Is it haunted? Is it even still there?

Deep in the woods of the Vernooy Kill State Forest, just right outside the southern tip of the mountains collectively called the Catskills, is a richly beautiful area to hike, commune with nature in immersive isolation, and maybe even go for a swim in the summer in the crystal-clear waters of Vernooy Kill. Yet hardly anyone goes there—indeed, the neighboring townsfolk 6 miles away vigorously avoid it and the absence of human litter so common in all popular spots and detested by the avid nature lover could instead spook the intrepid hiker—save for the adventurous soul who has an insatiable taste for the macabre and the paranormal.

Such is the setting one finds in Pottersville, a town built on the same pioneering spirit as the early New World settlers’, that is, on a hunch and a willingness to endure hardship in the hopes of striking it rich.

Except that unlike other towns that found fame and fortune, for the small, fledgling, newly-emerging town of Pottersville, things went rather quickly awry.

Back in the early 1900s, a man named Francis Potter built a lumber mill in the Vernooy Kill State Forest. Families who worked there soon began building homes and the small settlement around the mill acquired the name, “Pottersville”, after the mill’s founder.

But the mill owner died, the mill closed, and having no other source of income, the families began moving out. A massive flood happened in 1927 followed by a fire which all but hastened the families’ departure. Not long after, Pottersville became a ghost town.

Before it did, however, two horrific incidents would happen there that would make “Pottersville” synonymous with ghoulish activity in the woods in the minds of many from the neighboring towns.

A man would murder his entire family then kill himself. A murderer would be caught there and hanged there. With such heavy concentration of murders, suicide, and a killing in such a small locale within a short period of time, word spread even to this day that ghosts roam Pottersville long after it was abandoned.

So, who’s up for a haunted hike? A trip with Mother Nature that has a metaphysical component could be an experience like no other. Because for all you know, your professed love for the “natural” may just be a clever guise and a hair’s breadth away from devolving into the realm called the “supernatural”…