I have no idea what’s going on in Europe, Asia, the Middle East (aside from war), South or Central America, Canada or the Islands. Cultures and religions different from my experience or teachings insure that I have not the time left to learn much.
Most people mean well, but being ignorant of customs and cultural taboos, invariably come off as offensive.That’s sad, especially when it causes angry reactions or pain.
It happens all the time. But one thing that I know we share, every one of us, is the inability to explain something another person might describe as a haunting, a UFO sighting, or seeing a werewolf. Among those and many other things, there are, for each, skeptics and believers.
And those caught in the middle.
How can I make a conclusion about that which I have not had experience with? Well, if there’s something I find little to no evidence of, something with no concrete evidence outside of paranormal websites, YouTube videos or television shows, then I should be a skeptic. And no matter where you are, so should you, right?
But no, we aren’t skeptical of certain things, even in the face of little to no evidence.
For example, almost every religion has dark, or evil spirits to resist and pray for protection from. Demons, to some, other names by other people. But it’s always there in some form. And they all do pretty much the same things.
But what about this? Can evil plague a town, and can cryptids surround it? And what about curses as opposed to bad luck?
At a time, in the early 1700s, someone decided to stake a particular piece of ground in the US state of Connecticut. It was a bad decision for potential farmers as the land would be in the shadow of a small mountain for part of the day. But a small town eventually formed there, and to this day, there are odd stories about it. See, Connecticut isn’t the most hospitable place. I had an ancestor who, with two sons, came here on the Mayflower, which is considered historically important for some fucking reason. But John Turner and his sons did not survive their first winter, spent in Connecticut. The reason the bloodline continues is his daughter, who came across the Atlantic later.
I’ve trucked up there in 18-wheelers, and in 1990, still found it to be a place I wouldn’t want to live. In certain places, I felt a heaviness, sometimes even felt that I wasn’t traveling alone. Oh, if you stick to I-95 up the coast, you’re fine. The only thing you’re going to encounter is traffic, and plenty of it, most of which is incredibly comedic, or would be except for idiots with steering wheels in one hand while the other is busy texting or masturbating. Most of my trips were without incident except for the one time I had to go into the interior of the state, almost to the Massachusetts line. I don’t remember what I was hauling or where I went. A half hour after leaving New York I had to take some highway west then another north.
Middle of winter, middle of the night. I was on a main route, but there was no traffic. It was nice for a night haul, roads clear, no foul weather. I crested a hill, and before me there was nothing. Woods and darkness. It’s all I can remember about that trip. It felt like I was seeing backward through time. It’s disorienting, going through one of the world’s most populous cities, only to end up out there in Ichabod Crane country. One feels as though the pages of time had been thumbed backward.
I wish I could do that. Because a town that was doomed to fail from the start was possibly nearby, but I wouldn’t know it, because I would not read about Dudleytown until years later. And though I wound up north of it, and most likely to the east, I guess those forests probably all have the same vibe. There’s history in there, not much of it the good kind.
The stories vary, and most lean towards the skeptical side, but any writer can turn the story into a scary one.
Founded by a descendant beheaded by Henry VII, one wonders if that’s not the best way to begin a thriving town. But as the homestead became a town, there was something going on. People died. Cholera, exposure, the stories differ. There were encounters at night with unknown and presumed dangerous creatures.
As the town emptied, the residents dying or moving away, by 1900 almost nothing remained. No one lived there and the buildings were ruins. Sometime later, a man named Clark bought the property and set up the Dark Entry preservation association. Meant to preserve the land as pristine, he and his wife lived on the land in or very close to Dudleytown. Probably closer to the town proper of Cornwall, where they kept a summer home. The association was to keep acres of woods protected from hunting and logging. Clark had to travel for business, but once, he came home to find his wife highly agitated. She said that there were creatures in the forest. They moved, but left the Dark Entry intact. It is still private land and has been said by some that even using Dark Entry Road will get you stopped by police.
I doubt that; the same thing is said about lots of abandoned places. Usually those roads lead to places which are described in lurid urban legends. Investigation almost always debunk those stories but leave some unexplained, and I believe Dudleytown is a bit of both. First of all, Dark Entry Road is mostly a road in name only. Its final meters end in a narrowed trail that eventually becomes nothing more than a foot path.
Sure, farming in the shadow of a mountain is a stupid idea, and crop failure in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was devastating, but common. It meant going hungry unless travel to buy food was possible, but with what money? No crops to sell (but they did mine iron ore and they did make charcoal).
A Connecticut winter is still a rough go. But that’s with heating, insulated homes, electricity and supermarkets.
It must be said, though, that plenty of other settlements failed. And that’s true everywhere. Bad stuff happens. Mistakes get made. Wars and wildfires and droughts, tsunamis and hurricanes, tornadoes, and more, have more power to destroy than we have to preserve.
