Innsmouth, Massachusetts

Innsmouth is a seaport town on the east coast of Essex County, Massachusetts. [Except where otherwise stated, the information in this article is condensed and paraphrased from HPL Innsmouth (online text), and discusses the town as it existed in 1927-28.]

Geography

Innsmouth is located at the mouth of the Manuxet river, a bit past the southern tip of Plum Island.

A long, black reef called Devil Reef lies a mile and a half off the coast. Y’ha-nthlei, an underwater city of the Deep Ones, lies somewhere beyond Devil Reef.

Inland of Innsmouth are wide salt marshes, desolate and unpeopled. To the northwest is the town of Rowley, and to the southwest is Ipswich.

To the south stretches a long line of cliffs that overlook Boynton Beach [HPL Fungi (online text) VIII], culminate in Kingsport Head, and veer off toward Cape Ann.

See: Map of Innsmouth and Explanation of the map.

Travel Connections

The main roads out of town are:

There is no longer any railroad. The Boston & Maine railroad never went through. The branch line from Rowley was given up years ago and is now choked with weeds and briers. After the Rowley line stopped running, Innsmouth folk would walk to Rowley and take the train from there to get to Newburyport.

Now the Innsmouthers typically use Joe Sargent's bus, which runs from Newburyport, through Innsmouth, and on to Arkham.

Neighborhoods

The Manuxet River divides the town into northern and southern halves. The bridges over the river are mostly ruined or in poor repair, though the Federal Street bridge can bear the weight of a bus. There are three waterfalls; the last one powers the Marsh Refinery. A breakwater directs the river to the south when it reaches the ocean. The harbor is largely blocked by sand except for a narrow channel. A spit of sand on the inside of the breakwater has decrepit cabins, moored dories, and scattered lobster-pots.

Federal Street is the major north/south road and divides the inland areas from the waterfront areas.

North of the river and west of Federal are the fine old residence streets—Broad, Washington, Lafayette, and Adams. Here are the mansions of the town's most prominent families, the Marshes, Eliots, Gilmans, and Waites.

East of of Federal are the waterfront slums, where the decay is worst. Some houses are tenanted, but most are tightly boarded up. Down unpaved side streets there are deserted hovels, many leaning at perilous angles through the sinking of foundations, with collapsing gambrel roofs and black, gaping windows. This area also has long-abandoned old Georgian churches.

The waterfront hovels north of the river are reputedly connected by hidden tunnels. The people in the waterfront slums are sullen and hostile, and it is unwise to make oneself conspicous there. Certain spots are almost forbidden territory, around the Marsh refinery, or around any of the still used churches, or around the pillared Order of Dagon Hall at New Church Green.

The civic center of Innsmouth is Town Square, located at Federal Street, just south of the river. The square features a fire station, the Gilman House hotel, a First National grocery store, a restaurant, a drug store, a wholesale fish dealer, and the Marsh refinery commercial office.

According to the clerk at the a First National grocery store in July 1927, there was no chamber of commerce or public library or in Innsmouth.

Population

The Newburyport railroad agent estimated that there were only about 300 to 400 people living in Innsmouth. This was prior to the Federal government crackdown in 1928. The actual population may have been higher, since many were living in hiding.

Industry and Fishing

Once Innsmouth had quite a few mills, but nothing’s left now except one gold refinery running on the leanest kind of part time. That refinery, though, used to be a big thing.

Fishing is the other main industry. Fish are always thick off Innsmouth Harbour even when there aren't any anywhere else around. They also get a lot of lobsters. There active fish-packing houses in Water Street and they do exporting by truck.

If anyone else tries to fish on their grounds, the Innsmouthers chase them away. In the 1800s, some Kingsport fishermen heard about the catch and came up in sloops, but they were all lost and never seen again.

Innsmouth Character

The Innsmouthers are what they call "white trash" down South—lawless and sly, and full of secret doings. Nobody can ever keep track of these people, and state school officials and census men have a devil of a time. They are as furtive and seldom seen as animals that live in burrows, and one can hardly imagine how they pass the time apart from their desultory fishing, and consuming bootleg liquor.  They seem sullenly banded together in some sort of fellowship and understanding—despising the world as if they had access to other and preferable spheres of entity.

They are very fond of the water, and swim a great deal in both river and harbour. Swimming races out to Devil Reef are very common, and everyone seems well able to share in this arduous sport.

Prying strangers aren't welcome around Innsmouth. Foreigners seldom settled there, and a number of Poles and Portuguese who had tried it had been scattered in a peculiarly drastic fashion.

Innsmouth Look

Most of the Innsmouthers bear certain characteristic deformities; these are most pronounced among the older people.

