Episode 520: Dudleytown: Connecticut’s Cursed Ghost Town

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And I'm Elena.

And this is morbid.

It's morbid in the morning, in case you couldn't tell from our voices.

It's morbid in the morning, it's like very early morning. We haven't done one like this in a while, a while.

And it's rainy out.

Yeah, it's real spooky.

It is.

It's cold, though, it's like a very cold rain, which is disgusting.

The holidays are upon us.

Yeah, Thanksgiving is like in a minute.

It's like, in a minute.

In a minute, we did this early in the morning because Chug Girl is leaving on my honeymoon because I got married. Woo a whole ass, Isaac these days.

It was such a good wedding.

It was so much fun.

It was so fun.

It was so fun, I had the two best maid of honors in the entire world.

Oh my God, that was one of them.

I just got so many of the pictures back and there were so many cute pictures of us. There's one of you giving your speech and I'm just like, Actually, there's one of you giving your speech. And I'm looking on lovingly. And then there's one of you giving your speech and I'm holding up a one. And I know exactly what it's for, because it's for the captain crunch slurpee that she's literally told everyone. And the fish tacos?

We weren't talking about the fish tacos.

One time, the fish taco incident will remain unnamed. Thank you and good night. But no, it was so much fun and I had a blast.

It was awesome, it was gorgeous, you were gorgeous.

You were gorgeous.

Drew was gorgeous, Drew was gorgeous, it was all that.

He crowd surfed three times.

It was great, it was amazing, it was epic.

All right, so I said, why don't we do a little cursity curse town?

Yeah, this town is wild, like it's just a weird ass town. it's not even a town, is it?

It's literally not, it's just like an area on top of a couple of fucking mountains.

It's like one of those unincorporated towns that are really fucking weird.

Yeah, it just got, like, called a town because of, like, the grouping of people that live there. Yeah, but they all went cuckoo nuts, bananas, allegedly. And then I did find a listener tale of somebody that's visited.

Hell yeah.

We're talking about Dudley Town in Connecticut. Please be aware that I'm not encouraging you to go anywhere near there because that is illegal. Oh, but this person, I think went before it was illegal or went on the low.

And we're not going to judge them.

Yeah, we're not judging them for that in any way, but on the low, in the forward motion of things. I am encouraging you not to go, just want to state that.

I like how you, just what you just called the future.

Yeah, the forward in the forward, in the forward time. I am imploring you to not go because you'll get in trouble and I don't want that for you.

I don't want that for you.

It's expensive to get in trouble.

Oh, no.

Yeah, I'll let you know how much, but vamp for a sec because I need another sip of coffee.

All right, I'm vamping because Ash needs a sip of coffee before she goes on. Did it. I found I noticed this topic somewhere.

Yeah, because you try to remember where originally, and then we did a little reverse, reverse, reverse.

But I'm trying to remember where I found it because I feel like I was in one of those weird books. Like it might have been in one of those weird books, because it was one of those. I was like, huh, this is interesting.

And like, we're not saying like the book is weird, it's literally like, weird, like, weird New Jersey, New England, New England, weird Connecticut. Yeah, I think maybe that's what it was.

It probably was.

Or like, No, no, no, no, no, you said a tick tock, Oh yeah.

And you think, Yeah, I think it.

All right, well, that's cool, yeah. And let's get into it. So deep in the woods near Cornwall, Connecticut, in a valley known as Dark Entry Forest.

I'm already sold.

Yeah, are the remains of the small village of Dudley Town. Dudley Town was a thriving mining community. It was settled upon in the mid 18th century by British colonists. Much like pretty much everywhere else around, yeah.

You know, yeah.

The town provided charcoal and other minerals for the growing steel industry in and around New England, but by the late 19th century, the mining industry had shifted west. I think we all know about that, we learned about that in, like, sixth grade, the Gold Rush.

Like a little hamlet.

Yeah, kind of, actually. By 1924, the village of Dudley Town was completely abandoned at that point, and it fell into the ownership of a private trust. Who wanted to restore the forest ecosystem to its pre-colonial health? Oh so, they set out on a little ecosystem.

Makeover Correct Extreme makeover.

Forest Edition. I like that. So, looking back, historians and other people familiar with this area chalked up the abandonment of this little town hamlet to a variety of social, economic, ecological reasons. But with that being said, there are people who think that those reasons, all those social, economic, ecological reasons, are bullshit. And that the real reason the village was abandoned is much darker and far more supernatural in nature.

And I'm with them, and I'm with them.

