Nalkarj
Fresh Blood
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2021
- Messages
- 8
Hey all—this is my first thread here, so let me know if everything’s OK with it.
A few years ago I heard of a Blair Witch Project-esque movie called YellowBrickRoad (2010). Like Blair Witch, it has a fictional backstory that the filmmakers try to make sound real. In this case, according to Wikipedia:
In the book, a mystery called Wilders Walk Away by Herbert Brean, for hundreds of years almost every member of a family in a small Vermont town has “walked away,” leaving the town with only the clothes on their back.
I doubted then and doubt now that the YellowBrickRoad filmmakers read Wilders Walk Away, a pretty obscure ’40s detective story. I tried searching for any kind of legend about a mass amount of people leaving a New England town, Pied Piper-style, but at the time the closest thing I could find was the Dudleytown, Ct., story—which isn’t that close at all. Could the similar backstories be a coincidence? Sure. They’re not identical, after all.
Then I read Stephen King’s ’Salem’s Lot (1975). I probably don’t need to summarize the plot, but just in case it’s about a small Maine (it’s King, after all) town that’s taken over by vampires. The characters, however, reference another town that is implied to have had the same thing happen. In a fictional article about it, King writes:
Now, this story could also be a coincidence. After all, King is clearly borrowing from the real-life mysteries of the Mary Celeste (which he references in the paragraph after the one above) and Roanoke. Still, it got me wondering if there were an ur-source for the mysteriously abandoned New England town story, and I found this 1987 King interview. In it, the interviewer asks, “Is the town of Jerusalem’s Lot (Salem’s Lot) a real town?” King responds:
This is the first claim I know that some real New England town experienced, as one Goodreads commenter called it, a “sudden depopulation.”
But is King telling the truth? I have not been able to find a single reference to Jeremiah’s Lot, ghost town or otherwise, not made by King. According to Wikipedia, King “foreshadowed the coming of ’Salem’s Lot” in his college newspaper column, writing:
Is this based on what King’s friend told him? Or is the storyteller just telling another story?
Then, last year, I got another whammy. There’s a real ghost town in New Hampshire called Monson Center—a name that is very close to the imaginary “Momson” King describes in ’Salem’s Lot. According to the Sept. 27, 2018, edition of the N.H. magazine The Hippo:
Could this at long last be our ur-source? It isn’t King’s (or King’s friend’s) “Jeremiah’s Lot,” but the stories are pretty close. And New Hampshire and Vermont are, of course, neighboring states.
If so, we’ve gone full-circle to New Hampshire, where YellowBrickRoad placed its suddenly depopulated town. Is this the solution, though? Is there another real ghost town with a similar story?
Some other people around the ’net have asked about this mystery, including at the Straight Dope, moviechat.org, and unexplained-mysteries.com. I originally posted the above research at a movie forum of which I’m a member and may post it on Reddit’s r/nonmurdermysteries.
A few years ago I heard of a Blair Witch Project-esque movie called YellowBrickRoad (2010). Like Blair Witch, it has a fictional backstory that the filmmakers try to make sound real. In this case, according to Wikipedia:
It’s definitely fictional, no doubt about that. What got me curious, though, was that I’d read a book with a very similar premise—which was published in 1948.In 1940 the entire town of Friar, New Hampshire, 572 people, abandoned their town and walked into the wilderness with only the clothes on their backs after a viewing of The Wizard of Oz, a film that the entire town was obsessed with. No one has ever been able to explain why they did this.
In the book, a mystery called Wilders Walk Away by Herbert Brean, for hundreds of years almost every member of a family in a small Vermont town has “walked away,” leaving the town with only the clothes on their back.
I doubted then and doubt now that the YellowBrickRoad filmmakers read Wilders Walk Away, a pretty obscure ’40s detective story. I tried searching for any kind of legend about a mass amount of people leaving a New England town, Pied Piper-style, but at the time the closest thing I could find was the Dudleytown, Ct., story—which isn’t that close at all. Could the similar backstories be a coincidence? Sure. They’re not identical, after all.