They have queer narrow heads with flat noses and bulgy, watery eyes that never seem to shut, a receding forehead and chin, and singularly undeveloped ears. The lips are long and thick. The coarse-pored, greyish cheeks are almost beardless. They get bald, too, very young.

Their skin is rough, scabby, and irregular in places, as if peeling from some cutaneous disease. The sides of their necks are shrivelled or creased up. They have a certain greasiness and smell like the fish docks.

Their hands are large and heavily veined, with a greyish-blue tinge. The fingers are strikingly short, and have a tendency to curl closely into the huge palm. Their feet can be immense, and they are prone to shamble clumsily about.

Their voices are disgusting and unnatural—slopping-like.

Animals

Animals hate the Innsmouthers—they used to have lots of horse trouble before autos came in. Cats and dogs are completely absent from Innsmouth.

Families

The Marshes and the other rich folks are as bad as any. The Marshes, together with the other three gently bred families of the town—the Waites, the Gilmans, and the Eliots—are all very retiring. They live in immense houses along Washington Street, and several are reputed to harbour in concealment certain living kinsfolk whose personal aspect forbade public view, and whose deaths had been reported and recorded.

History

The town was founded in 1643, noted for shipbuilding before the Revolution, a seat of great marine prosperity in the early nineteenth century before the War of 1812, and later a minor factory centre using the Manuxet as power.

In the decades following the War of 1812, the town fell on bad times. Trade fell off and the mills lost business. The best of the men were killed privateering in the War of 1812 or lost on a couple of Gilman-owned ships that sank: the brig Eliza and the snow Ranger. Captian Obed Marsh was the only shipowner who continued with the East Indian and Pacific trade. He had three ships in commission in the 20's and 30's: the brigantine Columbia, the brig Hetta, and the barque Sumatra Queen, of which Marsh was the captain. Esdras Martin's barkentine Malay Pride made its last Pacific voyage in 1828.

Obed Marsh traded at an island east of Otaheité (that is, Tahiti) where the natives worshipped and interbred with the Deep Ones. He learned that the children of this inbreeding start out looking human, but eventually become more and more like the Deep Ones, until they take to the ocean and live underwater forever. Marsh gave the natives glass beads and cheap trinkets in exchange for gold jewelry from the Deep Ones; on returning to Innsmouth, he started a gold refinery by converting the Waite family's old wool fulling mill. The refinery was to melt down the jewelry and obscure the origins of the gold.

Around 1838, Marsh found the island people had been wiped out by natives from other islands. This catastrophe destroyed Marsh's source of gold. Capt. Marsh resolved to summon Deep Ones from the ocean near Innsmouth. Marsh began promoting the cult of the Deep Ones in Innsmouth. The islander's chief Walakea had given Marsh an object, possibly of lead, that could be dropped in the ocean with prayers to summon the nearest Deep Ones. Marsh and twenty-odd followers began rowing out to Devil Reef and reciting chants in the dead of night.

Marsh's efforts were opposed by his first mate Matt Eliot and the ministers of the local churches. The Congregational parson was run out of town, the Methodist parson quit, and the Baptist parson Resolved Babcock disappeared.

At some point, Marsh's efforts bore fruit. The fishing industry begain to prosper and Marsh got a new supply of gold jewelry to melt down. Marsh got a branch railroad put through to Innsmouth. The Esoteric Order of Dagon was organized and bought the local Masonic Hall. They repaid the Deep Ones with secret sacrifices of local youths, including Hiram Gilman, Nick Pierce, Leulla Waite, Adoniram Southwick, and Henry Garrison.

In 1846 there was a revolt, in part because young Zadok Allen told Selectman Mowry about the inhuman creatures and human sacrifices on Devil Reef that he had seen from the cupola on his house. A party followed Obed's crowd to the reef. Shots were fired between the dories, and the next day Obed and thirty-two others were in jail. After a couple of weeks passed without further sacrifices, the Deep Ones swarmed out of the water one night and stormed the town. All the townsfolk were killed except those who would join the cult or else keep quiet.

Afterward, Obed took charge and said the Deep Ones would be joining them at worship, staying as guests in local houses, and interbreeding with the locals. Everyone had to take the first Oath of Dagon, and some took second and third Oaths, promising to give more help in return for more rewards.

Around the time of the Civil War, the children born since 1846 began to grow up, and showed the taint of the Deep One's blood. The cult activity was temporarily reduced when Government draft men were in the town after 1863. Then after the war, the cult reasserted its dominance. But now the population declined, shipping stopped and the harbor choked up, and the railroad line was abandoned. Fishing, though still plentiful, became less lucrative. By 1927, the town was deeply sunk in poverty and decay. Only a small visible population remained, though many of the older, more tainted locals were hidden in boarded-up houses and underground tunnels. At that time, Zadok Allen hinted that the Deep Ones were hiding other creatures in town, including possibly shoggoths.