There are rumors of widespread madness among the villagers, unexplained deaths and other tragedies. And, of course, a curse. That dates back to the founding of the village in the 1740s, or actually possibly even before that, huh, regarding this one family?

Woman to it.

Now today, the area is still said to be haunted, and despite being private property.

Private property.

Private property? It has become a popular destination for ghost hunters and legend trippers who are determined to find out whether Dudley Town is a truly cursed village. Or just a victim of those shifting social and economic trends. Boo boring.

Haunted, cursed.

All right, so let's get into it. Located in the northwest corner of Connecticut, the Town of Cornwall was incorporated in 1740. Like so long ago, and it was after multiple shares of lands were purchased at auction from Yale College.

Cornwall.

Yeah, and it was about a year or two earlier now. Early colonists were initially drawn to this region for farming and the proximity to the Housatonic river. But they learned pretty quickly that the mountainous landscape made transportation difficult, and that it also limited the crops that could be sold outside of the area. For that very reason.

Yeah.

Now, among those who immigrated to Cornwall were several members of the Dudley Family Ah, Dudley family, Dudley Town, AH. And in the early 1740s, they settled in this heavily wooded part of Cornwall that sat right on top of a high hill that, in time, came to be known as Dudley Town.

I also love that they gave the name Dudley Town, like their last name was Dudley, and they were like Dudley Town.

This is our town bitch.

It feels like, and I'm not equating them to him, but it feels like something Mayor Humdinger, from Paw Patrol would do.

That's a mom moment.

I just.

Humdinger Town, brought to you by Paw Patrol.

Like, I could see that happening.

You know what, though? No, that man, right, that man.

That man checks.

No sort of like how like an urban neighborhood, like a city neighborhood, might gain an informal nickname due to the particular characteristic. That's exactly what it was like, Beantown for Boston, you know?

Yeah.

Which I didn't know why Boston was called Beantown, really. I thought it was B-Town for the longest time of my life.

Wow.

Only about maybe five or six years ago did I learn.

Wow, you were in your 20s.

In my 20s, my 20s, or maybe, like, maybe like late teens. But yeah, I always thought it was B-Town, but it's Beantown because we have a lot of baked beans here.

That's hilarious that you did not know that.

I also didn't know that, like, baked beans were like a Boston thing, yeah.

I thought.

Yeah, who knew?

I did.

You, you, but not me, not I.

Who knew?

Who knew? But now I do, or you know now anyways. Early settlers in the area included Thomas Griffiths, Gideon, Gideon, Dudley. What'd you say?

I said, shut up over there, shut up computing.

Barzelay Dudley, Hellieville Dudley, and Martin Dudley, who were eventually followed by other families that would also settle upon the town. Just wild ass names, though.

Wild ass names.

Barzelay is my favorite name ever.

Barzelay is where it's at.

Oh my God, and I meant to text you, you know, that French guy on the pronunciation that we love.

Yes, I love that guy.

I looked it up and he goes, Barzelay, it is easy, Barzelay. He was like, You can do it, and I was like, Thank you, Barzelay.

Barzelay It is easy, Barzelay, I don't know if it is.

I love him.

He always encourages, he, does I like him?

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like, in my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad. I'm like, stop around.

She's like, I can't.

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast, like doubling and tripling. And it's all these girls with a diagnosis. The state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back.

We all love it.

We all harvest it.

We all live it. Yeah, you know, Ore.

Ore I don't even really know what iron ore is, do you?

I don't know, I know that Bobby Ore was a hockey player.

The More You Know in Boston in Boston, brought to you by Bean Town, Bean Town.

I mean, it both works.

Get you a girl who could do both exactly so. Connecticut was being settled by European colonists in the early 18th century. So it occurred to them that the western part of the state could potentially be rich with valuable minerals. I don't know what it is about the West, but, like, it's all about minerals.

I know everything in the west, even the western part of the eastern states, are more fruitful. I don't know what's happening there.

What's up with the West?

I like the East personally.

Me as well personally. But the problem, however, was that extracting iron ore from the earth was a very costly, time-consuming process. That, after you got through the entire thing, could also prove unprofitable. Making a profit was real hard back in this day.

It was.

But fortunately, by the mid to end of the 18th century. The onset of the American Revolutionary War drove the need for locally produced steel for arms, which dramatically increased the potential for local mining. Ah, there you go, so like, sad, that war made that happen.

I was gonna say, yay.

