The Curse Of Dudleytown

In February of 1745, Thomas Griffis bought half a parcel of Cornwall land from Eleazer Whittlesey of Wethersfield, Connecticut. Today, Dudleytown looks much like it did when Thomas Griffis first walked into the land some 250 years ago. A very thick forest, incredibly rocky terrain, and in the shadow of three mountains: Bald Mountain, Woodbury Mountain, and The Coltsfoot Triplets. Because of the location and the dense, tall woods, the forest was given the ominous name of “Dark Entry Forest.” Lying in the shadow of three mountains also meant the town received little sunlight. During winters there are times when snow will be falling on Dudleytown and nothing will touch the ground just 1000 feet lower in the valley of Cornwall. The land was hard, and living there was even harder.

In 1748 Gideon Dudley moved from Saybrook, Connecticut and bought some land from Griffis to start a small farm. By 1753 Gideon’s two brothers, Barzillai and Abiel Dudley, from Guilford, Connecticut, also purchased land nearby as the area was starting to blossom into a hollow. A few years later, a Martin Dudley from Massachusetts also joined the clan.

Contrary to what some believe, Dudleytown was never actually a town. It was always part of Cornwall township. Dudleytown used the Cornwall church, town hall, and cemetery to conduct its spiritual and business affairs. The area was called Dudleytown because of the number of Dudleys who came to live in the area.

Cornwall township was a hard area to farm in. Isaac Stiles, who was an early resident of the area eloquently put it best: “Nature out of her boundless Store, Threw Rocks together and did no more.” To make fields suitable for farming, early Dudleytown pioneers had to contend with the rocky soil. Each stone had to be picked up and moved. The stone walls that were created by clearing the woods and fields are still standing in Dudleytown today.

The Troubles Begin
Living in Dudleytown was never easy. Many things went wrong for the people and for the land. Were all of the events unexplainable? Was there a high lead content in the drinking water? Did Native Americans sneak into the hollow and wreak havoc? Or did the Dudleys carry a centuries-old curse into the village?

The rocks in and around Dudleytown do contain a high level of iron and other metals. It is possible there was some lead in the drinking water on the hillside. This theory could explain some of the dementia that area residents experienced, but continued lead poisoning is always fatal and for more than a century people lived in Dudleytown. If the water was bad, residents would have moved away sooner.

It is also true that there were many Native American tribes who lived in the general vicinity of Dudleytown, including the Mohawk nation. Some battles of the French Indian War (1755 – 1763) also took place within 100 miles of Dudleytown. There was fallout from the Native Americans for several years after the war, and one set of Dudleytown residents met their fate at the hands of angered Indians.

In August of 1774, an unidentified epidemic struck the Adoniram Carter household in Dudleytown and killed the entire family. A second Dudleytown Carter family, The Nathaniel Carters, distraught from the loss, moved near Binghamton, New York where Indians took the life of Nathaniel, his wife, and their infant by tomahawk. The Carters’ other three children were kidnapped to Canada where two daughters were ransomed. The son, David Carter, remained with his captors, married an Indian girl, and eventually returned to the United States for formal education. David escaped the curse of Dudleytown and eventually went on to become a Supreme Court judge.

One of the more bizarre tragedies occurred to one of Cornwall’s more famous residents, General Heman Swift. General Swift served in the Revolutionary War under General George Washington. In April of 1804 his wife, Sarah Faye, was struck by lightning on their front porch and killed instantly. Shortly after his wife’s death, General Swift was reported to have gone “slightly demented.”

Horace Greeley, editor and founder of the New York Tribune and most famous for his quote, “Go West, young man,” married Mary Cheney, who was born in Dudleytown. The two met in a vegetarian boarding house, and their union ended when Mary Cheney took her own life in 1872, one week before Horace Greeley lost his bid for the presidency of the United States.

The next tragedy occurred near the very end of the 1800s to one of Dudleytown’s last residents, John Patrick Brophy. John Brophy’s wife died of consumption, and shortly after his two children mysteriously disappeared in the woods. The children vanishing could have been attributed to the fact that they were accused of stealing sleigh robes and wanted to run from the law. After losing his entire family, the Brophy home burned to the ground. Some have speculated that it was John Brophy who set the blaze. Regardless of how the fire started, John Brophy walked away from Dudleytown never to be seen again.

By 1899 Dudleytown was completely deserted. Children who grew up there married and moved away. The forest began to reclaim the land.

Dudleytown is Reborn
In 1920 Dr. William Clark, a cancer specialist from New York City, came to Cornwall for the quiet that the woods could provide. Dr. Clark fell in love with the surroundings and built a summer house there. In 1924, together with some of his friends and colleagues, Dr. Clark formed the Dark Entry Forest Association (DEF). “The Dark Entry Forest Association was formed as a nature preserve,” explains Dr. John F. Leich, former president and current shareholder of the DEF. “Dr. Clark wanted a place where he could bring his children and grandchildren in the summers.” The original charter stated the land would remain “forever wild,” a nature preserve for its members to enjoy.

During a summer in the mid-1920s, Dr. William Clark was called away to an emergency in New York City. His wife stayed behind and when he returned a few days later, she was alleged to have gone mad. Sources said something from the forest attacked her and left her completely insane. She lived out the remainder of her days in a mental hospital.

Theories Behind the Curse
Dr. John F. Leich, a resident of the Dark Entry Forest since 1952, claims that in his almost 50 years of experience in and around Dudleytown, there is absolutely nothing odd or paranormal about the place. “My wife and I have been spending summers here since 1952,” Dr. Leich said. “There are approximately 50 shareholders in the Dark Entry Forest Association and about 20 houses, and none of us have seen anything strange or supernatural.”

Reverend Gary Dudley, a Dudley family genealogist, believes there is no family connection between Joseph Dudley of Saybrook, Connecticut, and the cursed Edmund Dudley. “Edmund Dudley’s son, Robert, Earl of Leicester had two sons, and one was illegitimate,” Rev. Dudley said. “The legitimate son of Robert died too young to marry, and the other moved to Italy where he and his three children remained—there is no lineage between Robert and the Dudleys who eventually settled in Cornwall.”

Rev. Dudley believes Dudleytown’s “ghosts” may have been the work of human error: “The town produced a little flax and some rye, which is interesting because if rye is left to decay, the resulting mold is a hallucinogen. This makes me wonder if the ‘demons’ were the result of bad bread as opposed to actually being the devil’s work.”  “Dudleytown became a town that was just trying to survive as opposed to grow and thrive,” Rev. Dudley concluded.

Ed Warren, noted demonologist and ghost hunter, believes Dudleytown was definitely cursed. “The Dudleys had an ancestor in England who was a judge and condemned many people to death for witchcraft,” Mr. Warren said. “The curse in Dudleytown started after the village became a thriving town. People went mad and reported seeing monstrosities in the forest—things that were unnatural.”

“Curse? What is a curse? Dudleytown is cursed in that it is a tract of land with an aura of disaster. Everyone left the town,” Ed Warren concluded.

Nancy Zeigler, co-author of the forthcoming book, Deadleytown, said, “The people living in the Dark Entry Forest have a vested interest in saying there is nothing up there.  Well, if there’s nothing up there, then why do we get strange things on our photographs? I’ve been slapped across the face and scratched with no one standing there.”

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