Snake Hill (known officially as Laurel Hill) is an

igneous rock Igneous rock ( ), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rocks are formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava. The magma can be derived from partial ...

intrusion In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...

protruding up from the floor of the Meadowlands in southern

Secaucus Secaucus ( ) is a town in Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the town's population was 22,181, an increase of 5,917 (+36.4%) from the 2010 census count of 16,264, which in turn reflected an in ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

, United States, at a bend in the

Hackensack River The Hackensack River is a river, about 45 miles (72 km) long, in the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, emptying into Newark Bay, a back chamber of New York Harbor. The watershed of the river includes part of the suburban ar ...

., Variant name: Snake Hill It was largely obliterated in the 1960s by quarrying that reduced the height of some sections by one-quarter and the area of its base by four fifths. The diabase rock was used as building material in growing areas like

Jersey City Jersey City is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, second-most populous

. The remnant of the hill is the defining feature of Laurel Hill County Park. The high point, a 203-foot (62 m)

graffiti Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elabor ...

-covered inselberg rock formation, is a familiar landmark to travelers on the

New Jersey Turnpike The New Jersey Turnpike (NJTP) is a system of controlled-access highway, controlled-access toll roads in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The turnpike is maintained by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA).The Garden State Parkway, although ma ...

's Eastern Spur, which skirts the hill's southern edge. The crest of the hill's unusual, sloping ridge is about 150 feet (46 m) high.

History

Snake Hill was formed by the same intrusion of magma that created the Palisades cliffs roughly 200 million years ago. The Dutch colonists who originally settled the area called the high bluff 'Slangenbergh' ('Snakes Mountain' in English) because of the many snakes found there. In 1658, Nicholas Varlet and

Nicholas Bayard Nicholas Bayard (c. 1644–1707 or 1709) was a government official and slave trader in colonial New York. Bayard served as the mayor of New York City from 1685 to 1686. He is historically most notable for being Peter Stuyvesant's nephew and for ...

purchased Secaucus by Indian deed, which was confirmed by

land patent A land patent is a form of letters patent assigning official ownership of a particular tract of land that has gone through various legally-prescribed processes like surveying and documentation, followed by the letter's signing, sealing, and publi ...

in 1668. The entire 'plantation' was re-sold in 1676 to Edward Earle Jr., who sold a 50% interest to William Pinhorne. Three years later, Pinhorne and Earle divided the land into two separate plantations, with Pinhorne taking the roughly 1,200 acres called the 'Long Neck,' including Snake Hill. Pinhorne lived there, naming the section containing his residence 'Mount Pinhorne'. From 1855 to 1962, there were Hudson County penal and charitable institutions on Snake Hill, which was essentially a self-contained city in which hundreds of people lived at any given time. The grounds had its own support facilities that included a sewer system, reservoir, electricity plant and incinerator. The on-site institutions included two

almshouse An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) is charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the Middle Ages. They were often built for the poor of a locality, for those who had held ce ...

s, which provided shelter for the poor and elderly, a

penitentiary A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where people are Imprisonment, imprisoned under the authority of the State (polity), state, usually ...

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

and a number of medical facilities, all grouped on the north side of Snake Hill. The medical facilities included a Contagious Diseases Hospital, a Tuberculosis

Sanatorium A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, is a historic name for a specialised hospital for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments, and convalescence. Sanatoriums are often in a health ...

, and the Hudson County Lunatic Asylum, which existed from 1873 - 1939.Jones, Richard Lezin (March 31, 2002)
"Secaucus Journal; Humbled Mountain Offers a Mine of History, and Prehistory"
''The New York Times''. Retrieved January 12, 2014.Passantino, Joseph (October 20, 2013). "Creepy history of Snake Hill". ''

The Union City Reporter ''The Hudson Reporter'' was a newspaper chain based in Hudson County, New Jersey mainly focus on local politics and community news. The oldest newspaper in the chain was the ''Hoboken Reporter'', founded in 1983. The chain stopped publication on ...

''. pp. 1 and 9. When the Asylum opened, it had a capacity of 140 patients. Different wings were designated for men and women, and each room held several beds. People admitted to the Asylum were not restricted to the mentally ill, and whose conditions ranged from

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms depend on the stage it presents: primary, secondary, latent syphilis, latent or tertiary. The prim ...

, and according to a 2013 '' Union City Reporter'' article, many people were admitted to the hospital "who had no reason to be there: healthy residents who had been determined by their relatives to be a burden." Residents sometimes signed in their elderly relatives when they could no longer afford to take care of them. At the time, it was not difficult to sign in a patient, but harder for one to leave the hospital. According to Secaucus Town Historian Dan McDonough, "Anybody could sign somebody in. However, you would need three doctors to sign you out." The causes of death of many patients were not recorded, because the patients had been given

pauper's funeral In the United Kingdom, a pauper's funeral was a funeral for a pauper paid for under the Poor Law. This policy addressed the condition of the poor people of Britain, such as those living in the workhouses, where a growing population of the Briti ...

in the

potter's field A potter's field, paupers' grave or common grave is a place for the burial of unknown, unclaimed or indigent people. "Potter's field" is of Biblical origin, referring to Akeldama (meaning ''field of blood'' in Aramaic), stated to have been pur ...

