HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Site of Passaic County's first murder in 1850 — a double stabbing that sent its perpetrator to the county's first hanging, and by 1882 had The New York Times calling the farmhouse haunted.
868 Goffle Road, Hawthorne, NJ 07506
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Private property; exterior viewable from Goffle Road only.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Suburban roadside; sidewalk or shoulder along Goffle Road
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1800 · Passaic County's First Recorded Murder (1850) · Passaic County's First Execution (Jonston hanging) · 1882 New York Times Haunted House Reference · Don Everett Smith Jr. — published historical account
The killings on Goffle Road in January 1850 entered Passaic County history as the first recorded murders in the jurisdiction. John Van Winkle, described in period accounts as a judge, was stabbed to death in his home along with his wife Jane during the early morning hours of January 9-10, 1850. The assailant was John Jonston, a former farmhand associated with the property.
Jonston was apprehended, tried, and convicted. His execution by hanging became the county's first, a grim landmark that underscored how unusual criminal violence of this scale was in the region at the time. The case received substantial coverage in the Paterson Intelligencer and later in regional histories.
Historian Don Everett Smith Jr. documented the case in depth in his book published by History Press (Arcadia Publishing) under the title The Goffle Road Murders of Passaic County, which drew on contemporaneous newspaper archives and county records. The Hawthorne High School student newspaper The Clarion covered the case's history in 2012 and 2018 feature articles, noting the 1882 New York Times reference to the house as 'the abode of unearthly visitants' — an early documented haunted-house attribution — as well as an 1850s Paterson Intelligencer account also referencing supernatural claims.
The site's association with poet William Carlos Williams, whose family had connections to the Goffle Road area, was noted in the 2018 Clarion feature.
Sources
What makes the Van Winkle house unusual among New Jersey haunted sites is the vintage of its documentation. The haunted reputation was not applied retrospectively by 20th-century paranormal researchers; it emerged in contemporaneous 19th-century press.
The Paterson Intelligencer, a local newspaper, published accounts in the 1850s — within years of the murders — describing the house as the site of unearthly activity. By 1882, the New York Times had picked up the story, describing the Van Winkle residence as 'the abode of unearthly visitants.' This makes the documentation of the haunted claim more than 140 years old, placing it firmly in the category of verifiable regional dark lore rather than modern paranormal tourism invention.
The specifics of what witnesses reported in the 1850s and 1882 accounts are not fully detailed in the secondary sources available; the primary Paterson Intelligencer and New York Times articles are the authoritative records. Historian Don Everett Smith Jr.'s book on the murders is the most complete secondary account of both the crime and its cultural aftermath.
The house at 868 Goffle Road is private property. Whether the structure standing today is the original 1850 farmhouse or a later building on the same site has not been confirmed in available sources.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
The address at 868 Goffle Road in Hawthorne marks the approximate location of the Van Winkle farmhouse where Passaic County's first recorded double murder occurred on January 9-10, 1850. The site is viewable from the public road. The Hawthorn High School Clarion and historian Don Everett Smith Jr.'s book document the history of the murders and subsequent execution in detail.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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