For the residents of Cornwall living in Dudleytown, that demand for Ore created a welcome opportunity to replace those failed attempts at farming. And soon, the area became known for its active mining industry, and they were providing large amounts of charcoal to the growing mining industry. Now, while the end of the revolution saw a dramatic decrease in the need for war-related iron production. The industrialization of labor that occurred throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries ensured that New England's mining industry wasn't going anywhere. And during this period, iron forges and industrial blast furnaces were scattered across the region, including two in Cornwall alone. And as one of the few areas in western Connecticut with a quarry. Cornwall and the Dudleytown area specifically became a really important source of charcoal to keep the regional furnaces operating. So they were really, really needed in this period of time, which meant they were really, really profitable.

Like, we got a quarry.

We got a fucking quarry kid very boston also.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, so everything's going great, right? It's going great well for a little while. But by the end of the 19th century, the prosperity the residents of Dudleytown were enjoying. And, just like sliving on, began to decline before finally coming to a complete end in the second decade of the 20th century. Damn.

Nevada, I think, yeah.

Those had driven the mining industry out west again. We all know it, and that took most of Cornwall's residents with it, so they were kind of fucked again. So soon after, life in the relatively isolated area of Dudleytown really became more of a hardship.

Oh, damn.

Which, like, there's something about the forest just eating up your house.

Yeah, there's something about the forest reclaiming things that really just sets me alight.

It fucks me up, yeah, because I just picture the forest like eating your house.

Yeah, the forest is just like, don't mind if I do, yeah, like, that's what I think, just like that's mine.

My trees are going back there. It's like, Damn, yeah, the forest is. She's a sassy bitch.

She will, she'll just reclaim.

And good for her, she should, yeah. Now, by the early 20th century, there's like so many centuries, huh?

So many.

Only a handful of people still trying to manage a living in Dudleytown until the late 1920s, when only one resident remained damn one in this once thriving community. Unfortunately, the last holdout learned the same lesson of the early settlers and found the area impossible to farm. Eventually, he lost all of his income and had to abandon the farm and relocate closer to town.

Poor person.

I know they have a name for him. I'm not going to say it because, like, it might be incorrect. But some books point to this one man. But then others are like, No, people just like, put him in there.

You don't want to do that.

Now, by the end of the 1920s, Dudleytown, like I said, had become completely abandoned. And at that point, it was purchased by a land trust known as Dark Entry Forest Association.

That's fucked up metal, I love that.

That's a private organization started by New York philanthropists, and their mission was to preserve the region's forest ecosystem.

Dark Entry Forest.

Oh yeah, and their particular emphasis was on education, so they were like, we're metalists, fuck, but we just like to teach you things.

Well, that's a way to get people's attention.

That's the thing.

Like, I'm listening, of course you are.

Your middle name is Dark Entry Forest Association, now under the management of this land Trust. The area, once known as Dudleytown, became a popular destination for New Yorkers who needed an escape from city life. They found Cornwall a convenient place to vacation or a place where they could commute into the city for work. And since taking over the region in the late 1920s Dark Entry Forest Association. They have planted thousands of trees and restored most of the once deforested region, basically, to its pre-colonial ecosystem.

Hell yeah, Dark Entry Forest Association.

Yeah, they created a sanctuary for lots of bird species that had left previously in other wildlife.

Oh, I love that shit.

Or have they? Because people say that there's like no wildlife and it's like silent in those streets?

They tried.

Now, the decline and eventual abandonment of Dudleytown was a long process, resulting in a shift of economic opportunities and the increasingly infeasibility of the area. Right?

Exactly.

Totally yeah. In simple terms, people chalk it up to the decline in the demand for charcoal. The inability to farm the land. And all of that led to making relatively isolated Dudleytown just an undesirable place to live.

But.

But ghost towns do have a way of, you know, getting our imagination to go wild, and Dudleytown is no different. And maybe it's not just our imagination. I don't think it is. It's not because rumors of supernatural forces and curses started even before this place was fully abandoned.

Oh, shit.

So in some cases, people say that he was going to assassinate King George II. Other sources have it as King Henry VIII. So I think the timelines just got a little obscured there.

Yeah, and I think maybe some sources. King Henry VIII is such a polarizing and like, very like, whoa figure that it's like, throw him in there and it's like, Oh shit.

Exactly because he's also just even if you don't know like anything about King Henry VIII, you know the name. But the family feared that they would soon meet the same fate of being executed because they were associated with him. Hell, no so.

So they were literally like, We don't want to be associated with your plot to assassinate the king, we don't want to get killed. So we're going to give everything up and just go live in Connecticut.

Just go live in Connecticut and hopefully farm, and then when they got there, they were like, Fuck, can't farm.

Can't farm.

And we're royal, so like, what do we even do? Shit, yeah, it's rough on it.

Yeah, and then they were like, Oh, no, we don't have skills.

