H A R M O N Y   C H U R C H

Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, ease after war, death after life does greatly please --Edmund Spenser

Harmony Church & Cemetery, Jackson, New Jersey

explored by: Shady & Liz (photos by Shady)

This lonely old church sits in the trees off of Harmony Road (in Jackson)... silently guarding a cemetery partially overgrown with foliage and inhabited by buzzards; it's very lovely in it's gothic, isolated spookiness. The church is obviously very old, but does not appear to be abandoned; despite the fact that I've driven past it a million times and have never once seen a living soul near it... other than the buzzards, that is.

For the most part the grounds of the church and the cemetery behind it are very well-kept. The church has beautiful stained glass windows, and one of it's most distinctive features is the giant ornate spire on top of the building. I once saw a big buzzard perched right on top of it as I was driving by (unfortunately without my camera)! There are always buzzards roosting on the church and on the tombstones out back, it's very eerie- the way they just sit there, watching...

There are some extremely old gravestones in the cemetery. One strange thing is that there are some groups of stones that are very close together, often looking like they are actually on top of the same grave. There are even some graves really close to the church itself- a few are so close they are nearly under it. There are also some very tiny and oddly shaped stones out there too

Some of the older gravestones are being swallowed up by the surrounding forest, which is wild and thick with trees and vines and roots. There are even trees creeping up the back of the church building itself and through some of the gravestones. Yet, the building looks well maintained, as do the newer segments of the cemetery... which also have some very interesting stones (one newer tombstone actually has an engraved picture of the church itself- spire and all- carved right into it's surface!)

Oddly enough, there was cacti (Yucca) growing around the cemetery as well, which I found kind of perplexing (cacti is not exactly native to these parts, and it was just odd to see)! There is forest surrounding the entire cemetery, and it was so thick that we had a hard time walking through it in some spots! There were tombstones back in the woods, too.

My friend Liz & I climbed up into this crazy old treehouse we discovered out in the woods right alongside the cemetery. I tried to shoot a pic of us up there, but I hit the zoom button when I was taking it- whoopsie.

It's so weird that someone would want to put up a treehouse right next to a cemetery... you can see tombstones from it! It's kinda cool, actually. There's a rusty wagon & some other old toys out there, too. I think it's a beautiful church, and I'd love to know more about it's history... I've been trying to track down info about it, but so far haven't been able to find anything..

Do you have any background information or stories to tell about this mysterious site?

Harmony Church lies on a lonely, wooded road...silent, with it's sharp spire slicing into the sky and the menacing buzzards that cast their watchful eyes over the crumbling old cemetery... bring the creepiness right onto your desktop with an HC wallpaper

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