Catawba

This town was located a few miles off the road from Mays Landing to Ocean City. There was once a cemetery there, but as historian William McMahon discovered when he investigated it the early 1960s, most of the headstones are gone or are unreadable. The outlines of the church foundation were at that time all that remained to indicate the town had ever existed.

The town was laid out about 1800 by a man named George West and his wife, Amy. Other settlers came to live there, and in 1826 a strange thing happened in the town. West's son, Thomas, was fourteen at the time became ill and died two days later. Three years later, another son died at the age of 23 after a 'sudden illness.' A week later, George West himself died and was followed to the grave by his wife after five days. The only remaining son moved away after burying his parents and brother. Although some people believe Joseph West to have been responsible for the families misfortunes, many in the town believed for some reason that the town had a hex on it and within a few months of the tragedy nearly everyone had vacated the town. In 1919, an unknown man came to live on the property and was seen to be engaged in digging, and the legend sprung up that the eldest son had buried gold from the West on the property and never returned to claim it. In 1922, this stranger seems to have disappeared as well.