Out for an evening drive, a young couple becomes stranded when their car breaks down on a long, isolated road. Enveloped by darkness, the car won’t start, and the man takes on the role of hero, saying he will walk back to the last house they passed to ask for help.
“Stay in the car,” he tells his girlfriend, “No matter what.”
The woman waits in the safety of the car, but after a while, she begins to hear a slow tapping on the roof. She waits and waits. Finally, she grows tired and falls asleep, but is startled by a policeman knocking on the window. It’s daybreak, and the officer instructs the woman to get out of the car.
“Don’t look back,” he says as he guides her to his patrol car.
She looks back anyway and sees her boyfriend hanging upside down from the tree above their car. The tapping sound was his blood, slowly dripping onto the roof.
This is the urban legend that most of us have heard growing up. No one really knows exactly where the story originated, but no matter where you’re from, you’ve probably heard some version of this story. On O‘ahu, we associate this story with the infamous Morgan’s Corner.
Another urban legend is about a young woman who, distraught over her boyfriend leaving her, chooses a tree at Morgan’s Corner from which to hang herself. She hung so long that her head separated from her body. People say that her headless body roams the area, and if you look up into the tree, she will be there waiting to grab you.
Sometimes legends start with a bit of fact, and over time, the stories morph into something scarier or spookier. While we can say for sure that neither of these actually happened at Morgan’s Corner, there are several events that may be the cause of alleged hauntings in that area.
While the urban legends are just that, there was an actual murder nearby. In 1938, two prisoners escaped from a work line on Smith Street, near Beretania, and caught a city bus to Nu‘uanu Valley. After hiding out overnight, they came upon the Wilder Estate. They broke in through a small dressing room window, gaining access to the Wilder home where 68-year-old widow Therese Wilder was just sitting down to dinner. Mrs. Wilder heard the noise and went to investigate.
When she discovered the men in her home, she tried to escape, calling out in an attempt to frighten the intruders. One man grabbed her, and the other struck her in the eye. Mrs. Wilder was quickly overpowered and was bound and blindfolded. When she began to regain consciousness, she struggled and was beaten until she passed out. She was gagged with the towel that was initially used as her blindfold. The escaped convicts took some food and left. Mrs. Wilder wasn’t found until five days later. Her official cause of death was suffocation. Her jaw was broken, and the gag further impeded her breathing.
But death and destruction in this valley go back even further. In 1795, Kamehameha’s quest to conquer O‘ahu brought the decisive battle between his army of 12,000 warriors against Kalanikupule’s 9,000 O‘ahu and Maui warriors to Nu‘uanu Valley. From Pūowaina to La‘imi, to Pū‘iwa, to the 500-foot cliffs of the Nu‘uanu Pali, the armies clashed, leaving death in their wake. The battle raged right through the area that is now Old Pali Road and Nu‘uanu Pali Drive as the warriors fought for control of the island. Some people think the spirits of warriors continue to linger due to the many deaths that occurred in and around this area.
But where exactly is Morgan’s Corner, and how did it get its name?
The actual “corner” on Nu‘uanu Pali Drive was located at the spillway under the bridge at Judd Trail. Before the roadway was adjusted, the turn was nearly 90 degrees.
As early as February 1938, Honolulu newspapers were drawing attention to the dangerous curves on the Nu‘uanu side of Pali Road. Letters to the editor described a narrow, slippery road with almost no straight stretches of visibility, which was considered unsuitable and unsafe.
That same year, the Department of Public Works began promoting plans for a future Nu‘uanu Pali tunnel route that would eliminate some of the most dangerous bends. But public opposition and lack of interest delayed major improvements for years. In the meantime, the winding section of Nu‘uanu Pali Drive, including its almost-ninety-degree turn, continued to earn a deadly reputation.
The press began calling the turn the Morgan S Curve, after Dr. James A. Morgan, whose estate bordered the hazardous roadway. Over the next decade, newspapers used several variations. In 1941, printed articles referred to the stretch of road as the Morgan Estate curve, the Morgan residence curve, and Morgan’s corner. Other journalists called it Nu‘uanu’s death curve, the death trap, and Morgan death curve.
By 1953, the name “Morgan’s Corner” stuck.
Between 1949 and 1957, nearly 200 crashes occurred along this stretch, including multiple deaths at Morgan’s Corner itself. For decades, officials talked about correcting the dangerous roadway, but there was always another reason to postpone construction. Even after a major legal dispute was settled in 1956, collisions persisted. One official bitterly joked that the place should be called “Morgan’s Coroner.”
Ultimately, reconstruction helped, but the danger was not fully eliminated until the opening of the new Pali Highway in 1958, which finally bypassed Nu‘uanu Pali Drive and Morgan’s Corner altogether.
Many believe that places are haunted by the spirits of people who died there. If this is true, then there are several reasons for this stretch of road to be haunted.
A friend once called me about something strange that happened near the hairpin turn on Nu‘uanu Pali Drive. He parked on the grassy shoulder in front of the gated community because he spotted a thick patch of dark laua‘e ferns, which were perfect for a fragrant lei po‘o. He began properly by offering an ‘oli before he started gathering, as his elders taught him. When he finished, he gave thanks to the forest and started back across the road.
On his way back to his car, neither he nor the approaching vehicle saw each other until the last second. He froze just in time as an old car swept past him. It was an old 1930s Packard sedan, black, new-looking, like something from territorial-era Hawai‘i. The driver, a white man in a coat and tie with horn-rimmed glasses, glared at him with sharp irritation.
The Packard pulled over near the small waterfall. My friend hurried to his own car, dropped the bag of ferns onto the seat, then angrily walked toward the sedan. But with every step closer, the vehicle began to fade until it completely vanished.
Shaken, he returned to his car, and that’s when he noticed the strangest detail. The bag was no longer filled with the thick, fragrant laua‘e leaves that he thought he picked. It was packed with light, lacy pala‘ā ferns instead.
“That corner,” I told him quietly, “is Morgan’s Corner. A residual ghost, maybe?”
His face filled with fear, “Should I take the pala‘ā back?”
“Make a lei from it first,” I suggested, “Then go back and make an offering of apologies. I’ll go with you.”
A few days later, we returned to offer apologies. Rain hammered my windshield the entire drive, but the moment we reached the spot where my friend parked earlier, it stopped completely. It seemed everything grew quiet, the rain, the traffic. I’ve never heard my friend chant so beautifully as he did that day.
Note: Many people believe that Morgan’s Corner lay on the Kane‘ohe side of the Nu‘uanu Pali on a narrow lane called Kiona‘ole Road, although the area has nothing to do with Dr. Morgan or anyone else with the name. The misnomer is possibly due to the simple directions given to thrill-seekers and ghost hunters as being “a twisting road with hairpin turns just before the Pali lookout.” These days, it is often referred to as the “Second Morgan’s Corner.”
