No place in Dudley Family history has excited more interest than the little village of Dudleytown, part of Cornwall, Connecticut. Called "THE SCARIEST PLACE IN NEW ENGLAND", the "story" has appeared in many books, and was the subject of many magazine articles. But is the "story" true, or just a set of weird coincidences? Judge yourself. Please note that what follows is the genealogy and the story of the LEGEND, NOT necessarily the TRUE genealogy, or story, that REALLY happened. That you will find on another page below.
    Before we start our story, we need a little legendary genealogy. This is where the 'curse' supposedly starts! Note that there are TWO versions, unfortunately there are two or more versions for everything at Dudleytown.......
Version one.......the one most commonly heard...........
    In 1510 Edmund Dudley was beheaded for plotting to overthrow the King of England. It was then, some conjecture, a curse was placed upon him and his kin. Or maybe not. His son, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, also tried to take the throne of England by marrying HIS son, Guilford Dudley, to one Lady Jane Grey. They failed, and all three lost their heads. Right after this, Johns OTHER son, returned from France with the plague. It killed thousands--including him. But wait, John had one OTHER son--and he meant to keep his head. His name was Robert, Earl of Leicester, and he decided to leave England forever. Now, Robert had a son, William Dudley, who  came to America in 1630. He had sons, and here is where our story starts....


Version two......as found in Ed and Lorraine Warren's book "Ghost Hunters"
    In this version, Thomas Dudley of the Massachusetts Bay Company (later to be Governor Thomas Dudley) is related to Edmund (above) and is an Uncle to four Dudley Brothers who discover the area of Dudleytown and settle it. The brothers are Abijah, Bavzillai,(sic) Gideon, and Abviel.(sic) They founded Dudleytown in 1632. In this story, Gov. Dudley is a horrible man, and has everyone who is not Puritan put to death, and one of the many men he had executed cursed "not only the deputy governor, but the entire area of Dudleytown, damning it forever. After serving four different terms as full governor, a curious fate befell Thomas Dudley-he was found hacked to death in the area that would later come to be known as Dudleytown." The murderer is never found, and this is where our story starts...........

    The owls--those cursed owls. All night long--most of the time during the day, too. The town is never really sunny--there is always a haze. It's mainly because of the location, completely surrounded as it is by hills. The little town was just off of what is now U.S.7, just east of Cornwall Bridge. It has two entrances--though you will have to look hard for them--one is called Dudleytown Road, and the other Dark Entry Road. It's deserted now--except for the occasional teenagers out for a thrill, or maybe a few Satanists wanting to cast their spells in a "real" haunted town. If a town is want you can still call it. There are a few stone foundations left, a chimney here or there. And, of course, there's the "curse." But should you wander out there some day, it will be the owls that will really bother you--those cursed owls!

    In 1738 Thomas Griffis took title to real estate on high land in the southern part of Cornwall township in Connecticut. Others soon followed--the Jones, Carter, Porter, and other families looking for a place to put down roots. In 1747 the first Dudley's arrive. First it was Abiel and Barzillai, brothers, and later Gideon and Abijah came to the town and settled in. It didn't have a name then, but as the Dudley's quickly became involved with the building of the town and it's affairs, the village adopted the name of "Dudleytown." Some, though, wanted to call it "Owlsbury." And for good reason--those cursed owls! Hooting day and night!
    The work on building Dudleytown was very tedious. Trees--thick trees--were everywhere and had to be felled. The wood was used to build the houses at first, later the houses would be made of stone. The wood was later used to make charcoal for the nearby iron works. Rocks and large stones were located where trees weren't, and these had to be moved also--back breaking work! But people were rugged in those days, and the town prospered. By 1800, the little town had its own meeting house and improved roads, named Dudleytown Road and Dark Entry road (so named because the tall trees made the entire passage on it very dim). There were a few others, but these were the main roads--the ones that would appear on maps.   But the expansion, and the town itself, would never make it through the Civil War. Something in the area was amiss and everyone knew it. Maybe it was the owls--those cursed owls!

    John Andrews then built a wall out of stone--some say it was he who finally inspired people to begin building with it--but he sure did like that wall! When done, he stepped back and inspected it. "This, if nothing else, will last" he said. Then came the bad times.......

    Some say it started with Abiel. Oh, he was long lived sure enough, dying at the ripe age of 90! He outlived the other Dudley's (who died, it seems, of natural causes). But he seemed to go feeble-minded. Mad, in fact, though somewhat harmless. What is sad is that though his family lent their name to the town, "Old Biel", as they called him, died as a town charge--a pauper.

    But most people believe that it was Nathaniel Carter that set the "Dudley Curse" working. He bought the house that Abiel Dudley lived in. Abiel could not afford it any more, so his brother Barzillai sold it to Carter in 1759. Things never did seem to go right for Nathaniel any more. Especially when, after all the hardship they caused old Abiel, they up and moved out of Dudleytown in 1763, and went to live in near Binghamton, New York.

