road told the story of how he was going home as the sun was setting. Suddenly his horse startled and out of a nearby road he saw a figure emerge. Morland who was known to be a truthfal man said his horse took off and ran a mile before he was able to subdue it.

He described that he got a good look at the figure as his horse thundered by it, and it was headless. Old residents tell a story of how 25 years before a young man took his life in the same woods by blowing his head off with a gun.