It was kind of like naked and afraid, except they had some clothes.

Yeah, clothed and afraid.

Clothed and afraid.

Clothed, royal and afraid.

I would watch that, No. The legend was expanded a decade later in the 19. Excuse me, shut up.

They found a way.

Written by Iva Hunt, Sherry and William Garigas Garigas, Excuse me, according to Sherry and Garigas. After Dudley's attempted assassination of the king, a coven of British satanists placed a curse on Edmund Dudley's bloodline. Dooming them to a tragic existence, no matter where they fled.

I'm in, here's my issue.

We really think the Satanists of the time, if there were any, were going to place a curse on the guy that tried to kill the King. You would feel like the Satanists would be against the king. Yeah, because he was all about the church at that point.

Yeah, you'd think some anarchy kind of stuff.

Right?

I don't.

Someone placed a curse, I believe the whole curse thing, I'm just like, I don't know if it was satanists.

I don't know if it was satanists, I know I feel like they'd be like, Eh, I feel like real satanists. They don't care enough to do that shit.

Yeah, no, and they wouldn't be rooting for...

They're not bothered enough.

I don't think they'd be rooting for the crown. Yeah, that's the thing.

I think that's like the misconception about satanists is that they are bothered.

Yeah, they're not, don't they actually like, not even believe in Satan?

Very unbothered. Yeah, it's not even like a real deity or any kind of like entity.

No, there's like no deities.

It's a symbol.

Like, you're the deity, right?

Yeah, like you worship yourself, that's hot.

Right?

I like it, and Satan's like the symbol of, like, you know, kind of independence of free thought.

That's cool and baffy, right? Like Baphomet.

BAFFY Yeah, he's a cool symbol.

He is a cool symbol, I like him a lot. Yeah, look him up. We have a picture with him at the Satanic Temple.

I love Baffy.

He's cool, so, according to American Hauntings, Inc. one of Edmund's sons, the guy that got assassinated. He also tried to take control over the British throne because, like, WHO wasn't trying to take control of the British throne.

I mean, me, I wasn't.

But well, you weren't alive. If you had been alive, me thinks you would have. me thinks you would have fucked over that crown hard. Instead of threatening to behead anybody. This guy just meddled and that scared the absolute shit out of me.

Oh my God. That brought us back to early days of recording. When my charger would just be ripped out of the wall and fall down all the time, that was my charger, everybody, wow, that was my charger falling out of the wall for no reason.

Is that plug even usually loose? No, it's the curse, yeah.

It just flew out of the wall. That's spooky, that's spooky.

I don't like it. Well, instead of threatening to behead anybody, this guy, one of his sons, actually just decided he would meddle into a marriage. Yeah. So he arranged the marriage of one of his sons to Lady Jane Grey, who I feel like we've talked about before.

Yeah, she's a very historical figure.

Yeah, and at this point in time, she was supposed to be next in line for the crown. So he was effectively setting his son up to become king. Hell yeah. But unfortunately for them, after Edward, I believe it was the sixth.

And Ioop.

And Ioop? Later, John Dudley's other son, Guilford's brother, was said to have brought home a plague from France. He had been fighting in France.

Oh, shit.

And when he came back with that plague, he killed his officers, his troops, spreading the plague to them, and essentially went on to kill thousands throughout the country.

Because of this illness, holy shit.

Big yikes, big yikes, big target on your back right there.

Wow, Dudley's.

Dudley's not killing it, but also killing it, yeah. So other accounts that emerged in the years that followed actually suggested that. The curse began centuries earlier, when Edmund Dudley was beheaded for attempting to assassinate King Henry VIII. Like I was saying. And the family eventually was said to bring that curse with them to Cornwall. When they fled New England, or when they fled England. In time, the curse of Dudleytown would supposedly earn the region the nickname Village of the Damned.

Oh my goodness.

But other people think that nickname, Village of the Damned, started with a relatively simple murder.

Either way, what a fucking nickname.

Village of the Damned. If that's not a band name already, what are the musical people doing?

Village of the Damned. Well, that's like a movie.

Yeah, is that a movie? Yeah, actually.

Yeah, Village of the Damned. Yeah, because it's like, in, like, Children of the Damned.

Oh, I don't think I've ever seen those.

Let me see hold on, village of the....

By the way, while I have you here and we're talking about movies, I want to watch that new Thanksgiving movie.

Me too.

I want to see that.

I really want to see that. That's been like 16 years in the making. Are you serious? He? First, we're just going to talk about Eli Roth for a second.

It looks incredible.

