Snake Hill Volume I: The Nineteenth Century

Book excerpt: Did you know… · Snake Hill is located in Secaucus, New Jersey, less than 15 minutes from Times Square through the Lincoln Tunnel · As early as 1874, Hudson County had horse-drawn ambulances made specifically to transport smallpox patients to Snake Hill · A 1909 map of the Hudson County facility shows two burial grounds on the east side near County Road, the road to Jersey City · At the very top of “the Hill,” a 430,000 gallon reservoir provided water for “state of the art” sewage management as well as steam heat for the complex · By the beginning of the 20th century, there were over 50 buildings at the facility including a penitentiary, two almshouses, a lunatic asylum, several infectious disease hospitals, three churches, and a school The buildings have disappeared, many of the burial grounds are unmarked and forgotten, and even the land has largely been obliterated by quarrying, yet Snake Hill has a story to tell. Volume One of this series offers a look at the facility’s beginning in the 19th century. It was a time when the New York metropolitan area had many dependent souls whose situation in life in some way, brought them to “the Hill,” and like the buildings that once housed them, they too have disappeared.