Dunwich

Massachusetts. [HPL Dunwich (online text) throughout]

Appearance and Character

Dunwich is a small village in north central Massachusetts with antique architecture and gambrel roofs. The most recent structure, the mill at the falls, dates to 1806. Most of the houses are deserted and falling to ruin. The broken-steepled church now harbours the only store in town, Osborn's general store. The place is suffused by a faint odor of decay. The locals are of generally low intelligence and are marked by signs of inbreeding. The town history is marked by murder, incest, and violence. There remains a small local gentry, including two or three families descended from European nobility. Some of the Whateleys and Bishops send their sons to Harvard or Miskatonic, but those sons seldom return to their home town.

The local branches of the Whateley family ranged between soundness and decadence. Noteworthy among the decadent Whateleys were the reputed wizard Old Whateley, his albino daughter Lavinia, and her "black brat" Wilbur Whateley.

History

The town dates at least to 1692, when some families moved to the area from Salem, where the witch trials were then occurring. Talk of witch-blood, Satan-worship, and strange forest presences caused Dunwich to be shunned. Old legends speak of rites performed by Indians, who called shapes out of the neighboring hills.

In 1747, Rev. Abijah Hoadley, of the Congregational Church at Dunwich Village, disappeared shortly after a sermon where he spoke of hearing the voices of demons and other strange noises from underground. Noises from the hills continue to be reported and remain unexplained.

In 1917, the government sent health inspectors to investigate why so few of the local young men were fit enough for the draft. The Boston Globe and Arkham Advertiser covered the story, and also published stories about the precocious Wilbur Whateley and his eccentric family.

On September 9, 1928, a giant, invisible creature (later called the Dunwich Horror) broke loose from the Whateley farmhouse and spent the next week killing livestock and local farm families. On September 15, Professors from Miskatonic University, including Henry Armitage, Warren Rice, and Francis Morgan, vanquished the creature atop nearby Sentinel Hill by reciting antique spells. Since these events, all signposts pointing to Dunwich have been taken down.

Local Superstitions

The locals believe that whippoorwills lie in wait near a dying person in the hope of catching his soul when he dies.

Vicinity

Dunwich lies in a region of mountains, deep woods, steep ravines, and stretches of marshland. The town is between Round Mountain and an upper stretch of the Miskatonic River. South of the village are the ruins of Bishop house, built before 1700. At the falls, there are ruins of a mill built in 1806.

A number of the nearby hills have stone rings on their summits, where strange odours occur and human skulls and ones have been found. Popularly these are regarded as burial places of Pocumtuck indians, though many ethnologists believe the remains are Caucasian. There is an altar-like rock on top of Sentinel Hill. Another local hillside is called the Devil’s Hop Yard because no plants will grow there.

Cold Spring Glen is a haunted valley beset by whippoorwills and other presences.

Notable farmhouses in the vicinity include those of Old Whateley, Seth Bishop, Seth Frye, and George Corey.

HPL Ancient (online text) a milestone on a road from the Zaman's Hill area reads "Two miles to Dunwich."

For further details on Dunwich geography, refer to A Map of H. P. Lovecraft's Dunwich, Massachusetts.

Features

Congregational Church; Methodist Church; Miskatonic River; Osborne's general store; Round Mountain; Sentinel Hill;

Nearby Landmarks

Aylesbury Pike; Bear's Den; Bishop's Brook; Carrier's mowing; Cold Spring Glen; Dean's Corners; Devil's Hop Yard; Miskatonic Valley; Round Mountain; Sentinel Hill; Spring Glen Road; Stone circles; Ten-Acre Meadow; Zaman's Hill.

Dunwich Area Residents

Bishop; Bishop family; Bishop, Mamie; Bishop, Seth; Bishop, Silas; Brown, Luther; Corey, George; Corey, Mrs; Corey, Wesley; Farr, Fred; Frye, Elmer, Selina, and family; Hartwell, Dr.; Hoadley, Abijah; Houghton, Dr; Hutchins, Elam; Hutchins, Sam; Hutchins, Will; Jack; Osborn, Joe; Osborn's general store; Sawyer, Chauncey; Sawyer, Earl; Sawyer, Sally; Whateley family; Whateley, Curtis; Whateley, Lavinia; Whateley, Mrs; Whateley, Old; Whateley, Squire Sawyer; Whateley, Wilbur; Whateley, Zebulon; Whateley, Zechariah; Wheeler, Henry;

Dunwich in Derleth's Stories

Location

Dunwich country is northwest of Arkham. The Aylesbury Pike trends west and northwest from Arkham toward Dunwich country. Dunwich is beyond Dean's Corners. [AWD Lurker]

In Derleth's stories, Arkham and Dunwich sometimes seem to be near each other. Thus, Seth Bishop's house was near both Arkham and Dunwich. [AWD Valley (online text)] The Arkham Advertiser carried accounts of "mysterious disappearances in the Dunwich and Arkham region." [AWD Middle] At one point, Ambrose Dewart seems to imply that Arkham is a little further from Innsmouth than it is from Dunwich. [AWD Lurker]