    What was odd was is that while the  whole family moved, their 13 year old son Nathan seemed to have been left behind in Dudleytown! It turns out, though, that he was the lucky one. In October of 1764, the Indians attacked the new Carter home--they split Mother Carter's head open with a tomahawk, bashed baby Carter's brains out against a wall, burned the cabin, and took the three living children (two daughters and a son) captive. Nathaniel himself was scalped immediately upon his return from a hunting trip.

   Nathaniel's brother Adoniram fared no better, when in 1774 six members of  his family (some sources say his wife and only child) died from a cholera epidemic.

    In 1792 Gershon Hollister was found murdered at William Tanner's home. It generated a long investigation and quite a scandal. He was found innocent, but Tanner was never quite right after that. While he lived to be 104, he--like Abiel--was said to have died totally insane, and some say he would occasionally cry out about "demons" and other creatures.

    In 1804 one of Dudleytowns's most famous men, Gen. Herman Swift, who also had moved down the  "hill" learned of his wife's death--she was struck by lightning! In 1813 another epidemic struck the little town, this time taking scores of people, including half of the Jones' family.

    Then there's the story of Horace "go west, young man, go west" Greeley. He married Mary Cheney, who was born and raised in Dudleytown. She followed her husband, of course, and supported him even through his campaign for the Presidency (he ran against U.S. Grant--we know the outcome of that race!). Now, if a lagging campaign doesn't get one stressed out, figure out what would happen to a person who, one week before the election, finds  that his wife, late of Dudleytown, decided to climb up on a chair and jump--with only a rope to stop her!

    The people of Dudleytown mourned her loss--those of them that were left. They mourned, that is, when they weren't cursing those owls!

    That wasn't all. Crops began failing, unexplained deaths continued, and farm animals came up missing. Families began leaving, and by 1880 Dudleytown was all but a ghost town. Only one resident remained of note in the later years of the 1800's--John Brophy.

    Brophy moved there in 1892, because he liked the solitude. He figured it was only a short walk down Dark Entry road to a nearby town, and he could raise his sheep with his two sons and his wife. The only thing he really didn't like was the constant hooting of the owls--those cursed owls! It did not take long before things started going amiss. First, both his sons disappeared! Then his sheep began to disappear--where to? Who knows! His wife died of unknown causes---but he was Irish! He would stick it out!

    In 1901 the nearby town villagers began to notice Brophy coming into town with torn clothes. He had a wild look in his eyes, and would talk to anyone. He did mutter, though. Those that heard the muttering said it was something about "demons" and things with hoofed feet. It must have been lonely for him up there--with only the owls to keep him company on those walks down Dark Entry Road--very lonely. Then, one very dark night, his house burned to the ground. The people from the town tried to help--but they couldn't find Brophy that night, not his body or anything. And they never did find him--he had completely disappeared.

    Dudleytown remained empty until 1930, when a New York Surgeon--one Dr. William Clark, Pathologist, built a summer home there. Things were quiet for a time. Then, in 1937, the good doctor was called to New York on business, and he left immediately. His business completed, he returned a few days later expecting to find his wife waiting for him--but she wasn't there. He traveled up Dark Entry Road, with the cursed owls hooting the entire distance to his home in what was left of Dudleytown. As he entered his house he called out to his wife--only to be answered by a low cackling! He found his wife upstairs--laughing uncontrollably, and totally insane! What happened while he was gone? No one knows. He left--and Dudleytown has been deserted ever since.

    Stories do continue about the town, however. Stories about Satan Worshipers, bikers who hold strange rites. In addition, the usual tales of lovers who are scared out of there wits when they "park" there, being attacked by "demons", things with hoofed feet and green eyes! There is a story of a local T.V. crew who went up there to film a Halloween story---but for some reason their equipment did not work when they entered the town, and worked fine when they returned to the studio. One thing they all mentioned, though, was the constant hooting of the owls--those cursed, cursed owls! And, of course, the stone wall. John Andrews had said that wall would endure, though, didn't he?

    And so ends our story.

In the menu below, find the FACTS of what happened there.

Bibliography
They found a way,"Ghost Town", Iveagh Sterry & William Garrigus, 1938, Stephen Daye Press, Vermont.
Folk Tales of Connecticut,"The Curse of Dudleytown", Glenn White, ed. 1981, The Journal Press
Legendary Connecticut, "Dudleytown, Cursed Village", David E. Philips, 1992, Curbstone Press
Ghosthunters,"The Haunted Village", Ed and Lorraine Warren, 1989, St Martins Press
Note: there were three other books, and FIVE magazine articles that could have been cited--those above were the most acurate and reliable sources.

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