One question that lingers, though, is exactly what the “creatures” were. I can’t find any accounts that describe them. “Ghosts” and “demons” are all that show up in records. That’s not exactly specific.
But accounts, from beginning to end, of Dudleytown differ. Clark becomes Clarke, and the Dudley family becomes a cursed family, and it was a Dudley who committed high treason against King Henry VIII.
It’s noteworthy that another difference is cited. The town, not really an incorporated one itself but part of Cornwall, was in the shadow of three mountains, not one. It’s said that madness and suicides and disappearances together with plagues ravaged the town. The “curse of the Dudleys” which began with a death sentence by the Crown followed them to the new world.
An entire family named Brophy was to die and vanish; a death while building a barn; suicides; lightning striking someone on a porch; all said to be on former Mohawk land, and the failure of two industries — logging and iron ore mining — all lend to the belief in a curse.
The Dark Entry Association really does own the land in and around Dudleytown, and it absolutely is private and protected, but not because of creatures or ghosts or demons. It’s the simple fact that a bunch of people have, since World War Two, trampled through, and though clearly marked as no trespassing land, it continues today. Most violators seem to be “ghost hunters”, in other words idiotic thrill seekers who have less respect for the law than urbexers who stack up misdemeanors like a squirrel stashes nuts, the dickheads. These ghost hunters claim to get bad vibes, get touched, or even scratched by unseen entities. I don’t believe that any more than I believe the Dudley Curse.
There’s a lot more to the story than most people are willing to say, because additional facts work less in the favor of sensation and much more in favor of serious scholars and historians. Can’t have that, now, can we?
The truths right there in front of us are simple: the village lay nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, where all sorts of things happen that can’t readily be explained. What you have to realize is, in the mountains of the United States, the ranges of the east, central and west, stories of wildlife that cannot be identified, disasters and deaths, and lots of missing persons, are constantly reported. Planes go down, and I’ve seen the wreckage of one myself. A low-wing, single engine private aircraft. Whoever landed that thing was good. It sat on its belly and still had paint on the exterior even though inside it was decked out with hives of hibernating bees and probably had some rattlers under it. Mountains eat planes. People get lost. They die of exposure, broken bones that put them in shock, and attacks by snakes, dogs, coyotes and bear. It happens. The Appalachian Mountains are constantly underestimated and at elevation, however slight, Dudleytown was a long shot from the start.
I don’t like it when mostly modern accounts alter the vague histories of centuries past. And from all the material I’ve read, I come now to Occam’s Razor. The answer that requires the fewest assumptions is probably the best theory….or conclusion.
I’ve had plenty of times in many places when I felt some kind of bad feeling. I can’t really prove what I think causes this, even though I have different ideas for different places. In the drive upstate in Connecticut, I believe the pitch-black surroundings when I was used to busy, populated routes, simply gave me the creeps. As for Dudleytown, I have no idea how far away it was. I don’t believe it made any difference.
Taking the least amount of assumptions to arrive at a reasonable conclusion about Dudleytown, I find myself on the skeptical side this time. Iron ore being so plentiful underground and having so much water that three mills operated at one time leads me to also conclude that feelings of “bad vibes” or negative emotions just ices the cake. That village was always doomed. Assuming that the place was cursed and surrounded by ghosts and cryptids takes too many jumps for me.
But I’m not quite finished yet. While researching, and believe me on this, you’ll find far more bullshit than you ever will facts, I came across a piece of flawless logic that I can’t get out of my head: i95 Rock, a very interesting radio station out of Danbury, Connecticut, had this to show us:
One DJ sent the town of Cornwall a request under the Freedom of Information Act. This allows US citizens or associations to obtain information from entities which are usually not particularly interested in talking to anyone. It’s been used effectively to obtain government documents and so-on.
The request seems well written and specific. What was sent as a response was even more to the point and is notable for its brevity. It says, basically, “Don’t come here. Your request for information is is denied.”
But the request did not ask for permission to enter the premises. The conclusion of the guest and the DJ is, hey, you stupid bastards, I didn’t ask for permission, I asked for records. What the hell are you boys playing at? What’s really in there? Why are you defensive?
I don’t know what became of this discussion, but it raises a glaringly unmistakable point: why would such a simple request be met by such a defensive and dismissive response? That is, if there’s nothing to see here? A conspiracy!
Suspicious at least, deceitful at most. But why?
If I have anything left to take consolation from, it this:
The linked article i95 posted on its sight is dated.
April 1, 2019.
April Fool’s Day.
Conclusion: not only should you not go to Dudleytown; you shouldn’t even research the fucking place.
Kill me.
Memoirs of an American Asshole 