For the full length thing of it. And he finally was able to do it. Oh, that's cool. I've heard amazing things about it, I've heard my girl Sydney on TikTok horror chronicles.

And then there will be more movies.

And I've been waiting for one of those.

We haven't had one. Give me another one. I feel like the last iconic killer is probably like Ghostface, right?

Yeah, it's like, because you got to wait for the real good one to put him on the Mount Rushmore of Killers.

It's true.

John and I had an argument about that the other day, and John was wrong. Their pinhead belongs on there.

And I said, John can't decide who goes on the Rushmore of Iconic Killers, but he can decide who goes on the Rushmore of 90s R&B, exactly. And you just have to stay in your own lane.

It's true, we stay in our own lanes here.

Exactly, but anyways, back to the Dudleys. Yeah, it all started with a relatively simple murder. After decades of struggling and ultimately again failing to farm that land, considerable tensions had arisen between the families in Dudleytown.

Yeah, they're all aggravated.

Yeah, they're all like Regina George and Gretchen Wieners over the fetch of it all.

Yeah, it's not going to happen.

It's not, and neither is the farming now. Those tensions were said to finally come to a head in 1792, when Gershon Hollister was found murdered in a home owned by a man named William Tanner. Now the weird thing is, Hollister's murderer is never named. no one knows who really murdered him.

Wow.

But before that, he claimed that some kind of unrecognizable animal killed Hollister in the forest or like, attacked him. And then he brought him back into his home to try to help him, and that's where he died.

Oh, damn.

Other people say that he died building a barn, but that's boring.

Yeah, that's boring.

I think animal demon.

Animal demon.

Demon animal Yeah, you know.

Oh shit, and this guy just went like mad afterwards.

Damn, and it's like animal demon William Tanner.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know, I don't know, wow. But, according to legend, Abel Dudley was the next to fall victim to the curse. Not long after Hollister's murder. Abel's neighbors noticed that he had become constantly distracted and also began decompensating, until he, too, finally lost his mind altogether.

Wow.

So he had to be taken away, actually because he was talking about demon animals. And just like all kinds of nonsense to the people, like people took it as nonsense.

So there's like a consistent thread through this madness as well.

Of demon animals. Damn yeah, now. Once he had been taken away, Abel, Nathaniel Carter and his family moved into Abel's house.

Oh, shit.

But they, too, became so disturbed by inexplicable tragedies that they just up and left and moved to Birmingham, New York, where they built a cabin.

Holy shit.

Now I have, like, chills, even just saying this. So they got out of there because something just so disturbed them in that house that they moved out of the state and over to New York. Now, one day, while Nathaniel was in the village, the home was raided and his wife and children were killed. And when he returned later that day, he was also killed. And according to the New England Historical Society, the unfortunate turn of events was likely linked to the Dudley Town case. And even followed them all the way to New York.

Holy shit.

Isn't that nuts? Like, somehow, the curse rubbed off on them from living in Abel's house.

Damn, don't move into Abel's house.

Don't do it, don't do it now. The madness continued a short time later when General Heman Swift I believe his name is a hero of the Revolutionary War, returned home after the war. He lived happily with his third wife, Sarah Fye, for a short time, until she was struck and killed by a bolt of lightning.

What the fuck?

Struck and killed by a bolt of lightning, after which, he quote, went stark, raving Mad, everyone's going mad, which I'm like, if my man's got killed by, like a lightning strike out of nowhere, I might, too, also go mad.

But it's like who gets struck by lightning?

That's the thing this is strange. And of course, in Dudley, in Dudley, she's just like standing on her porch and got struck by lightning.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, but now. In 1872, just one week before the presidential election, Greeley's wife, Mary Cheney, took a trip to her childhood home in Dudley Town.

Oh, no.

And hanged herself, inexplicably.

What the fuck?

Like, according to everybody, nothing had been going on. No lead up to this, there was the stress of, like, the presidential election coming up.

But just went to Dudley Town to hang herself.

Went to Dudley Town to her childhood home. What the fuck I have? chills.

It freaks me the fuck out.

That's spooky, yeah, it is.

That's really spooky. I also realized that when you said Ulysses S. Grant that I was like, Oh shit, like he's like my favorite president or something like that. Like, I don't know why. I responded that way, I have no feelings about Ulysses S.

I think he had a rock star mustache.

All right, then, oh shit.

Did he?

Ulysses I think he did. I just realized my response seemed like I was a real like fangirl for Ulysses.

It's a secret thing that we've never told you, the secret. Did he even know the secret thing? Oh no, his mustache wasn't even that great.

Oh, okay, oh, I think I can picture him in my head.