On the other hand, Stephen Boyle confirmed that Dunwich is in north-central Massachusetts, which would place it about 70 miles west of Arkham. Similarly, Nicholas Walters considered that Dunwich was closer to Springfield (in south-central Massachusetts) than to Boston (on the east coast). [AWD Watchers]

Boyle also said that, if you are proceeding west on the Aylesbury Pike, you pass Dean's Corners and then make a left turn onto the road to Dunwich. The village of Dunwich is just beyond the Miskatonic River, huddled between the river and Round Mountain. The Miskatonic originates not far west of Dunwich country. [AWD Watchers] Thus, in Derleth's interpretation of the geography, Dunwich is south of Aylesbury Pike and south of the Miskatonic River. (By contrast, my Dunwich map, based on hints in HPL Dunwich (online text), places Dunwich north of the Aylesbury Pike and just north of the Miskatonic, though this is far from certain.)

Confusingly, Ambrose Dewart seems to have considered Duxbury to be "in the neighborhood" of Dunwich, though Duxbury is on the east coast of Massachusetts, near Plymouth. And Stephen Bates seems to have thought that Arkham was a little closer to Dunwich than to Innsmouth. [AWD Lurker]

Amenities

By 1921, the only store in town was in the broken-steepled church. [AWD Lurker]

Around 1922, Dunwich apparently had a bank; at least, Amos Stark said that he had gone to the bank in Dunwich to make his will. [AWD Wentworth] It seems a bit odd that Dunwich had a bank since, at least in 1928, the town had only one retail store. Conceivably the local post office provided some banking services, but these wouldn't have been relevant to making a will. Stark may have simply gone there to make a public show of getting the will witnessed by two people. Or perhaps the narrator got the story muddled, and Stark really went to a bank in Aylesbury.

By 1948, Tobias Whateley had become the proprietor of the store in the abandoned church, previously known as Osborn's general store. There was a Baptist minister, Abraham Dunning, so presumably also a Baptist church. [AWD Middle] There was a Methodist Church in 1787, and there had been a Congregational Church forty years earlier [AWD Watchers].

Nearby Areas

Mis' Bishop lived on Spring Glen Road, in the first house on the Dunwich side of Cold Spring Glen. Giles, Mis' lived at the other end of Dunwich. [AWD Lurker]

Abner Whateley inherited a house with a disused mill beside the Miskatonic near Dunwich [AWD Shuttered], but this was "middle nineteenth century work" and so probably different from the ruined mill of 1806 that was mentioned in HPL Dunwich (online text).

Cyrus Whateley's house is located across the river from Dunwich and about a half a mile to the east. [AWD Watchers]

Septimus Bishop's house lay "in the heart of wild, lonely country above Dunwich, Massachusetts, along the upper reaches of the Miskatonic River." Nearby is the Crary Road bridge. [AWD Middle]

North of Dunwich is an almost abandoned country. The inhabitants included Stark, Abel; Stark, Amos; Stark, Dewey; Stark, Ella; Stark, Molly; Wentworth, Genie; Wentworth, Nahum; and Whateley, Clem. [AWD Wentworth]

Some miles to the south of Dunwich is Harrop's Pocket. Amos Whateley of the Harrop's Pocket area had grown close to the Whateleys of Dunwich. Emma Whateley said that there are others in Dunwich as bad as the Whateleys. [AWD Whippoorwills]

Billington House in Billington's Wood is "some miles" west-southwest of Dunwich. [AWD Lurker]

When Laban Billington was a child (ca. 1790-1815), there was an Indian village in the hills "past Dunwich." In 1921, Luther said there weren't any Indians left. [AWD Lurker]

Events

In the early 1800's, Jonathan Bishop of Dunwich was performing ceremonies to summon mysterious entities, and corresponding with Laban's father, Alijah Billington. Starting in 1807, several locals disappeared: Wilbur Corey, Jebediah Tyndal, and four or five others. Jonathan Bishop himself disappeared around 1808 or later. Sometime in that general era, Alijah Billington was also raising eldritch beings at the tower near Billington House, and screams from the tower near Billington House where answered by screams from the direction of Dunwich. [AWD Lurker]

In the late 1800's or early 1900s, there was a series of killings of cattle, sheep, and at least two people, Ada Wilkerson and Howard Willie. The killings ended when Luther Whateley securely locked up Ralsa Whateley in a shuttered room and kept him on a reduced diet. [AWD Shuttered]

When Ambrose Dewart moved into Billington House (possibly 1921 or 1923; the date evidence is inconsistent), people in the Dunwich area revived old stories about his ancestor, Alijah Billington. Dewart apparently accidentally unleashed a being that took two victims from Dunwich: Lew Waterbury and then Jason Osborn. [AWD Lurker]

