When one thinks about abandoned towns, sometimes called ghost towns, they usually think about towns which were abandoned in the West. There are a lot of places which were abandoned which are not in the West. An example of this is Moonville, Ohio. Moonville existed for almost 100 years from 1856 to 1947. It was located in Brown Township, Vinton County. It was what was known as a coal mining and railroad town. It is said to be one of the most popular ghost towns in the state. What makes it so popular is all the buildings are almost completely intact and there is an abandoned railroad tunnel located there along with a trestle on Raccoon Creek. Unfortunately the coal ran out and everyone left.

There is a ghost town in New York State called Doodletown at Stony Point. It was settled in the late 1700s and started to go downhill in the 1950s. The town’s buildings began falling apart and the last one to go was the old schoolhouse which had to be demolished in the 1980s. Vandals had made the building very dangerous to enter. Sometimes ghost towns like this became ghost towns for unusual reasons. It is said Doodletown began to fade right after World War II, because many of its residents were drafted and when they got out they went to other places. The land the town was on was bought by the state and is now part of Bear Mountain State Park.

I don’t know why I feel this way, but I never would’ve thought of ghost towns existing in New Jersey, but I was wrong to think this. Allaire, New Jersey is a strange sort of a ghost town, because it has been made into a historic village. It was once a factory town and produced iron. Its major commercial operation was the Howell Iron Works Company. It had quite a few buildings including a post office, along with a bakery, boardinghouse, school, church and general store along with other buildings. The iron the town produced was sent to New York City where it was used to make parts for steam engines. The state has turned this town into what is known as a working Museum. People still go to the church to get married.

Scotia, is a ghost town located in Patton Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania. The local post office there called it Benore. One of the reasons for the fame of this ghost town was the fact Andrew Carnegie was involved with it. He had leased a lot of the land, because he found iron ore. There had been mining there before in the late 1700s, but nothing on the scale which he intended. In 1880 he began a large-scale effort to dig out the ore. A railroad branch was expanded to reach the town to haul away the ore. In 1899 Carnegie sold the ore deposits. The company which had purchased them went out of business and mining stopped in 1913. It is believed the town was completely vacated by everyone by 1922.

There are several ghost towns in Massachusetts which have been submerged in the Quabbin Reservoir. They are Dana, Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott. The Quabbin Reservoir is the largest inland body of water in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and was built between 1930 and 1939. There wasn’t enough water in the area for everybody so something had to be done. The buildings of the towns which were flooded were treated in different ways. Some were filled entirely in and others were taken down to their foundations. Town memorials and cemeteries in the four flooded towns were moved as were some public buildings. An example of this was the Prescott First Congregational Church which was moved to South Hadley. Will future archaeologists discover the ruins at the bottom of the reservoir sometime in the future? I imagine the water will probably preserve some of what was left.

Connecticut has some fascinating ghost towns, one of which is Dudley. This town goes all the way back to the 1600s. It was believed the area was haunted and paranormal investigators have visited it. Some people don’t believe the town is that old and believe it was founded in the 1740s. It was abandoned in the 1800s. One of the problems is the ghostly rumors have drawn quite a few vandals and because of this the area has been closed to the public. It is owned by philanthropists and kept as a land trust. They are trying to reforest this land. The reason they are doing this is the land was subject to agricultural use for decades.

Another place where one wouldn’t expect to find a ghost town is in Florida, but there are several there. One is Brewster which is located in the southwest area of Polk County. It is a ghost town, but it has three residents. It was founded in 1910 and did pretty well as a phosphate mining town. In 1962 the town was officially closed. Some of the buildings were demolished, but others still remain. The deed to the town was turned over to Florida as a partial payment against the company that ran the mines for environmental damage. One of the remaining structures is a very tall smokestack.

Another ghost town which exists underwater is Flagstaff, Maine. The town got its name when Benedict Arnold camped there on his Quebec expedition. When he was there he erected a flagstaff. In 1950 Flagstaff Lake was expanded and the town was disincorporated, abandoned and much of it dismantled. The town landed up on the bottom of the lake in 1950. This was done to allow construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Dead River.

Many people never think of these places existing in this part of the country, but there are plenty of them. One has to remember the eastern part of the United States is the oldest part so even though it has a large population, there have been times when towns and villages have disappeared due to all sorts of economic conditions.