Hoboken's Spookiest Bar: Does Late Bride Haunt Brass Rail?

HOBOKEN, NJ — Hoboken has its share of spooky sites, including Sybil's Cave, an off-limits natural spring where Manhattan socialite was found dead in 1841 (inspiring a story by Edgar Allan Poe). But some say the most haunted site is the Brass Rail, a bar on the main drag of Washington Street that was supposedly the scene of a wedding party turned tragic more than 100 years ago.

The New Jersey Ghost Hunters Society even visited the bar in 2004 to check out the rumors of what happened in 1904.

According to legend, a woman was celebrating her new marriage when she tripped at the top of the stairs and fell to the bottom. The poor groom, knowing his beloved's neck was broken, apparently drank too much and took his own life near the bar's stairwell. He penned a note first: "Now that my wife was taken from me, there is no reason for me to live."

On-line newspaper archives from that time don't turn up any mention of the tragedy, but bar staff have said they've seen and heard unusual occurrences.

According to the weekly Hoboken Reporter, which visited the site with a ghost hunter in 2004, "Employees of the restaurant have long reported hearing noise from the upstairs dining room after closing, and owner Armando Luis tells strange tales of an adding machine that mysteriously turns on during meetings and starts adding with no apparent rhyme or reason."

In November of 2004, Laura Lindeman, a trained investigator with the New Jersey Ghost Hunters Society, met up with a journalist at the bar. Lindeman took photos, tape recordings, and readings with an electromagnetic field reader.

As it turned out, the readings on the field reader were normal.

But according to the Reporter, "A week later, one of the pictures showed a wisp of smoke floating in the vicinity of the stairs — an indication of an ethereal presence."

Do you want to see for yourself? The historic exterior and elegant eats alone may be worth a trip to the restaurant. It offers an array of cocktails and brunch and dinner items from the sweet to the savory, from bananas foster French toast to veal chop Milanese.

Take A Waterfront Walk To Spooky Sybil's Cave

After you stop by the Brass Rail, you can walk a few blocks north along the waterfront and visit the aforementioned Sybil's Cave, where entrepreneurs once sold water said to have medicinal properties. The site received a grant in 2009 from the state's Historic Preservation Trust Fund.

The site is now closed off, but there were some unusual sounds recently — yet, they weren't related to the 1841 murder of Mary Rogers.

The sounds were music: The Hoboken Historical Museum sponsored a concert of "Modern Cave Sounds" at the site in August.

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