In the late 20's, there was a spate of disappearances, mostly of children and young adults, in the Dunwich and Arkham area. The disappearances stopped when a Dunwich mob killed Septimus Bishop and his familiar and secreted their bodies in a pier of the Crary Road bridge. The disappearances began again around 1948 when Ambrose Bishop moved into Bishop's old house and a storm released Septimus and his familiar from the bridge. A mob burned down the Bishop house and apparently resealed the Bishops and the familiar in the bridge. [AWD Middle]

Sometime in the 1930s-50s, Ralsa Whateley was accidentally set free by Abner Whateley, and killed more livestock as well as Luke Lang before being burned to death. [AWD Shuttered]

The Dunwich Look

Laban Shrewsbury said that hybrid peoples resembling the Deep Ones once flourished in the hill country around Dunwich. [AWD Keeper ]

The Deep One hybrid Ralsa Marsh was raised in a shuttered room of Luther Whateley's mill house near Dunwich. Luther's grandson Abner dreamed of Deep Ones swimming up the Misktaonic. [AWD Shuttered]

Nicholas Walters, who inherited the Cyrus Whateley house near Dunwich, had the Innsmouth look: wide mouth, lobeless ears, and pale blue slightly bulging eyes. [AWD Watchers]

Ambrose Dewart observed that the Dunwich locals had marks of degeneracy, including bulging eyes, wide mouths, and ears that clung unusually flat to their heads and flared at the back like bat wings. Of these local features, the eyes and mouths resemble the Innsmouth look, and could be signs of breeding with Deep Ones; but the ears appear to be a more distinctively Dunwichian trait. Perhaps the bat-wing ears are somehow related to an incident related by the Rev. Ward Phillips in Thaumaturgical Prodigies in the New-English Canaan, where he mentions an infant born to Goodwife Doten near Duxbury, which was like a bat with a human face resembling Richard Billington. Or there might be a connection to the winged creatures of Nyarlathotep that were summoned by Jonathan Bishop in Dunwich. [AWD Lurker]

Misc References

Artists know Dunwich for its gambrel-roofed structures. Seth Bishop, His Book included a newspaper clipping about a terrible occurrence in Dunwich. [AWD Valley (online text)]

Tales of Enoch Conger's "mermaid" spread as far as Dunwich. [AWD Fisherman]

Prof. Partier hinted of what took place at Dunwich [AWD Dweller]

Sylvan Phillips met men, or possibly nonhumans, in Dunwich who were followers of Cthulhu. Later, Sylvan's nephew Marius Phillips found dark secrets in Dunwich. [AWD Seal (online text)]

Ward Phillips wrote of the horror at Dunwich, perhaps inspired by earlier visions from the Lamp of Alhazred. [AWD Lamp (online text)]

Nicholas Walters read newpaper accounts of the strange occurrences in Dunwich in 1928. [AWD Watchers]

Old Whateley of Dunwich was a distant cousin of Wizard Potter of Witches' Hollow near Arkham. Prof. Martin Keane mentioned that strange events had taken place in Dunwich. [AWD Witches]

Aka: New Dunnich.

Dunwich Area Residents

Bishop; Bishop, Ambrose; Bishop, Blessed; Bishop, Elizabeth; Bishop family; Bishop, Jonathan; Bishop, Mis'; Bishop, Mrs.; Bishop, Peter; Bishop, Septimus; Bishop, Seth; Bishop, William; Bowen, Asenath; Bowen, Olney; Brown, Asenath; Brown family; Brown, Increase; Cole, Howard; Corey family; Corey, Mis'; Corey, Wilbur; Dunning, Abraham; Farr, Fred; Frye, Elmer, Selina, and family; Frye, Mis'; Frye, Seth; Giles family; Giles, Mis'; Glover, Dudley Ropes; Hoadley, Rev. Abijah; Hoag family; Hoag, Jeptha; Houghton, John; Hutchins, Elam; Jack the Collie; Lang, Luke; Luther; Marsh, Edward; Marsh family; Master, the; Orme, Edward; Osborn, Jason; Sawyer, Chauncey; Sawyer, Earl; Sawyer, Harold; Sawyer, John; Sawyer, Lutey; Sawyer, Sally; Seth; Stark, Abel; Stark, Amos; Stark, Dewey; Stark, Ella; Stark, Molly; Tyndal family; Tyndal, Jebediah; Walters, Nicholas; Waterbury, Lew; Wentworth, Genie; Wentworth, Nahum; Whateley, Aberath; Whateley, Abner (1); Whateley, Abner (2); Whateley, Clem; Whateley, Cyrus; Whateley family; Whateley, Jeremiah; Whateley, Julia; Whateley, Lem; Whateley, Libby; Whateley, Luther; Whateley, Ralsa; Whateley, Sarah; Whateley, Tobias; Whateley, Zebulon; Wheeler, Henry; Wilkerson, Ada; Willie, Howard.

Nearby Landmarks

Congregational Church; Crary Road and Bridge; Methodist Church;

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