Yeah, you know, yeah.

A Ulysses side quest.

Oh, I think he might have been good, I don't know. We don't have to get into that.

That's okay, I felt like I should clarify that, yeah, you should, that I'm not like here. Just like thirsting for ulysses, not all up in ulysses.

I mean, he's a good looking man. Yeah, if you were, I'd be like, okay.

But damn, this is all, this is a lot.

And then so he loses his wife after it goes, after she goes, and, like, you know, hangs herself and her child at home in Dudleytown. And then he loses the presidential candidacy, or he loses the election. Yeah, because of the curse, damn.

Oh, shit.

According to Legend, Dr. Clark took a short business trip to New York in 1924. And when he returned home to Dudleytown, his wife had completely lost it. And he literally had to, like, institutionalize her at this point.

Everyone's going mad.

She spent the rest of her life in a psychiatric institution. Wow. But she, too, referenced strange animals in the woods shut up before dissenting into complete quote unquote madness.

Guys, what the fuck is going on with that?

There's animals.

Demon animals.

Demon fucking animals.

Something's going on.

Now, the madness that seemed to consume so many residents of Dudleytown was just one of the many inexplicable tragedies to befall the community. Death seemed to have taken a liking to Dudleytown from the very beginning. Yeah. In 1774, not long after, Adoniram Carter settled in the area with his family.

The entire family.

Now, according to Sherry Rive, I believe it was the mysterious deaths of the Carter family that so disturbed Nathaniel Carter. To the point that he also relocated his entire family. To excuse me, Binghampton and that was the guy that up and left to New York, yeah, but then was killed in New York.

Holy shit.

Now, in the late 19th century, the curse also found its way to the family of John Patrick Brophy when his wife died of consumption. A short time later, the two Brophy children disappeared into the woods and were never seen again.

What?

Their mother died of consumption, which, like you, can chalk up to a curse.

I was going to say, like, everybody was dying of consumption.

But then the children disappeared into the woods, and no one ever saw them again.

You said two children.

Two children.

Just disappeared into the fucking dark forest.

And no one.

Where the demon animals are?

And we're not done with this poor family. Oh, because if those tragic losses weren't enough, the home in which the Brophy's lived then burned to the ground under mysterious circumstances.

I mean, come on.

Some people think that John Brophy set the fire himself, which, like, at that point, I.

Would probably light my home on fire, too. Yeah, I wouldn't blame him.

But whatever the case, after the deaths of his or the death of his wife and the disappearances of his two children, he left Dudleytown and was never heard from again.

I cannot get over the fact that these two children just disappeared in the forest.

My chills also will not go away telling this story.

I'm they just walked into. Like, the thought of people just walking into the forest and disappearing forever is just.

Never to be seen again. Holy shit, were the demon animals like beckoning them?

That's the thing, like, what was going on, why'd they just walk into the forest?

I don't know, but I hate it.

And I know it's probably not on record, but I wonder how old they were and shit like.

I didn't see anything about their ages, but they were probably children.

So it's like they were younger, and it's like.

And if they're going to wander into the woods, like you would think, around 10 or younger.

And it's like, even that, it's like, Damn, you just walked into the damn forest and never to be seen again.

Never, and then he was never heard from again after he just dipped after lighting Wow, potentially allegedly lighting his home ablaze.

Wow.

So by the mid 1970s, after people, all the people had fled and nature began to reclaim the land, all that remained of deadly town. And I believe still today, all that remains is a few cellar holes.

Oh.

Which is so fucking creepy. And then one or two of the original dirt roads, which are also probably dark. And the remnants of centuries old farms just scattered throughout the forest, and that was by the 70s. Right now you probably can't even find the farms.

Something about that fucks me up.

It's terrifying.

Yeah, that fucks me because it reminds me of the Okigahara.

Yep, yep.

The forest in Japan at the base of Mount Fiji.

And it's so dense that it's so silent.

Yeah, it's like, it's got that, like, just that's why it's called like that, like ocean of trees kind of thing, because it's just like dead silence.

There's something about I can't even sleep in silence.

I can't. And especially like a forest, a forest should be when you walk in, because you think of like a forest around here that you walk in. And it's just like bustling with, like, you know, birds chirping and squirrels running around, insects, and like, you know, leaves rattle, you know, rustling. And just wind rustling through. Like, there's always sounds that's like, in there, comforting sounds of a forest, yeah.

Dead silence. And, as he said, specifically, after dark, you don't even hear, like a fucking cricket.

See, and that's in that night that you hear nothing but sounds from the forest. We bring the dogs out at the end of the night, oh yeah, and the forest is fucking, they're partying.

