Federal-style 1825 house museum in Collingswood — shadowy figures, disembodied voices, and footsteps reported by multiple paranormal sources
678 Collings Avenue, Collingswood, NJ 08108
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
The house museum is operated by the Borough of Collingswood; check ckhouse.org for current admission and hours.
Access
Limited Access
Historic residential building; interior access may be limited for mobility-impaired visitors. Street-level entry.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1825 · Built 1825 by Edward Zane Collings on founding-family land · Collingswood borough takes its name from this family · Operated as a Borough of Collingswood house museum
The land on which the Collings-Knight House stands has roots in one of the founding families of colonial West Jersey. The Collings family held property in the area from the early settlement period; the current house was constructed by Edward Zane Collings in 1825 in the Federal style, which was at that point still the dominant residential architectural mode for substantial houses in the mid-Atlantic states.
Collingswood itself takes its name from the family. Edward Zane Collings built on land inherited from his father, continuing a multigenerational occupation of the same property. The house subsequently passed to the Knight family — hence the hyphenated name — who occupied it for a further period in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Borough of Collingswood eventually acquired the property as a historic resource. It operates as a house museum, one of the few surviving early-nineteenth-century domestic buildings in the borough's urban fabric. Interpretive materials at the site document the Collings and Knight families' roles in the development of what became a suburban municipality in the greater Camden and Philadelphia orbit.
The building's age — nearly two centuries — and its status as a museum with periodic unsupervised or after-hours access have contributed to its paranormal reputation, which is documented in several New Jersey paranormal research sources.
Sources
The paranormal reports attached to the Collings-Knight House follow the pattern common to nineteenth-century house museums: shadow figures observed in peripheral vision in interior spaces, disembodied voices heard when the building should be unoccupied, and footsteps on upper floors with no identifiable source. Haunted Places and New Jersey Haunted Houses have independently documented these accounts, drawing on visitor submissions and investigator reports.
The specific rooms most frequently cited in paranormal accounts are the upper-floor areas of the house, which is consistent with a pattern seen across nineteenth-century museum properties where the upper stories are less frequently trafficked and more isolated. The shadow figures are described as dark shapes that move across doorways or appear in the periphery of vision before disappearing.
No single dramatic event — a specific death, a documented tragedy — is attached to the Collings-Knight House's haunted reputation. The accounts draw instead from the building's age, its long occupancy by two prominent families, and the general quality of a two-hundred-year-old domestic space that has absorbed the residue of many lives. The Borough of Collingswood does not promote paranormal tourism at the site, but the house's inclusion in New Jersey paranormal research databases has generated independent visitor interest.
Notable Entities
The Collings-Knight House is a preserved Federal-style house museum operated by the Borough of Collingswood, open seasonally. Docent-led or self-guided tours cover the building's 1825 construction history and the Collings family's role in founding the borough.
The house exterior on Collings Avenue is viewable at any time; the Federal-style architecture and age of the structure are visible from the street.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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