A 1760 Georgian stone farmhouse behind the New Brunswick library, backing onto Willow Grove Cemetery and a regular stop on the Spirits of New Brunswick ghost tour.
60 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Exterior viewable for free; interior access by the library and by appointment.
Access
Limited Access
Historic stone house with stairs; library grounds are flat.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1760 · Built in 1760 by alderman Henry Guest Sr. · Guest documented as an associate of John Adams and Thomas Paine · Moved beside the New Brunswick Free Public Library in 1924 · National Register of Historic Places (1976)
The Henry Guest House is a two-story Georgian stone farmhouse built in 1760 by Henry Guest Sr., a New Brunswick alderman who ran a tannery in the growing river town. Guest moved in colonial New Brunswick's civic circles and is documented as an associate of John Adams and the pamphleteer Thomas Paine, connections that give the otherwise modest house a place in the wider story of the Revolutionary generation.
The house originally stood on New Street, between Livingston Avenue and George Street. In 1924 it was moved up Livingston Avenue to its present location next to the New Brunswick Free Public Library, where it has since served largely as meeting and program space. Its stone construction and Georgian proportions have helped it survive where many of the town's wood-frame colonial buildings did not.
The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 24, 1976. It sits at the edge of the Livingston Avenue area, with Willow Grove Cemetery directly behind it — a pairing of an eighteenth-century home and an early burial ground that has made the spot a natural anchor for local history and ghost walking tours.
Today the Henry Guest House is maintained in connection with the public library and remains one of the older surviving residences in New Brunswick, valued more for its age and its Guest-family associations than for any single dramatic event.
Sources
The Henry Guest House's haunted reputation comes less from any one recorded incident than from its setting: a 1760 stone farmhouse that sits directly against Willow Grove Cemetery, behind the city library. Local researchers and ghost-tour operators have folded it into the city's small canon of spirit sites, and it appears by name on the seasonal Spirits of New Brunswick walking tour, which promises stories of people from the city's past who are said to linger at its older buildings.
Accounts associated with the house are the diffuse kind common to very old homes — a sense of presence, quiet movement, the feel of a building that has outlived everyone who lived in it. The adjacency of the cemetery, where the town's early Baptist and Presbyterian dead were buried, sharpens the atmosphere and gives guides material to work with.
No specific named ghost is firmly attached to the Guest House in the documented sources; the tradition centers on the pairing of the eighteenth-century home and the graveyard at its back. That combination, plus the house's survival into the present as one of the oldest residences in New Brunswick, keeps it on the city's ghost-walk circuit year after year.
The Henry Guest House is a named stop on the seasonal Spirits of New Brunswick walking tour, which links the house, the adjacent Willow Grove Cemetery, and other downtown sites with stories of the city's past.
See the 1760 Georgian stone farmhouse behind the New Brunswick Free Public Library, with Willow Grove Cemetery directly behind it.
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