It's a rager in the forest.

I hear fucking owls hooting at each other. Yeah, there's like all crickets, coyotes, coyotes.

Like, you want to hear something.

You want to hear that shit when you don't hear anything, I can't. That throws me for a loop.

Yeah, and he said he was like, we didn't really experience anything supernatural like, or that people I think would take as supernatural. But, he said, quote We all sensed a very uncomfortable, very uneasy and very frightening presence around us. Like, couldn't put their finger on it, but something was there and it was off.

See, and I feel like, you know, your body knows when something's off, and it's like when you feel a heaviness and an unsettled.

I'm not kidding like, chills won't go away.

That's the thing like, it's, I feel like, you know, when something is amiss.

You totally do.

And something's amiss there.

It is now. Campo's story actually got picked up by the wire service, and over the course of the week that followed, it appeared in newspapers across New England. And within a few years, the area, once known as Dudley, became known as one of the nation's premier haunted locations.

Damn.

As one reporter put it, one of the state's most melancholy map points.

Oh, everybody's got a way of just making this the creepiest thing ever. The village of the Damned.

The village of the damned melancholy map point. Oh, now. Within just a few years, the legends had completely taken off. And according to some, the curse, like we said, began after the residents had moved to the village and had been placed by quote, a dabbler in black magic. Causing those residents of Cornwall proper to fear the village and all those who lived in it.

Hey, I mean, I wouldn't put it. It's not shocking when you look at everything else.

Exactly, you know, by the 19, the early 1980s ghost hunters and legend trippers and scavengers, they had all set upon Cornwall. All looking to have firsthand experience with this haunted forest, or to find some kind of relic that they could take away and possibly sell. Because this place was getting all kinds of street cred, yeah. Yet, for all the interest in the legend of Dudleytown, few people outside of Connecticut seemed to grasp what it was that they were looking for. Dodie Wolf told a reporter from The New York Times Most people ask where Dudleytown is after having walked right through it.

Oh, damn.

So he was like, I don't know, like, is it that crazy if you're walking right through it and you don't know? Yeah, but I think that's boring.

I think it's just, yeah, it's whatever, that's even weirder.

And when it's in your backyard, like, of course, you're going to be like, Yeah, there's nothing wrong with it.

And it's like, that's even weirder that you can walk through a whole last, like quote unquote town and not know it like that's even spookier.

Yeah, now the granddaughter of William Clark, Wolf, like, So she's like a descendant of this Dudleytown area. Wolf and her husband had received special permission from the Dark Entry Forest Association to do selective logging in order to help spur new growth. So she and her husband had a front row seat to watch this curious, out-of-staters like influx wander around in search of the cursed town. Oh, shit.

Be a librarian forever, forever, not the rest of your life. for the rest of eternity. I want you to just always be Hildreth.

Like, wow. But, Hildreth said, They're all wide-eyed, wanting to believe in ghosts.

Which like?

Yeah, Hildreth me as well.

I want to believe in ghosts very much.

I love it so much. But the stories of the curse, according to one elder residence, were made out of a whole cloth, mostly by those who'd recently moved to the area. And, according to this resident, they sit around and dream things up like this is just so that they can entertain their summer guests. Ah, but I'm like, I don't know about that. Because I think everybody's starting to get a little bit irritated that, like, too many people are coming.

Because it's like, there's history to back it up. That, like, a lot of shit went down there, yeah, at the very least, and it's like, So....

Something happened.

I mean, there's some bad energy there, there is.

And by the mid-1980s, stories of the supernatural experiences that people had in Dudleytown at this point began circulating widely. There were unexplained anomalies that showed up in photos taken in the forest. Incoherent voices that seemed to start from afar and work their way closer. And strange shapes and subtle movements that people would catch out of the corner of their eye. And, of course, there was that eerie, unnatural silence that was emphasized by the lack of bugs and wildlife. Yeah, that's weird. Why wasn't there any wildlife or bugs?

Yeah.

Now, as time went on, the reports of supernatural occurrences grew to include a wolf-like shadow. Quote-unquote.

Shadow.

That followed hikers, but would always disappear if somebody tried to get a good look at it. Ooh, so it was like it was following you, and then the second you sensed it was and turned your head, it would be gone.

It would be gone.

But, like, you knew, something was following you. Ooh, spooky, yeah, very, very creepy. Now, after more than a decade of entertaining the ghost hunters and visiting, Excuse me and visitors seeking a brush with the supernatural. By the mid to late 1980s, the tone of Cornwall locals did become noticeably different. They were getting a little bit irritated with the influx of people.