On July 15, 1927, the Shadow Over Innsmouth narrator visited Innsmouth as a tourist. He learned too much from talking to Zadok Allen, and the locals decided to detain him. But he managed to escape from Innsmouth in the early morning hours of July 16. His frightened appeals for government inquiry brought on a Federal government investigation of Innsmouth during the winter of 1927-28. A vast series of raids and arrests occurred, followed by the burning and dynamiting of an enormous number of supposedly empty houses along the waterfront. A submarine discharged torpedoes downward in the marine abyss just beyond Devil Reef. No charges or trials were reported; nor were any of the captives seen thereafter in the regular gaols of the nation. There were vague statements about disease and concentration camps, and later about dispersal in various naval and military prisons.

The public first of heard of the Federal actions at Innsmouth in Febrary 1928, which by a strange coincidence is the month that Lovecraft's story "The Call of Cthulhu" [HPL Call (online text)] was first published in Weird Tales.

Innsmouth itself was left almost depopulated, and as of a few years later (possibly 1931), was only beginning to show signs of revived activity.

Jewelry

The jewelry that Obed Marsh got in trade from the Deep Ones seemed to be predominantly gold, perhaps alloyed with an unknown metal that is lighter and more lustrous. Though most of the jewelry was melted down in the Marsh refinery, Marsh's three daughters were seen wearing some pieces of the exotic gold work.

Sailors and refinery men sometimes sold pieces of the jewelry on the sly. There are specimens in the museum of Miskatonic University at Arkham, and in the display room of the Newburyport Historical Society. The latter institution has a tiara, tall in front, with a large and irregular periphery, as if designed for a freakishly elliptical head. Its surface is chased or molded in high relief with designs—some geometrical, and some of creatures with both froglike and fishlike characteristics. The style is not suggestive of any known human culture.

In Innsmouth, a pastor of the Esoteric Order of Dagon was seen wearing a similar gold tiara, presumably part of the vestments worn for their ceremonies.

Relations with Neighboring Regions

The Innsmouthers do their shopping mostly in Newburyport, Ipswich, or Arkham, but are reserved and standoffish when visiting. The natives of those towns in turn avoid the Innsmouthers as much as possible. The educated regard Innsmouth as a dismal, decadent place, and an exaggerated case of civic degeneration.

Arkham folk avoid going to Innsmouth whenever they can. Daniel Upton of Arkham said that "dark legends have clustered for generations about crumbling, half-deserted Innsmouth and its people. There are tales of horrible bargains about the year 1850, and of a strange element 'not quite human' in the ancient families of the run-down fishing port." [HPL Doorstep (online text)]

Everybody raised Cain when Barnabas Marsh (of Innsmouth) married an Ipswich girl fifty years ago (ca. 1877). They always do that about Innsmouth people, and folks in Newburyport and thereabouts always try to cover up any Innsmouth blood they have.

Other Visitors

Around 1925, a factory inspector named Casey found the books at the Marsh refinery in bad shape, and no clear account of any kind of dealings. He later said that the Innsmouth folks watched him and seemed on guard. He stayed at the Gilman House, and was kept awake by voices in the other rooms speaking a foreign language in unnatural, slopping-like voices. He didn’t dare undress and go to sleep. Just waited up and lit out the first thing in the morning.

The train agent in Newburyport had heard personally of more than one business or government man that disappeared there, and said there were rumors of one who went crazy and is out at Danvers now. The agent thought the Innsmouthers must have fixed up some awful scare for that fellow.

A boy from Arkham was employed at the First National Grocery store. He did not like the place, its fishy smell, or its furtive people. A word with any outsider was a relief to him. He boarded with a family who came from Ipswich, and went back home whenever he got a moment off.

Quotes

From HPL Innsmouth (online text):

Thus I began my systematic though half-bewildered tour of Innsmouth’s narrow, shadow-blighted ways.

If you’re just sightseeing, and looking for old-time stuff, Innsmouth ought to be quite a place for you.

Clearly, in the eyes of the educated, Innsmouth was merely an exaggerated case of civic degeneration.

It was a town of wide extent and dense construction, yet one with a portentous dearth of visible life.

The vast huddle of sagging gambrel roofs and peaked gables conveyed with offensive clearness the idea of wormy decay, and as we approached along the now descending road I could see that many roofs had wholly caved in.

Certainly, the terror of a deserted house swells in geometrical rather than arithmetical progression as houses multiply to form a city of stark desolation. The sight of such endless avenues of fishy-eyed vacancy and death, and the thought of such linked infinities of black, brooding compartments given over to cobwebs and memories and the conqueror worm, start up vestigial fears and aversions that not even the stoutest philosophy can disperse.

