Yonkers is an old city, and old cities collect stories. For Halloween we picked four. Some are true. Some are legends. We'll tell you which is which.
1. Yonkers Buried Strangers From a Boat Fire
This one is true. On July 28, 1852, the steamboat Henry Clay was headed down the Hudson from Albany to New York. Witnesses said it was racing another boat. As it passed Yonkers a little before 3 p.m., fire broke out. The pilot ran the boat onto the shore at Riverdale, which was still part of the Town of Yonkers back then. Many passengers ended up in the river, and dozens died. One of them was Andrew Jackson Downing, one of the best-known landscape designers in America.
For days, bodies turned up along the river, some as far off as Hoboken and Manhattan. Many were brought to Yonkers. A coroner's jury met there to figure out who they were. Some were never named.
The New-York Daily Tribune and the New York Herald covered it. The unknown dead were buried in the cemetery of St. John's Church, at least eight people in all. The jury followed them there. So did a large crowd from the village.
Nobody knew who these people were. Yonkers showed up anyway.
2. People Say 3 Ghosts Haunt Oakland Cemetery
This one is a legend. The old St. John's burial ground sits beside Oakland Cemetery on Saw Mill River Road. Oakland had its first burial in 1867.
The story goes that three women in white appear there. A local ghost-hunting group, led by Yonkers ghost hunter Jason Medina, first visited in 2006. A TV ghost show has told the story too. Nobody can prove it. That's what makes it a legend.
If you go, go in daylight and during open hours. Families still come here to visit their people.
3. Yonkers' Old City Hall Has Ghost Stories
This one is a true house with a legend attached. Philipse Manor Hall sits near the Hudson at Warburton Avenue and Dock Street. Its oldest part was built around 1682 by Frederick Philipse, a Dutch-born merchant, and his wife, Margaret Hardenbroeck. Their family's land once stretched far up the Hudson from Yonkers.
Then came the American Revolution. The last lord of the manor, Frederick Philipse III, sided with the British. He and his family fled to England and left the house behind.
Later, the house became Yonkers Village Hall, and then City Hall. When the city needed a new City Hall, Eva Smith Cochran, from a Yonkers carpet-mill family, stepped in. Her gift helped save the house, and it went to New York State in 1908. Today it's a state historic site.
In his 2015 book, Ghosts and Legends of Yonkers, Jason Medina writes that the colonial landowners never really left homes like this one. So if you tour it this fall and feel someone behind you, now you know who to blame.
4. A 'Haunted' Lab Got a Happy Ending
This one is a true story with a legend stuck to it. William Boyce Thompson made a fortune in copper. A 1917 trip to Russia showed him people going hungry, and he came home wanting better science about plants and food.
So in 1924 he built a plant research lab on North Broadway, right across the street from his own mansion. Scientists worked there for more than fifty years. In 1978 the institute moved to a new home at Cornell University in Ithaca.
Later the Yonkers building sat empty. Windows got boarded up. Graffiti went up. In Ghosts and Legends of Yonkers, Medina wrote that restless spirits are said to linger in the empty lab.
In 2012, the City asked developers for plans to bring the property back. Mayor Mike Spano said a building like this "should be restored and utilized for the benefit of residents, visitors and to further the economic development goals of the City."
Simone Development bought it in 2015 and got to work. On May 23, 2017, the restored Boyce Thompson Center held its grand opening. The old front door is still there, with the institute's name carved above it. Today the center holds doctors' offices, shops and places to eat. Any ghosts would have to wait in line for coffee.
Got a spooky Yonkers story we missed? Tell us on Instagram at @theyonkerscollective. And for more stories like this, subscribe to Not Upstate Magazine at thenineonefour.com.
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