Mary Ellis' Grave

**Note: Sorry the pictures are kind of bad, my camera's broken. Also, I think there were some typos in this before. Oops!**

I think it's safe to say that I'm obsessed with the story of Mary Ellis. I even used her life as inspiration for a project in college. Here's the story, in case you don't know it:



Mary Ellis (1740-1827) fell in love with a sea captain in present day New Brunswick. He sailed off one day, and vowed to come back to her. He never did, though, and Mary Ellis waited by the Raritan River for him everyday until she died. Mary was buried on the property with other members of her family, and when the line died off, the property was sold and eventually became the parking lot of a Loews movie theater. The parking lot's been repaved multiple times, and Mary's grave sits seven feet above the cars of movie-goers.

In the 1970s, this band from New Providence/New Brunswick, the Looking Glass, wrote a song about Mary. The name was changed, and the one-hit-wonder "Brandy" was born. I'm sure you know it: "Brandy, you're a fine girl (you're a fine girl!)\what a good wife you would be (such a fine girl!)\but my life, my love and my lady, is the sea."

My mom went to high school with a guy from the Looking Glass, and I guess some of the members lived in a hippie house down the street from me back in the day, and they played at my dad's friend's wedding. Somehow my life has become the "six-degrees of the Looking Glass."

Maybe, it's because I love a good story or because I think this story is sadly romantic, but sometimes I just find myself thinking about Mary Ellis. In real life, she probably would've pissed me off. If she were my friend, I guarantee I would've lost my temper and yelled at her, "FOR GOD'S SAKE, JUST GET OVER HIM!" because in reality, a lifetime waiting for someone is far too long. I'm not going to pretend I know anything about love, and I can't even imagine being that enamoured that I would even consider waiting for one person forever, but really, Mary, there are other sea captains in the sea.

But because I didn't know her personally and consequently didn't have to put up with her bitching about heartbreak to me on a daily basis, I love the fact that Mary waited for him like that. I find it sad and beautiful and, sometimes, I even give her credit for being able to care that much for someone for all those years without even being able to see their face anymore.

I'm not good at waiting, and although I hope that I never end up hanging around the Raritan River for the rest of my life waiting for some dude, I probably could learn a thing or two from her about patience.

Kristina, Megan, and I went to visit Mary last Sunday. We drove on Route 1 and when we got to the parking lot, we started wandering. It was dark, and there were a lot of people around, but when we started to head to the back of the Leows theater Kristina reached into her pocket, "I'm going to take out my rape whistle."

I laughed, but couldn't help but feel kind of relieved. Once we got behind the theater, we realized that it wasn't all that sketchy and there was a huge stone structure in front of us.

"Is that it?" Megan asked. We all stared at in in disbelief. It was huge.

"It looks too big."

"Let's walk over and see."

And sure enough, when we got there, on top of the huge stone structure was a fence, and a grave.

"I'm gonna climb up," Megan said and started scaling the wall. Finally, she pulled herself up and Kristina handed Megan her camera. Just then a security guard started circling the parking lot. Megan crouched down on the stone structure.

"Just stay down!" Kristina and I hissed. But the security guard clearly didn't care about us and just drove off.

I'm very afraid of heights and normally I don't really see the benefit of freaking myself out just for a good view or something of the like. But this time, since it was Mary buried up there, I knew I had to do it. The wall was only seven feet, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared.

I asked Kristina to hand me up flowers. I couldn't really get to Mary's grave very well, since it was fenced off, but I threw the flowers in anyway. I felt like I owed it to her. She was buried with a few other family members, but obviously not with her lover.

At least she wasn't resting alone.

We wandered around the parking lot for a bit. We were going to walk into the woods, but it was dark and we decided against it. On the way out, Megan and I thought it would be interesting to ask the security guard if there were any plans to move the grave. Megan and I are big fans of good stories, and we hoped the the security guard would be able to tell us some awesome part of Mary Ellis' story.

However, he ended up having no answers for us, and just sent us inside to ask the main desk at the theater for a binder with some info on Mary Ellis. To our disappointment, the binder just contained the Weird NJ article about the grave and the lyrics to "Brandy." I don't know what will become of Mary Ellis, but I hope she gets to rest in the place where she spent her life waiting, even if it is just a parking lot now.

We left the parking lot and drove off down Route 1, leaving Mary behind. I still had "Brandy" in my head, and I couldn't help but wonder: Did Mary's captain die at sea? Or did he just not love her enough to come back?

And I wondered for Mary which one would've been worse.