The Town(s) That Walked Away

[Nalkarj]

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 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.

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 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.

 

[EnolaGaia]

There are plenty of abandoned villages or small towns in New England. Off hand I don't recall any of them being associated with stories of sudden mysterious abandonment. Most of the ghost settlements were simply abandoned owing to poor sites (bad soil) or economic collapses (e.g., those associated with logging).

Some disappearances of populations or crews has been generally discussed in:

Collective Disappearances (Settlements, Crews, Etc.)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/collective-disappearances-settlements-crews-etc.9739/

The only abandoned New England settlement with its own thread (that I can think of ... ) is:

Bara Hack: Village of Voices
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/bara-hack-village-of-voices.25525/

... but primarily because of its haunting rather than its abandonment per se.

 

[Nalkarj]

Right, @EnolaGaia, but I guess I’m specifically searching for a New England town that had a “sudden mysterious abandonment.” That’s the one thing that binds a low-budget 2010 horror movie, an obscure ’40s detective story, and a famous ’70s horror novel—and I’d think that reoccurring backstory is based on something.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Yes - I understand ... The element you're seeking is a real-world example of a settlement witnessed (or confidently inferred) to have been abandoned all at once.

There were certainly such cases associated with natural disasters farther west in North America and later than colonial times - (e.g.) settlements abandoned and never repopulated in light of floods, forest fires (e.g., the Peshtigo Fire), and Dust Bowl conditions.

However, I can't think of such a case in New England.

The most widely-known and cited such case in paranormal circles has long been:

Angikuni / Anjikuni Lake Inuit Village Disappearance
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...ikuni-lake-inuit-village-disappearance.65354/

... but that case seems to have been a pure legend.

I suspect many of the tales about New England sites were retro-fitted as fanciful back stories to explain abandoned settlements that had always been locally known as abandoned.

 

[Nosmo King]

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:

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 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.

You could try this book
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Abandoned_Villages_and_Ghost_Towns_of_Ne.html?id=jJS8NQAACAAJ

 

[Nalkarj]

Definitely looks like a good source, @Souleater. I’d think something about a “suddenly depopulated” N.E. town would be online, but the book may have extra information. Thanks!

 

[Nosmo King]

Definitely looks like a good source, @Souleater. I’d think something about a “suddenly depopulated” N.E. town would be online, but the book may have extra information. Thanks!

Yeah, i tried a few different search terms but just ran into a lot of Roanoak links and not much else

 

[James_H]

Probably not what you're looking for, but you've led me to the very interesting and mysterious story of Dogtown, Masachussetts

The area fell on hard times after the demise of the original settlement: “Dogtown became an aberration, an embarrassment,” wrote Thomas Dresser in Dogtown: A Village Lost in Time. He described one inhabitant, Tammy Younger, as “queen of the witches,” who so intimidated passersby that they left her tithes of fish and corn. By 1828 the village was all but deserted. The last resident, a freed slave named Cornelius Finson, was found with his feet frozen and taken to the poorhouse in the winter of 1830.

 

[Nalkarj]

Hey all—

I now think Stephen King was telling the truth, at least as far as he knew it, in that 1978 interview. I found a reference to a “reputed abandoned settlement” called Jeremiah’s Lot in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom in a folklore magazine in 1974—a year before King published ’Salem’s Lot. Unfortunately, you can only see a snippet view in Google Books, but that snippet is enough to make the determination there’s something to this. According to the now-defunct Green Mountain Folklore Society’s The Potash Kettle:

In [indecipherable], New Hampshire, is a group who call themselves, “Friends of Folklore.” They want information about a reputed abandoned settlement in the Northeast Kingdom known as Jeremiah’s Lot. If

That’s where, fittingly for this mystery, the snippet breaks off.

Even if this is a legend bandied about by college kids and not some real ghost town—and note that the snippet calls it a “settlement,” not a town—I think it’s a major breakthrough.

 

[Nosmo King]

Hey all—

I now think Stephen King was telling the truth, at least as far as he knew it, in that 1978 interview. I found a reference to a “reputed abandoned settlement” called Jeremiah’s Lot in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom in a folklore magazine in 1974—a year before King published ’Salem’s Lot. Unfortunately, you can only see a snippet view in Google Books, but that snippet is enough to make the determination there’s something to this. According to the now-defunct Green Mountain Folklore Society’s The Potash Kettle:


That’s where, fittingly for this mystery, the snippet breaks off.