Furtiveness and secretiveness seemed universal in this hushed city of alienage and death, and I could not escape the sensation of being watched from ambush on every hand by sly, staring eyes that never shut.

Haow’d ye like to be livin’ in a taown like this, with everything a-rottin’ an’ a-dyin’, an’ boarded-up monsters crawlin’ an’ bleatin’ an’ barkin’ an’ hoppin’ araoun’ black cellars an’ attics every way ye turn? Hey? Haow’d ye like to hear the haowlin’ night arter night from the churches an’ Order o’ Dagon Hall, an’ know what’s doin’ part o’ the haowlin’? Haow’d ye like to hear what comes from that awful reef every May-Eve an’ Hallowmass? Hey?

From HPL Fungi (online text) XIX:

Quiet Innsmouth, where the white gulls tarried around an ancient church spire.

Innsmouth in Derleth Stories

General Agreement

Most of the Derleth stories are broadly in agreement with Lovecraft about the history of Innsmouth and its curse:

  • Cousin Ariah wrote of legends that Obed Marsh had encountered an amphibious people called the Deep Ones in the Polynesian islands. They were subhuman and worshipped Dagon and Cthulhu. Obed's wife was one, and she was never seen abroad, except at Order of Dagon Hall. The Marsh children had a very strange, froglike look, with tough, warty skin, and sometimes scales. The Marshes must have gills, although none are visible on the young children. Ariah said that since that time, the Marshes prospered mightily in trade. None of Obed Marsh's ships (Columbia, Sumatra Queen, Hetta, and others) were ever damaged by storm. There was night swimming from the coast where the Marshes live out to Devil Reef. People kept away from the Marshes—except the Martins and others who were also in the East India trade. The Marshes more or less ran the town. One selectman who spoke out against them was found drowned soon after. Zadok Allen was only one of the sources of legendry about the Marshes. The Marshes usually used a doctor named Dr. Rowley who was discreet; but once, when Dr. Rowley was not available, a Dr. Gilman delivered one of their children, and later said that it was not human. [AWD Shuttered]
  • It was said of Obed Marsh that he was leagued with the devil and brought a great plague to Innsmouth in 1846, and that he meet in the dark of the moon with sea creatures from beyond Devil Reef. (It is not specified whether the dark of the moon had ritual significance, or those dark nights were merely chosen for purposes of secrecy.) Those who came after him were bound by compacts with unearthly beings from beyond Devil Reef, and brought about the dynamiting of many old houses and wharves along the seashore during the winter of 1927-28. [AWD Sky]
  • Three Deep Ones recounted to Seth Bishop how Captain Obed Marsh made a pact with them, and married one of the Deep Ones, and had hybrid children, tainting the Marsh clan forever. Since then the Marsh ships fared well, and their sea trade made the Marshes the wealthiest family in Innsmouth. Their clan lived by day in houses but slipped away by night to Devil Reef to be with the Deep Ones. [AWD Valley (online text)]
  • Andrew Phelan and the clerk Hendreson both said that it was Obed who began the Innsmouth curse. [AWD Sky]
  • Two locals with the Innsmouth look had narrow heads with deep creases in the sides of the neck, with bulging, watery blue eyes, flat nose, and curiously undeveloped ears. [AWD Sky]
  • The U.S. Government sent destroyers and submarines to depth-bomb the ocean about Devil Reef, arrest scores of Innsmouth people who were never afterward seen again, and burn the coastal area of the town. [AWD Seal (online text)]

Alternate Origin Story

A letter written by Rev. Jabez Phillips sometime in the 1800's gives a different account of how the Innsmouth curse began. In this version, an Innsmouth vessel, the Cory, was lost in the Marquesas in 1797. There were only two survivors, Capt. Obadiah Marsh and First Mate Cyrus Alcott Phillips, who arrived in Innsmouth harbor in a rowboat, apparently having traveled in that rowboat all the way from the Marquesas. Presumably they had struck a bargain with the Deep Ones, who saw them safely home to Innsmouth. Obadiah Marsh and Cyrus Phillips apparently married Deep Ones females, and their children were the first generation to show the Innsmouth taint. The Rev. Jabez Phillips became an unsuccessful opponent of the new cult. [AWD Seal (online text)] This account is at variance with the history related by Zadok Allen, who believed that Capt. Obed (not Obadiah) Marsh of the Sumatra Queen was the first to encounter the cult of the Deep Ones, in the 1820's-30's near Otaheite (Tahiti) in the Society Islands, an island chain some hundreds of miles to the southwest of the Marquesas [HPL Innsmouth (online text)].