on the grounds, which is known as the Hudson County Burial Grounds. In the 1930s, it adopted the name Mental Disease Hospital, as it was believed to be a less offensive name. At the end of that decade, the hospital was moved to County Avenue in Secaucus, at the location where Meadowview Psychiatric Hospital now exists. In 1939, the Mental Disease Hospital, which by then housed 1,872 people, ceased operations upon the opening of Meadowview Hospital. Patients were moved to the new hospital, at what is now the Meadowview Complex, in January 1927. They were transported in buses and ambulances, according to a contemporary Newark Evening News article. The Hudson County Hospital for Mental Diseases was renamed Hudson County Meadowview Hospital in 1967. Quarrying took place from the late 19th century to the 1950s, when a section of the land was utilized as a prison quarry. Afterward, many of the properties were abandoned and had fallen into disrepair, and much of the hill had been leveled for the construction of sections of the New Jersey Turnpike. In 1962 Hudson County finished closing their facilities on the site, which included the county prison and the insane asylum. The County entered into a 20-year contract with Callanan Industries to level much of the hill. In the 1960s and 70's Gallo Asphalt had 4 asphalt plants, side by side, adjacent to the quarry and supplied paving materials throughout the surrounding urban region. Production ended on schedule in 1982. Ref:Refs.: In 2003, more than 4,500 bodies of poor people, prisoners and patients were moved from the grounds to make way for the Turnpike's Exit 15X ramp, which would serve

Secaucus Junction Secaucus Junction (signed as Secaucus) is an intermodal transit hub served by New Jersey Transit Rail Operations, New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) and Metro-North Railroad in Secaucus, New Jersey, Secaucus, New Jersey. It is one of the List of b ...

. This included the body of the grandfather of Patrick Andriani, a New Jersey native, who was the impetus for the disinterment and reinternment of bodies to Maple Grove Park Cemetery in Hackensack, NJ. When the graves were discovered, they were tested and found to have come from the facilities. Records of the mental hospital were also discovered. As of 2013, one of the old almshouses remains the only building still standing on the grounds. The name changed from Snake Hill to Laurel Hill in 1926, when

Hudson County Hudson County is a List of counties in New Jersey, county in the U.S. state of New Jersey, its smallest and most densely populated. Lying in the northeast of the state and on the west bank of the North River (Hudson River), Hudson River, the No ...

freeholder Katherine Whelan Brown said that it was the " crowning Laurel of Hudson County" because of its prominence in the low lying meadowlands. The high bluff has recently been called 'Fraternity Rock' (because of the

greek letters The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It was derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and is the earliest known alphabetic script to systematically write vowels as we ...

painted on it presumably by local college fraternities), and 'Graffiti Rock'. The term 'Long Neck', originally used to describe the shape of the land between Pinhorne (now Penhorn) Creek and the Hackensack River, has been adapted to refer to the

volcanic neck A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

of the ridge."Small Wonders of Midgetville"

Weird NJ ''Weird NJ'' (sometimes abbreviated ''WNJ'') is a semi-annual magazine that chronicles local legends, purported hauntings, ghost stories, folklore, unusual places or events, and other peculiarities in New Jersey. The magazine originated in 1989 ...

. Retrieved January 12, 2014.

Laurel Hill County Park

Snake Hill and the area between it and the

today comprise Laurel Hill County Park, part of the Hudson County Park System. In the early first decade of the 21st century, further blasting occurred along the New Jersey Turnpike. Most of the parcel is currently being utilized as Laurel Hill County Park, which includes a portion of Hackensack RiverWalk. Laurel Hill Park is home to the Hackensack Riverkeeper's Field Office and Paddling Center, which is open weekends from April through October and weekdays by appointment. Hackensack Riverkeeper also conducts many of its Eco-Cruises from this park. There is a narrow Ridge Trail along the top of the hill.

Field Station: Dinosaurs

Field Station: Dinosaurs, an educational exhibit featuring

animatronic An animatronic is a puppet controlled electronically to move in a fluent way. Animatronics are the modern adaptation of the automaton and are often used for the portrayal of characters in films, video games and in theme park attractions. Anim ...

dinosaurs utilizing the terrain to reflect the pre-historic era, opened here in May 2012. The exhibit moved in the fall of 2015 to a new location in Bergen County.

High Tech High School

High Tech High School High Tech High School is a full-time public magnet high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades in Secaucus, in Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, operating as part of the Hudson County Schools of Technology. Since ...

(previously located in North Bergen) built a new campus on the north side of the hill. The campus was first used for the 2018-2019 School Year.

Geology

The rock is a pipe-like

diabase Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-gra ...

intrusive, which is believed to be an offshoot of the nearby Palisades Sill. Mineralized shales and sandstones, intruded by the diabase, are visible in the north and southwest sections of the property. Minerals were found in veins in both the diabase and metamorphosed sediments. The mineral Petersite-(Y) was discovered at Snake Hill in June 1981 by Nicholas Facciolla, who took it to the Paterson Museum. In 1982 the mineral was recognized as a new discovery and named for Thomas A. Peters (1947-) and Joseph Peters (1951-), curators of minerals at the

Paterson, New Jersey Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, respectively.

Culture

Snake Hill has had a modest, if largely anonymous, impact on the popular consciousness. A

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

advertising executive, passing the hill on a train, is said to have drawn from it the inspiration for the Prudential "

Rock of Gibraltar The Rock of Gibraltar (from the Arabic name Jabal Ṭāriq , meaning "Mountain of Tariq ibn Ziyad, Tariq") is a monolithic limestone mountain high dominating the western entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. It is situated near the end of a nar ...

" logo in the 1890s. Its rugged landscapes also feature prominently in artist

Robert Smithson Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and mu ...

's 1968 work ''Untitled (6 Stops on a Section)''.Graziani, Ron (April 5, 2004)
''Robert Smithson and the American Landscape''

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

. p. 85.

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

. Retrieved January 12, 2014.

References

External links

2007 Snake Hill documentary
b

{{Geology of the Newark Basin Secaucus, New Jersey Volcanism of New Jersey Volcanic plugs of the United States Mountains of New Jersey Prudential Financial Landforms of Hudson County, New Jersey Parks in Hudson County, New Jersey County parks in New Jersey