Even if this is a legend bandied about by college kids and not some real ghost town—and note that the snippet calls it a “settlement,” not a town—I think it’s a major breakthrough.

Have you tried getting hold of the magazine in full?

 

[Austin Popper]

He might have heard about it from Richard Bachman.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I now think Stephen King was telling the truth, at least as far as he knew it, in that 1978 interview. I found a reference to a “reputed abandoned settlement” called Jeremiah’s Lot in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom in a folklore magazine in 1974—a year before King published ’Salem’s Lot. ...

Wait a minute ... There's an issue relating to chronology. The 1974 magazine bit occurred 5 years after a New England college publication mentioned such an incident in an article authored by .... Stephen King.

Stephen King attended the University of Maine from 1966 to 1970. It was during college that he first wrote about Jerusalem's Lot (shortened to 'Salem's Lot for the novel's title) in a short story that wouldn't eventually get published until 1978.

King first wrote of Jerusalem's Lot in the short story "Jerusalem's Lot", penned in college, but not published until years later in the short story collection Night Shift. In a 1969 installment of "The Garbage Truck", a column King wrote for the University of Maine at Orono's campus newspaper, King foreshadowed the coming of 'Salem's Lot by 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."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Salem's_Lot
Quoting: "The Stephen King Companion" Beahm, George Andrews McMeel press 1989, p. 267.

This leaves open the possibility that the 1974 query was based on or derived from King's own 1969 mention of the story rather than any independent source.

 

[Mythopoeika]

He might have heard about it from Richard Bachman.

Or Stephen Pollock.

 

[Nosmo King]

Wait a minute ... There's an issue relating to chronology. The 1974 magazine bit occurred 5 years after a New England college publication mentioned such an incident in an article authored by .... Stephen King.

Stephen King attended the University of Maine from 1966 to 1970. It was during college that he first wrote about Jerusalem's Lot (shortened to 'Salem's Lot for the novel's title) in a short story that wouldn't eventually get published until 1978.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Salem's_Lot
Quoting: "The Stephen King Companion" Beahm, George Andrews McMeel press 1989, p. 267.

This leaves open the possibility that the 1974 query was based on or derived from King's own 1969 mention of the story rather than any independent source.

Or it was a New England folk tale he had heard and the 'friends of folklore' were looking for info on it in 1974.

 

[Nosmo King]

Wait a minute ... There's an issue relating to chronology. The 1974 magazine bit occurred 5 years after a New England college publication mentioned such an incident in an article authored by .... Stephen King.

Stephen King attended the University of Maine from 1966 to 1970. It was during college that he first wrote about Jerusalem's Lot (shortened to 'Salem's Lot for the novel's title) in a short story that wouldn't eventually get published until 1978.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Salem's_Lot
Quoting: "The Stephen King Companion" Beahm, George Andrews McMeel press 1989, p. 267.

This leaves open the possibility that the 1974 query was based on or derived from King's own 1969 mention of the story rather than any independent source.

Is the tale of Jeremiahs Lot mentioned in Kings original short story, or was it add in the novel?

 

[EnolaGaia]

Is the tale of Jeremiahs Lot mentioned in Kings original short story, or was it add in the novel?

I don't know whether it's mentioned in either work. I've only seen Jeremiah's Lot mentioned in relation to the background for King's writing the novel, not the novel itself. I read the short story collection 40-some years ago, but I don't recall whether the community disappearance bit appeared in the short story.

 

[James_H]

Have you tried getting hold of the magazine in full?

Here's a list of libraries that have it: https://www.worldcat.org/title/pota...-green-mountain-folklore-society/oclc/4987990

 

[Frideswide]

Does King respond to queries?

 

[Nosmo King]

Does King respond to queries?

Idk you'll have to ask him

 

[Nosmo King]

I don't know whether it's mentioned in either work. I've only seen Jeremiah's Lot mentioned in relation to the background for King's writing the novel, not the novel itself. I read the short story collection 40-some years ago, but I don't recall whether the community disappearance bit appeared in the short story.

My mistake, he refers to a mysterious abondonment of a town called momson, not Jeremiahs Lot.
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.