There are some indications that Innsmouth was already a creepy place in the very early 1800's; this would make sense if the Innsmouth curse really began in 1797 with Obadiah rather than in the 1820's-30's with Obed. Thus, in the region of Billington's Wood, northwest of Arkham, in 1808, Alijah Billington told his son Laban not to venture in the direction of Innsmouth. Laban heard great inhuman screams from the direction of Dunwich or Innsmouth. The badly torn and mangled body of John Druven was found on the ocean’s edge near the mouth of the Manuxet River at Innsmouth. In modern times, Dr. Armitage Harper speculated that practices of the Billingtons might have been related to rites common in the Dunwich and Innsmouth regions, rites which belonged to an ancient and alien race. [AWD Lurker]

Ponape vs. Otaheité

In the original story, Zadok Allen says that Obed Marsh first encountered the cult of the Deep Ones on an island east of Otaheité (now called Tahiti). There were a lot of old stone ruins there, resembling ones on Ponape (now called Pohnpei), as well as carvings of faces like the big statues on Easter Island. Nearby was a smaller volcanic island, where there were ruins with different carvings of awful monsters. The ruins on this small island were worn away as if they had been under the sea once. [HPL Innsmouth (online text)]

Derleth seems to indicate that the Innsmouthers first encountered the Deep Ones cult on Ponape (now Pohnpei). This is most explicit in the alternate origin story, where Capt. Obadiah Marsh made first contact with the cult in 1797. In modern times, Sylvan Phillips pondered "...where did Obad. and Cyrus make the first contact? Ponape or one of the lesser islands?" He stated that Obadiah Marsh had married in Ponape a woman who belonged to a sea-race which was only semi-human. Also, two members of Obadiah's crew remained behind in Ponape. [AWD Seal (online text)]

But even the more conventional passages, which ascribe first contact to Capt. Obed Marsh in the 1820's-30's, focus on Ponape rather than the Otaheité (Tahiti) area:

  • Capt. Obed Marsh's batrachian wife was said to be from Ponape [AWD Shuttered].
  • Seth Akins said that Capt. Obed learned a lot in Ponape and from the Kanakys—all about people they called the "Deep Ones" [AWD Clay].
  • Jean-Francois Charierre remarked that there had been considerable traffic between Innsmouth and Ponape. [AWD Survivor (online text)]
  • Abel Keane learned from Andrew Phelan of "the things Obed Marsh had found on Ponape and that other island." In this case, "that other island" is probably the smaller, previously submerged volcanic island, which Phelan calls "an island where no island should have been." In this version of the origin story, the small volcanic island is apparently close to Ponape. [AWD Sky] This presumably the "uncharted island" where one of Luther Whateley's cousins reported that Obed "was supposed to have dallied" [AWD Shuttered].

Also, Derleth's stories never mention Otaheité (Tahiti), but do frequently emphasize Ponape:

The Purpose of It All

The Shadow Over Innsmouth narrator didn't learn much about the ultimate purposes of the cult at Innsmouth. Zadok Allen hinted that the cult had something horrible planned, possibly involving shoggoths hidden in the houses north of the river. After the Federal invasion, the narrator's dreams led him to believe that the Deep Ones were waiting, planning to spread to a greater city, apparently to capture more humans to sacrifice to Cthulhu. [HPL Innsmouth (online text)] However, Derleth makes it clear that the cult is plotting the actual return of Cthulhu from his imprisonment. Dr. Shrewsbury and Andrew Phelan learned that the Esoteric Order of Dagon and their leader Ahab Marsh were doing the bidding of Cthulhu to prepare the way for his return. [AWD Sky]

Deep One Variations

Derleth introduces some interesting variations in the biology of the Deep Ones:

  • Cousin Ariah claimed that the Marshes can go without food and drink a long time, and shrink or expand in size. Later, Abner Whateley encountered a hybrid offspring of Sarah Whateley, named Ralsa Whateley, who had shrunk to the size of a frog after being deprived of food for an extended period, but expanded back to full size within a few days of its food supply being restored. [AWD Shuttered]
  • Jeffrey Corey found blue clay that had been dislodged from the seabed near Y'han-thlei, and spontaneously sculpted a statue of a Deep One female. The statue came to life, and he went to sea with it, having apparently changed into a Deep One himself. It turns out that Corey had Marsh relatives, so he might have already had the Innsmouth taint; but it seems that exposure to the blue clay made him transition into his aquatic form much more quickly. [AWD Clay]
  • Asa Sandwin developed more and more froglike features up until the time of his disappearance. It is not clear whether the changes were due to Deep Ones ancestry or were a consequence of a pact that his grandfather made with someone he met in Innsmouth. [AWD Sandwin]

Local Color

In 1938, Innsmouth had a local newspaper called the Innsmouth Courier [AWD Curwen].

