Proprietary House

The only remaining official royal governor's mansion in the original thirteen colonies. Built 1762-1764, it was home to William Franklin, the last Royal Governor of New Jersey and illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin, before his arrest as a British loyalist in 1776.

The Proprietary House at 149 Kearny Avenue in Perth Amboy is the only surviving official royal governor's mansion from the original thirteen colonies. Built in 1762 by the East Jersey Proprietors as an imposing brick Georgian residence, it became the home of William Franklin -- the illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin and the last Royal Governor of New Jersey. William did not take up residence until 1774, and his tenure was cut short by the American Revolution. On January 8, 1776, the Continental Congress ordered his arrest. When Colonel Nathaniel Heard arrived at the Proprietary House with an ultimatum to either sign a parole and step down from the governorship or face arrest, William absolutely refused to sign, and he was taken from the mansion's steps as a prisoner. His father, Benjamin Franklin, disowned him over his loyalty to the Crown.

The house suffered devastating fire damage during the Revolutionary War era under mysterious circumstances. It was later repaired and reinvented multiple times -- serving as the Brighton luxury resort hotel, then the private residence of millionaire Mathias Bruen, then declining into use as a flophouse and retirement home before its partial restoration in 1994. It is now a museum listed on both the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places. Each era left its mark on the building, and according to believers, some of those who passed through its rooms never departed.

The most frequently encountered apparition is a young boy dressed in blue. In one well-known account, a delivery man arriving at the house reported that the boy opened the front door, greeted him, and led him up through the building to the third floor before vanishing without a trace. A visitor named Kristin Schreibman reported in October 2015 that while photographing the building from the rear parking lot, she captured the image of a little boy with his hand pressed against the glass of a window, individual fingers clearly visible, though no one had been inside the building at the time. Another visitor named Arthur independently corroborated the sighting in January 2022, describing how he too saw a boy with his hand pressed against a window looking out from the same area. During a tour in 2019, Arthur also experienced cold spots in the art room and the living room.

Revolutionary War soldiers have been heard marching through the building, their heavy colonial-era boot steps echoing on the wooden floors. A woman's figure has been seen standing motionless in the dining room window. The building also contains what tour guides describe as a haunted staircase that was allegedly the scene of a murder, and visitors near the tea room have reported the sensation of unseen hands grabbing at their necks. During a Halloween ghost tour led by psychic Jane Dougherty, one attendee reported feeling a child's hand tugging at his shirt. A staff member working in an attic office discovered an old-fashioned toy in the back of a cubicle with no explanation for how it got there.

The Atlantic Paranormal Society, known as TAPS from the SyFy series "Ghost Hunters," investigated the Proprietary House in 2008. Their team detected electromagnetic fluctuations and recorded unexplained sounds during the investigation. The Jersey Unique Minds Paranormal Society has also conducted investigations at the site. The museum now hosts regular ghost tours and haunted history events, inviting the public to walk the same floors where a royal governor was arrested, where children may have died during the building's years as a boarding house, and where something -- whether memory or spirit -- continues to open doors for the unsuspecting.