The Merchants & Droves paranormal investigation, benefiting the charity Cancer Cares

The Merchants and Drovers Tavern Museum sits beside a cemetery that holds one of New Jersey’s darkest unsolved mysteries.
In 1887, the body of a young woman was discovered near the Rahway River.
She had been brutally beaten.
Her throat had been slashed.
No identification was found.
The murder shocked the area and drew national attention. Thousands viewed her remains, hoping someone would recognize her.
No one ever did.
Her killer was never found.
Her real name was never discovered.
She became known only as The Unknown Woman.
More than a century later, she still rests in the cemetery beside the Merchants and Drovers, beneath a fading marker that offers no answers.
Local legend calls her the Woman in Green, named for the clothing she was wearing when her body was found.
And some believe she never truly left.
Visitors and staff have reported strange activity around the cemetery and museum grounds. Museum Assistant Director Lisa Anne Michaloski once described looking toward the cemetery on a perfectly clear day and seeing a tall, dark figure moving past three gravestones.
Then it vanished.
Not into the distance.
Not behind a tree.
It disappeared from the bottom up.
A later reenactment reportedly failed to produce any normal explanation for what she witnessed.
Was it simply a trick of the eye?
Or was someone still wandering among the graves?
On October 9, we will enter the Merchants and Drovers after dark and attempt to find out.
Throughout the night, guests will have the opportunity to investigate using equipment both familiar and unusual.
You can choose to investigate alongside one of our team members, or you can head off and investigate on your own. As we’ve always done, and as one of the first groups to introduce the free-roaming style of investigation, you have complete choice in how you experience the night. At our events, you are the investigator—your experience is what matters most. There is nothing better than someone attending one of our events sharing their own ghost story with us at the end of the night.
We do not investigate for you.
We want you to experience the location for yourself, come to your own conclusions, and decide what you believe.
At our events, you are the investigator.
We will experiment with Spirit TV, where white-noise static is paired with software designed to display words associated with changes in the electromagnetic environment.
We will conduct the Double Estes Method, isolating investigators from their surroundings while others ask questions in an attempt to determine whether meaningful communication can occur.
There will be traditional REM pods, along with a lantern-style device that responds with lights and music. We can even change the song and see whether something unseen decides to interact with it.
And of course, we will have an Ovilus hooked up to an amplifier, so everyone can clearly hear any words that are spoken during the investigation.
And because this investigation takes place during the Halloween season, we will also be bringing out our collection of paranormal dolls equipped with built-in detection devices.
Which ones are simply dolls?
Which ones may have something attached to them?
That decision will be yours.
The building will grow quiet.
The cemetery will be only steps away.
And somewhere in the darkness rests a woman whose name was lost in 1887.
Perhaps, after all these years, she still has something she wants to say.
Join us for A Night of Paranormal Investigation at The Merchants and Drovers.
All profits from the evening will benefit the charity Cancer Cares