There was Ferrand's Drug Store [AWD Clay].

Jeffrey Corey's notes from 1928 refer to a Hammond's Drug Store and a railroad station that is in service [AWD Clay]. Corey was living near Innsmouth. However, since the Innsmouth train station was long-abandoned when the Shadow Over Innsmouth narrator visited in 1927 [HPL Innsmouth (online text)], it seems unlikely that Innsmouth had a working train station in 1928. This raises the possibility that Corey's notes really refer to a visit to Newburyport or Arkham rather than Innsmouth.

There was a shabby, run-down saloon of 19th century origin [AWD Clay]. There was a tavern at the edge of town that was frequented by Enoch Conger [AWD Fisherman]. It is possible that the "saloon" and the "tavern" are references to the same establishment.

At the time of Marius Phillip's visit (sometime between 1928 and 1957), there was a public library, but many books and records had been confiscated by government men after the fire and explosions of 1928. [AWD Seal (online text)] By contrast, the Shadow Over Innsmouth narrator reported being told by the First National grocery store clerk in 1927 that there was no public library in town [HPL Innsmouth (online text)].

There was an Italian district, and the people there crossed themselves "as if to ward off the evil eye" when approached by Marius Phillips. [AWD Seal (online text)]

Marius Phillips inherited two houses from his uncle Sylvan Phillips, one in Innsmouth and the other on the coast "well above that town" (presumably north). Both of these Phillips were hybrids of partly Deep Ones ancestry. [AWD Seal (online text)]

Falcon Point is located a few miles down the coast from Innsmouth [AWD Fisherman].

Federal Invasion

In Derleth's stories, the Federal invasion of Innsmouth spanned an extended period, from the winter of 1927-28 through 1929. [AWD Sky] Different Derleth stories seem to place the peak of the destruction in February, June, or September of 1928. Since all the accounts are incomplete, you can speculate that they record different portions of an an ongoing and rather episodic invasion.

The journals, letters, and memoirs of Jeffrey Corey and Fred (in AWD Clay) give the earliest dates:

  • Dec 1927: Fred visits Corey at his cottage on the coast south of Innsmouth. There is no mention of any trouble in Innsmouth.
  • February 1928: A large band of federal officers descend upon the town and spirit away some of the citizens. Naval vessels drop depth charges off Devil Reef. An unusual bluish clay washes up on shore near Corey's cottage, apparently dislodged from the ocean floor around Y'ha-nthlei.
  • March, probably after the 13th: Corey and Fred visit Innsmouth and see that many waterfront buildings have been destroyed by the Federals. Most of the raid had focused on the Marsh family and their holdings, with the Waite, Gilman, Eliot families having suffered little loss. The Marsh Refining Company is still operating, but no longer directly controlled by members of the Marsh clan. Ferrand's Drug Store, the public library, and a saloon are all open for business. A local drunk, Seth Akins, consents to talk because "Most o’ them Marshes is gone."
  • Early April: Corey disappears, having apparently walked into the ocean. There is a cursory official investigation. Fred visits to settle Corey's estate.
  • April 17: Fred takes a boat out to Devil Reef and sees some Deep Ones swimming, including Corey and his blue-clay girlfriend.

The journals and letters of of Asaph Waite (in AWD Island) describe activity beginning in April:

  • April 23, 1928: Waite writes of seeing an "amorphous, tentacled, inhuman" figure at Devil Reef, which "M" (probably Barnabas Marsh) affirms is "Him." This may have been one of Cthulhu's immediate servitors, about whom we know very little.
  • April 24: A storm the night before sinks many boats, but none from Innsmouth.
  • April 27: A stranger questions Zadok Allen and plies him with liquor. This stranger could not be the Shadow Over Innsmouth narrator, whose visit was the previous year, so this stranger is probably an undercover investigator.
  • May 20: A Federal Man asks questions in town and visits the Marsh Refining Company. M. cancels the night's scheduled trip to Devil Reef and the planned sacrifice.
  • May 21/22, night: The sea is very turbulent. Waite speculates that the Deep Ones are angry about the missed sacrifice.
  • May 23: A destroyer is reported in the vicinity of Devil Reef.
  • May 27: Armed ships are off the cost. Tightlipped outsiders are in town, examining the docks.
  • June: Zadok Allen is killed, to keep him from talking to the Federal Men. Waite is still in doubt about what the Federals are planning.
  • June 7: Waite arranges to send his grandson Horvath Waite (later renamed Horvath Blayne) away for safety. Later, more questions are asked about the goings-on at Devil Reef and the rites at Dagon Hall. Then blasting begins near the docks and fires spread out of control.
  • Sometime in the summer: Asaph Waite and his son John and daughter-in-law Abigail are killed, presumably by the Federals.