Then I read Stephen King’s ’Salem’s Lot (1975). I probably don’t need to summarize the plot, but just in case it’s about a small Maine (it’s King, after all) town that’s taken over by vampires. The characters, however, reference another town that is implied to have had the same thing happen. In a fictional article about it, King writes:
In New England the only counterpart to the mysterious emptying of Jerusalem’s Lot, or ’salem’s Lot as the natives often refer to it, seems to be a small town in Vermont called Momson. During the summer of 1923, Momson apparently just dried up and blew away, and all 312 residents went with it. The house and few small business buildings in the town’s center still stand, but since that summer fifty-two years ago, they have been uninhabited. In some cases the furnishings had been removed, but in most the houses were still furnished, as if in the middle of daily life some great wind had blown all the people away. In one house the table had been set for the evening meal, complete with a centerpiece of long-wilted flowers. In another the covers had been turned down neatly in an upstairs bedroom as if for sleep. In the local mercantile store, a rotted bolt of cotton cloth was found on the counter and a price of $1.22 rung up on the cash register. Investigators found almost $50.00 in the cash drawer, untouched.
Now, this story could also be a coincidence. After all, King is clearly borrowing from the real-life mysteries of the Mary Celeste (which he references in the paragraph after the one above) and Roanoke. Still, it got me wondering if there were an ur-source for the mysteriously abandoned New England town story, and I found this 1987 King interview. In it, the interviewer asks, “Is the town of Jerusalem’s Lot (Salem’s Lot) a real town?” King responds:
Yes and no. It is based on a town in upstate Vermont, that I heard about as an undergraduate in college, called Jeremiah's Lot. I was going through Vermont with a friend and he pointed out the town, just in passing, as we went by in the car. He said, "You know, they say that everybody in that town just simply disappeared in 1908." I said, "Aw, come on. What are you talking about?" He said, "That's the story. Haven't you heard of the Marie Celest [sic] where everybody supposedly disappeared? This is the same thing. One day they were there and then one day a relative came over to look for someone that they hadn't heard from in awhile; and all of the houses were empty. Some of the houses had dinner set on the table. Some of the stores still had money in them. It was covered in mold from the summer damp and it was starting to rot, but nobody had stolen it. The town was completely emptied out."
This is the first claim I know that some real New England town experienced, as one Goodreads commenter called it, a “sudden depopulation.”
But is King telling the truth? I have not been able to find a single reference to Jeremiah’s Lot, ghost town or otherwise, not made by King. According to Wikipedia, King “foreshadowed the coming of ’Salem’s Lot” in his college newspaper column, writing:
In the early 1800s a whole sect of Shakers, a rather strange, religious persuasion at best, disappeared from their village (Jeremiah's Lot) in Vermont. The town remains uninhabited to this day.
Is this based on what King’s friend told him? Or is the storyteller just telling another story?
Then, last year, I got another whammy. There’s a real ghost town in New Hampshire called Monson Center—a name that is very close to the imaginary “Momson” King describes in ’Salem’s Lot. According to the Sept. 27, 2018, edition of the N.H. magazine The Hippo:
You may not find Monson Center on a New Hampshire map, but you might find something mysterious where it used to be. The former colonial settlement is tucked away on 269 acres in both Hollis and Milford with plenty of fall-friendly hiking trails. […]
The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests in Concord purchased the property in 1998 after it was threatened by a proposed 28-lot subdivision. More than two centuries earlier, the land was home to Monson Center, one of the first inland settlements in New Hampshire. Six families established the modest village in the 1730s in what was once a part of West Dunstable, Mass.
Just a few decades later in 1770, the village was abandoned for still unknown reasons. No records of the families’ decisions remain, but Carrie Deegan from the forests society said historians have speculated whether the move was due to political differences, Native American tribes, trouble surviving or something else.
“There’s a history shrouded in mystery,” said Carrie Deegan, volunteer and community engagement manager for the forests society. “The fact we don’t know what happened in the community entices people to come and explore.”
[…]
Some of the property’s visitors include paranormal investigators. Deegan said the forest society still gets requests from crews looking to prove that the property is indeed a “ghost” town. Though Deegan said visitors haven’t shared any convincing evidence, author and hiker Marianne O’Connor said she’s heard of different sightings over the years.
“It’s a very spooky place; people say they hear drums and other strange sounds,” said O’Connor, author of the book Haunted Hikes of New Hampshire. “Supposedly there’s a cemetery on the land that’s never been located.”
Could this at long last be our ur-source? It isn’t King’s (or King’s friend’s) “Jeremiah’s Lot,” but the stories are pretty close. And New Hampshire and Vermont are, of course, neighboring states.
If so, we’ve gone full-circle to New Hampshire, where YellowBrickRoad placed its suddenly depopulated town. Is this the solution, though? Is there another real ghost town with a similar story?
Some other people around the ’net have asked about this mystery, including at the Straight Dope, moviechat.org, and unexplained-mysteries.com. I originally posted the above research at a movie forum of which I’m a member and may post it on Reddit’s r/nonmurdermysteries.
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