They All Died Tragically! Ghostly Remains of the Van Slyke Castle in Ramapo Mountain State Forest.

Описание: The skeletal remains of the Van Slyke Castle provide a window into the tragic life of Ruth A Coles.

Ruth was a nurse by trade and lived a life of average means. Her fortunes changed when she was hired by Charles E Halliwell, the vice president of American Tobacco, to be his personal nurse.

They developed a relationship and eventually wed, but Halliwell would be dead less than a year later in 1907 from a cerebral hemorrhage. Ruth inherited 1.5 million dollars, a substantial sum in those days.

Just two years later in 1909, Ruth married again to William Porter, a stockbroker and good friend of her deceased husband. Porter had already begun building his summer home on Fox Hill and upon its completion in 1910 he named it Foxcroft.

In the spring of 1911, while Ruth was vacationing in Europe, Porter invited friends to accompany him on a fishing trip. As they were returning home, their chauffeur swerved to avoid a horse drawn wagon and rolled the car they were riding in. Porter was severely injured and died in the hospital a short time later.

Ruth’s relatives decided to wait until she returned from her trip abroad to tell her of her husband’s accident and subsequent passing. While she was enjoying her trip home aboard the famous British ocean liner Lusitania, which itself would meet a tragic end when it was sunk in 1915 by a German U-boat killing nearly 1200 people, she had no idea she had become a widow for a second time.

Ruth would marry a final time to her third husband, Warren Van Slyke, a prominent New York attorney, in 1913. They continued to use the mansion as a summer home, eventually renaming it to Van Slyke Castle.

Tragedy would come calling once again in 1924 when Warren died due to complications from gallstone surgery.

Was there a price for falling in love with Ruth? It would seem so.

Ruth remained thrice a window after losing Warren. Never having children, she lived secluded and alone at the castle for the remainder of her life. Ruth would die there in 1940 at the age of 63.

The property changed hands a couple of times until it was abandoned in 1949 and remained vacant throughout the 1950s during a contested divorce. In 1959 the castle would meet its own tragic demise at the hands of an arsonist.
#hiking #newjersey #ruins #abandonedplaces #castle #ramapomountain #nycskyline

00:00 Introduction
01:17 Hug a Tree
01:39 Water Tower
03:40 Wanaque Reservoir
04:23 Swimming Pool
05:49 Van Slyke Castle
09:07 Ramapo Lake
09:24 New York City
10:03 The Story Ends
12:10 Wrap Up
12:25 Out Takes
13:14 Statistics

Van Slyke Castle and Cannonball Trail Loop:
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/ne...