Our Strange Meanderings: Weird Musings on Strange Travels.

Part One

It has been sometime since our last offering here as life, the universe and everything often pushes creative projects to the back burner.

However, we all need distractions from what life throws at us. We hike in nature for a pure mental scrub, allowing all our stresses to melt away. Getting out into nature, hiking areas and meandering off trail is a passion of ours. Nature always cleanses our minds and reclaims all lost to time.

Often the areas we explore have a historical context, sometimes associated with true crime events, and may have supernatural and strange vibes throughout. History is History but knowing some underlying layers of your chosen landscape may freak some out. For others it offers a deep diving rabbit hole of information and new ways to understand events that took place on said chosen landscape, which includes the peace of a natural mental cleanse.

The goal of this site “Our Strange Meanderings” is to document the plethora of meanderings my wife and I have set upon. In fact, as I recall from the 1^st two posts here I cited forthcoming articles concerning Willowbrook State School and Amityville. This post stands as part of my continued Willowbrook discussion.

A large portion of the property of the park was part of the Willowbrook State School campus, and in this series dedicated to Willowbrook I will discuss the modern history, events and explorations of that campus.

But first, there is an older tale to tell, one from the Historic Stone Chimney.

Willowbrook Park Historic Stone Chimney

In the ’90s when I was fresh out of the US Navy, working, going to college, I made friends with numerous people within the occult community. My first experiences with the paranormal was as a child living in Vermont and subsequently in the Navy. But those tales are for a future article.

My wife and I on many an occasion have explored varied parts of Staten Island where alleged supernatural events have taken place. However, it is only within the last 3 years that we have taken more of a deep dive of historical and true crime events that have taken place there.

In the my post Naval service 1990’s I would often be a part of discussions with friends who cited the Willowbrook Chimney. Many would laugh or chuckle at the knowledge they had about dark rituals taking place in the area of the Chimney. While others claimed that a magickal adept could channel a druid in another area of the Park. A druid? In Willowbrook Park? Sure, ok.

Willowbrook Park is a part of the greater Staten Island Greenbelt NYC Parks system:

From the NYC Parks Website: “Resting in the heart of Staten Island is the 2,800-acre park system known as the Greenbelt. The Greenbelt includes New York City’s largest remaining forest preserve, offering an oasis of peace, quiet, and solitude. It is also home to tidal and freshwater wetlands, oak and beech forests, open meadows, and rolling hills that offer visitors a glimpse into the natural and pastoral heritage of Staten Island. The Greenbelt is an extraordinary natural resource visited by over one million people annually. Most of the Greenbelt is New York City parkland featuring natural areas as well as traditional parks….This unique patch of greenery in Staten Island is many things to many people. With protected space for wildlife alongside its variety of recreational facilities, Willowbrook is one of Staten Island’s most popular Greenbelt parks. With its sylvan expanses, Willowbrook offers a wonderful chance to escape into a more peaceful setting. Hikers explore its woods, while many species of birds take advantage of the five-acre lake to nest and eat and do other avian activities.”

Within this systems of hiking trails and forest preserve are such sites as The NYC Farm Colony and Cemetery, Heyerdahl Estate, the Historic Stone Chimney, to name a few that can be found relatively easy on Apple or Google Maps. However, if one meanders off the main trail, such as the white trail, there is evidence of vagrant camps, plus remains of Willowbrook State School near where Ethel Atwell disappeared in 1977.

The disappearance of Ethel Atwell will be covered in Part 2 of this discussion and the site is further up the trail than the chimney.

Of course, the more darker history is left in the past, but for those who have an interest there is much still to be seen. If you know where to look.

In 1987 when I was 13, Andre Rand was charged for the kidnapping and murder of Jenifer Schweiger. Rand and his exploits were all over the news when I was a sophmore in high school having graduated Tottenville in 1990. From further stories, and the documentary “Cropsey” I knew vagrants, like Rand, inhabited the park. Rand was known to have campsites within the Park and close to where the remains of Schweiger were found. This area once inhabited by a small forest is now the back end parking area for students at the College of Staten Island. At the time there was no distinction between the boundaries of Willowbrook State School and the adjacent Willowbrook Park.

Unfortunately, in the ’90s I never made it to the chimney nor the area where the alleged druid was, nor did I know where they were located within the park. It was not until last fall that I visited the stone chimney for the first time, and have covered a lot of ground in Willowbrook Park since then. At this time I still do not know where they said the alleged druid was LOL.

The Historic Stone Chimney is located on the park’s white trail and is, for me, a 15-20 minute hike up the trail, sometimes less pending how fast I am moving. If you arrive to the park via the Richmond Avenue entrance by car do not park in the front lot near the lake, go further up the road to the back to parking spaces across from the archery field. The white trail is accessible from the parking lot next to the fenced in archery area.
Along the way, pending the season you may see wild mushrooms growing or a creepy dolls head.

Once again I quote from the NYC Parks website citing the Historic Stone Chimney:

“The remains of a historic building can be found along the White Trail, which winds through Willowbrook Park’s forest. A lone chimney stands among the trees—all that remains of what was likely part of the mill on John J. Corson’s farm.

The Corsons (sometimes spelled Corsen) were one of Staten Island’s earliest settlers. The patriarch, Cornelius Corson, was born in Brooklyn and moved with his family to Staten Island. He is listed on two 1680 patents that granted him a substantial amount of land on the island. He served as justice of the peace and captain of the local militia before he died in 1693. His land stayed within the family for several generations. Accounts from the turn of the 20th century indicate that the chimney was part of a building that stood next to descendent John J. Corson’s “Great Wheel” along Corson’s Brook, a waterway that ran through the property and has since been filled in.”

Here ends Part 1 of Willowbrook Park’s Stone Chimney, in Part 2 I will discuss more the darker criminal history of Willowbrook Park.