The 1788 Morristown Ghost Hoax and Trial
Date: Oct 31, 2023 9:30 a.m. – 11:10 a.m.
Location: Online
Member Price: $99
Non-Member Price: $125
Areas of Law: For All Attorneys
Earn up to 2 credits! (More Information)
Keynote
Moderator
Presenters
- Peter Zablocki
- The 1788 Morristown Ghost Hoax
The saga of the Morristown ghost has been told around campfires and dinner tables for generations. Local legend claimed British Loyalists secretly buried stolen Patriot treasure on Schooley Mountain as they fled the oncoming forces of George Washington during the Revolutionary War. Years later in 1788, a former school teacher from Connecticut, Ransford Rodgers, convinced local prominent Morristown families that a ghost was protecting the true location of the treasure and he alone could exercise it. Little did the victims know, Rodgers was perpetuating an elaborate hoax and eventually extorted large sums of money from the embarrassed local elite and wound up on trial. What happened next is unimaginable in today’s legal world. The tale has been recounted in various sensational pamphlets and publications ever since, leaving behind a mystery of what is true or myth. Along with Peter Zablocki, author of the book The 1788 Morristown Ghost Hoax: The Search for Lost Revolutionary War Treasure, we’ll separate fact from fiction in the story of the great Morristown ghost hoax and trial while looking at the happenings through today’s legal lens.