Trying to shut it down.

I don't necessarily blame them. Like, if you live in a quiet town, that's your desire, of course, to have an influx of people. You're like, fuck my life.

Totally get it, but I think that's also why they're trying to shut down any kind of thought that it could be.

Yeah, that's what I think.

And I get it.

I get it, too. I might do the same thing, yeah. But Cornwall Historical Society President Michael Gannett told reporters There are some nuts who believe that sort of stuff. It's us.

Also rude, very rude way of saying that.

So rude.

I'm kind of mad at you, actually.

And he said, when the warm weather starts, they'll all be around looking for ghosts. Sometimes there's so many of them that I can't even get out of my driveway. Maybe they think there's an old saloon with a swinging door instead of a bunch of holes in the ground. Or maybe there's a fucking demon in the woods in your area and you're trying to hide it. Mayor, Yeah.

And it's like, You know what, here's the thing. I get it. You just said, sometimes you can't get out of your driveway, that's fucked up.

And then he went even further, years later, he said in an interview with The New York Times. Go to Dudleytown, they tell you it's this real, ghostly place, but the truth is, Dudleytown is a big fraud. Whoa?

Oh, yeah, that sounded like it was personal.

Sounds like you had an experience that you want to chalk up to bakery?

You don't want people blocking you into your driveway, so you're like, Fuck this, it's a fraud.

Exactly so, the increasingly frustrated and annoyed perspective of the Cornwalls locals aren't all that difficult to understand, like you said, what began decades earlier as like a campfire story told by hikers and campers. Had in the years that followed, ballooned into this crazy, macabre legend that was starting to attract all these visitors that locals were like, can you not? yeah.

And that sucks.

And that sucks.

Because that can happen, like we've seen that happen in other places, like in Salem, every Halloween. Oh yeah. The residents of Salem have to deal with a lot of shit, of course, and a lot of disrespect too, which is really fucked up.

If you want to go somewhere and experience it, by all means respect it, but respect the place that you are so desiring to go to.

Yeah, like, what are you doing? Like, there's always a few bad apples that fuck it up for everybody else.

Yeah, and according to Joan and John Leach, lifelong residents of Cornwall, they said the real curse of Dudleytown are the legends themselves, which have attracted everyone. From witchcraft societies to motorcyclists who disrupt the flow of life in Cornwall and rarely pick up after themselves.

Yeah, that's the thing. It's like, I don't care who you are, Witchcraft, motorcyclists like, whatever, everything in between, pick up after yourself.

Just pick up after yourself and, like, keep it quiet after a certain hour.

Yeah.

But despite the complaints and frustration of locals, interest in Dudleytown and the Curse only intensified in the 90s. And the Legends got a big boost in 96. When a guy named Greg Soltes, I believe, is how you say the last name. A college student from Wallingford, Connecticut, took some pictures in Dudleytown that he believed contained evidence of supernatural activity.

Oh shite.

He ended up taking those photos to this like local and husband-wife duo from Connecticut.

I don't know any husband and wife duos that are into the paranormal, you don't.

No, Anna Lorraine Warren Ring a bell. Never heard of them? No, well, they immediately they're everywhere.

I do, too, I get it, guys, I'm like, go off, you guys are a hot couple.

But they immediately recognized the potential of the photos. Yeah, and just like the fucking wildness of them. Lorraine Warren told a reporter. Those pictures were the best I've seen of Dudleytown. For some reason, the spirit seemed to be attracted to that guy.

Ghost Globules.

Ghost globules, that's awesome, and they said, I fucking love it. They said. This was proof that the area, once known as Dudleytown, was indeed a hotbed of supernatural activity. So fuck y'all who say it's not.

Yeah.

Because he's like, I know what I saw, dude, and I know what, like, got printed out on my picture. Yeah, he told a reporter. There's going to be people who don't believe it, but I don't really care. I was there.

Yeah, and the fact that he's just like, I don't give a shit, if you believe me, I was there.

I was there, I know.

Like, I know.

Now, for their part, Ed and Lorraine Warren agreed, but they encouraged him to proceed with an abundance of caution. He said I go there, I observe, I take some pictures and leave. I think there are really bad places to go.

Have just whatever faith you feel is right, yeah.

So whatever his intentions, or the intentions were of anybody around him. By the 1990s, the residents of Cornwall had reached their limit when it came to the ghost hunters and the thrill seekers. And just the curiosity of it all, in the disrespect, in the disrespect, that's what they had enough with.

I feel like if it was respectful and people were kind of like, doing it in the right way, they wouldn't have been as big of an issue.