The Ghost Cow of Griggstown

Beginning around the 1970s, a legend began to spread around the small community of Griggstown, New Jersey. It was said that on foggy nights or evenings, a ghostly white cow could be seen in the wandering the areas around the Millstone River floodplain and Griggstown. Sighted for only a few quick seconds and disappearing without a trace, the Griggstown Cow became a local ghost story and joke.

That changed November 23, 2002, when an employee of the New Jersey Water Authority phoned the local parks department to say that he had found a bull stuck in a ravine. When employees of the Griggstown fire department, the State Park, and the New Jersey Fish and Wildlife service arrived, they found an old, sickly, blind white bull. It is now believed that the cow had escaped from a local farm in the 1960s or 1970s, living feral in the wild long after all the dairy farms in the area closed. Now incredibly old, it had stumbled into a pit and was too weak to escape.

Efforts were made to extract the bovine, and rescuers managed to hoist the bull onto level ground. Unfortunately, the animal was extremely weak. A local veterinarian determined he was in poor health and nothing could be done, and it was decided to euthanize the animal. The Ghost Cow of Griggstown was buried not far from the Griggstown lock, near his home and is still a part of New Jersey folklore.