Seth Bishop kept newspaper clippings [AWD Valley (online text)] about what happened at Devil Reef off Innsmouth in 1928. Though he lived inland near Aylesbury, Bishop attended ceremonies in half-submerged subterranean caverns that led to the sea, and heard news of Innsmouth.

  • June 8 onward: Sacrifices in the caverns, attended by numerous Deep Ones and sometimes other water creatures, including an octopoid entity (possibly the same one seen by Asaph Waite on April 23?).
  • September 21-24: Reports that one of the "old fools" at Innsmouth had given things away, and Federal men with submarines and boats blasted Devil Reef and the waterfront at Innsmouth. They also burned the Marsh houses. 371 of the Deep Ones were killed. Other hybrids were taken away. Most of the Marshes escaped, and were rumored to have fled to Ponape. Bishop predicted that it would be years before the "Innsmouth places" would be ready again, but that the Innsmouthers would wait for the Marsh family's return. [AWD Valley (online text)]

In 1928, some time after the publication of the February issue of Weird Tales, Amos Tuttle wrote that he believed Cthulhu's minions in Innsmouth were preparing the way for his return. Some time later in the year, some months after the dynamiting of waterfront buildings and part of Devil Reef, an attorney named Haddon tried to visit Innsmouth to ensure that a client's property was protected from the Government agents and police who had taken possession of the town. Haddon could not reach the town because Secret Service men had closed all the roads, but he communicated with authorities who assured him that his client's property would be safe, since it was well back from the waterfront. That evening, sounds of massive subterranean footsteps led Haddon's acquaintance Paul Tuttle to speculate that Cthulhu or his servants had taken refuge in caverns beneath the Arkham area, caverns with connections to the sea. [AWD Hastur]

Old Fools

It seems that Zadok Allen was not the only indiscrete, elderly drunk in town. In the middle of March 1928, Jeffrey Corey and Fred plied the aged Seth Akins with liquor and heard an account rather similar, though shorter, to what Zadok had told the Shadow Over Innsmouth narrator the year before.

The clerk at the First National grocery store served as an informant to visitors on more than one occasion. In 1927, the nameless 17-year old clerk supplied the Shadow Over Innsmouth narrator a sketch map and description of the town [HPL Innsmouth (online text)]. In 1940, a clerk named Hendreson served as an informant for Abel Keane. Since Hendreson seems to have been living there for years, he could actually be the same as the nameless clerk in 1927. [AWD Sky]

Later History

The Federal invasion put a stop to cult activities for only a few years, less than a decade. After the debacle of 1928-1929, the Innsmouthers were more careful, those who had been left, and those who had filtered back into the town after the Federals had gone. A series of youths disappeared on the nights of Order of Dagon meetings, and it was said that they had run away. For a while after the government action, the Marshes had no ships. But in the middle 30's they bought a few ships again. Ahab Marsh arrived one night on a ship and took over. The remaining Marshes, two old women, accepted him as one of their own. There were no male Waites or Gilmans or Ornes left, only old women. In 1940, at the time of Andrew Phelan and Abel Keane's visit to Innsmouth, there were not many people living there. The refinery was still running, a little. The wharves had not been repaired, and many businesses were not running. Gilman House was still the only open hotel. The various religious denominations disowned the local branches of their own churches in Innsmouth. The pastors had either disappeared, or had reverted to primitive and pagan ceremonies in their worship. Phelan and Keane burned down the Marsh mansion to kill Ahab, and the fire spread to neighboring houses. [AWD Sky]

Miscellaneous References

Through his magic gable window, Wilbur Akeley glimpsed a scene of Deep Ones and hybrids congregating on a reef, possibly Devil Reef off Innsmouth [AWD Gable (online text)].

Part of the Alwyn family were seafarers who lived in Innsmouth. One of these, Leander Alwyn, had froglike features and moved away to Wisconsin in the 1850's. A modern descendant in Arkham, Tony Alwyn, heard hints of the Federal intervention in Innsmouth, including unsatisfying stories that the government action was to clamp down on foreign agents. His uncle Josiah Alwyn suggested that there might be truth in Lovecraft's story The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Tony stated that Innsmouth is now deserted. [AWD Beyond2]

Dr. Jean-Francois Charriere's notes mentioned that as of 1863, the Marsh, Waite, Eliot, and Gilman families in Innsmouth all had come to resemble the Deep Ones. He also said there was some dark religious worship, and considerable traffic between Innsmouth and Ponape. [AWD Survivor (online text)]

Enoch Conger, who lived on Falcon Point, sometimes sold his catch of fish in Innsmouth, and frequented a tavern at the edge of town. Conger accidentally netted a female Deep One off Devil Reef [AWD Fisherman].

