Scare Farm in Hillsborough, New Jersey Opens on September 28 for Another Year of Terror

A former Indian burial ground is the site of strange goings-on and a haunted good time

Scare Farm, an annual event at Norz Hill Farm in Hillsborough, New Jersey, will be welcoming its 12th season of victims on September 28^th, 2018 and will be open every weekend thereafter until October 28. The attraction features two haunted walking trails—Creepy Hollow and Paranoia—and its signature haunted hayride—the Slay Ride. New this year at the Scare Farm is the Rotting Reflections photo op.

The Scare Farm Story

The Scare Farm is located on land that was once a sacred burial site for the Lenni Lenape tribe. After the tribe was driven off by Europeans in the 1500s, strange things began to happen on the land—crop failures, animal deaths, people disappearing. These events always happened during the Fall around the time of the Harvest Moon. In the early 1800s, the Atrum family purchased the land and started a farming operation. Their only child, Elias, the victim of his father’s violent temper, began to lose his hold on reality. In the 1850s, the elder Atrums died, and Eli continued his downward spiral into the darkest recesses of his mind. Locals told tales of Elias Atrum murdering his unfaithful wife and her lover and then turning their bodies into scarecrows. Local children and farmhands began to disappear, and more scarecrows popped up on Elias’ land. When authorities finally acted on their suspicions, Eli vanished into the cornfields and was never seen again—but his laughter can be heard to this day echoing through the fields underneath the Harvest Moon.

The Norz Family Purchases the Farm, and the Spooky Happenings Continue  

The property sat abandoned for years, and then the Norz family acquired the farm in 1920. Between 1923 and 1930, a series of seemingly unrelated fires gutted the farmhouse and burned the barn to the ground multiple times, all under mysterious circumstances and all during the Harvest Moon. Mayhem continued through the ensuing decades—madness, betrayals, murders—substantiating the belief that the land still sought revenge for the desecration of the sacred burial ground. “Is it possible for a place to drive a person to madness and terror? Why have such sick, strange, and tragic events continued to occur in the darkness of the cold Harvest Moon on a piece land that’s about as normal a place as you could imagine in the warm light of day? The answer is frighteningly simple: Fear doesn’t come from the land. This land…comes from fear. The thing about a farm is… it’s where things grow. You reap what you sow,” states the Scary Farm website. For those who survive the haunted trails and hayride, cooked-to-order burgers and hot dogs made with locally raised meat are available at the Farm food tent. Baked goods, hot apple cider, hot cocoa and more are also available. Scare Farm will open for ticket sales at 6:30 on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through October 28^th with last ticket sold at 10:00pm (9:00 on Sunday). Scare Farm is located at 120 South Branch Road, Hillsborough, New Jersey. For details about the trails, hayride, legend of Scare Farm, and other information, visit the Scare Farm website.