From December 1927 to April 1928, a hybrid Marsh descendant named Jeffrey Corey lived in a cottage on the coast a few miles south of Innsmouth, and made numerous trips into town. [AWD Clay]

Upton Gardner mentioned Y'han-thlei near Innsmouth [AWD Dweller].

Asaph Gilman's notes on a South Pacific carving of an "ancestral figure" commented that is partly batrachian, and perhaps a sign of the same cult found at Innsmouth. Gilman had made notes on the mysterious invasion and partial destruction of Innsmouth by Federal agents. Gilman wrote that the Atlantic just off Innsmouth was one of eight global centers of Cthulhu cult activity. [AWD Gorge]

Martin Keane said that strange events had taken place at Innsmouth [AWD Witches].

Professor Partier referred to the events at Innsmouth [AWD Dweller].

A member of the Great Race told Amos Piper of the batrachian people of Polynesia and the Innsmouth country. Piper wondered about the connecting link between the Polynesians and the people of Innsmouth, and about what actually happened at Innsmouth in 1928. Piper's doctor, Nathaniel Corey, confirmed that something had indeed taken place at Innsmouth in 1928, something involving the Federal government and connections to certain batrachian people of Ponape. A returning member of the Great Race spoke of having seen a partially destroyed lair of minions of the Ancient Ones (2) at Devil Reef near Innsmouth. [AWD Space]

Ward Phillips saw images of Innsmouth and Devil Reef in the light from the lamp of Ahazred, and later wrote of what he had seen [AWD Lamp (online text)].

After Laban Shrewsbury interviewed Timoto Fernandez, the latter was murdered in Innsmouth. Shrewsbury mentioned the occurrences at Innsmouth in his dictated draft of Cthulhu in the Necronomicon. Before fleeing from the house on Curwen Street, Arkham, in 1938, Shrewsbury sensed activity below Devil Reef off Innsmouth in the city of Y’ha-nthlei, and great beings that had come from R’lyeh [AWD Curwen].

Laban Shrewsbury remarked that Abel Keane had been helpful to him at Innsmouth. Shrewsbury also remarked that certain coastal towns in Massachusetts, including Innsmouth, harbored a surprising number of the descendants of a horrible experiment in cross-breeding between the natives and the Deep Ones [AWD Keeper ].

Laban Shrewsbury said that there are survivals of ancient worship in Innsmouth. [AWD Island]

Sometime after the birth of Obed's grandchildren, Sarah Whateley of Dunwich spent time with distant Marsh relatives in Innsmouth, and was there impregnated by a Deep One hybrid named Ralsa Marsh. [AWD Shuttered]

Jason Wecter hinted to Pinckney about what happened at Innsmouth when the government took over in 1928 and the explosions at Devil Reef [AWD Wood].

Other Sources

Willie Osborne's Grandma told him about a place called Innsmouth with old rotten houses where people hid awful things away in the cellars and the attics. [RB Notebook (online text)]

Reverend Nye said that Innsmouth never existed, at least not by that name. Albert Keith realized too late that the sailors on the Okishuri Maru had the Innsmouth look. [RB Strange]

Albert Wilmarth commented that the Innsmouth jewelry is real enough. [FL Terror2]

H. P. Lovecraft dreamed of visiting Innsmouth to buy some of the Innsmouth jewelry for his aunt. [JVS Snouted]

A man with a froglike profile, presumably an Innsmouther, visited Old Dethshill Cemetery in Arkham. Innsmouth is now destroyed; there is no longer an Innsmouth. Arkham boys heard the name "Innsmouth" chanted while in a tunnel leading from Elmer Harrod's house, and saw former Innsmouthers at a black underground lake. [JVS Dead]

At some point in the late 20th centry, Innsmouth had [HC Coming]:

Residents

Akins, Seth; Allen, Zadok; Alizah, Cousin; Alwyn family; Alwyn, Leander; Amos; Ariah, Cousin; Babcock, Resolved; Babson, Eunice; Casey; Clarke, Asa; Corey, Jeffrey; Deep Ones; Derby, Asenath; Eliot family; Eliot, Matt; Garrison, Henry; Gilman family; Gilman; Gilman, Dr.; Gilman, Hiram; Leopold; Marsh family; Marsh, Ada; Marsh, Barnabas; Marsh, Enoch; Marsh, Jethro; Marsh, Lydia; Marsh, Mrs.; Marsh, (Capt.) Obadiah; Marsh, Capt. Obed; Marsh, Onesiphorus; Marsh, Ralsa; Marsh, Rowley, Dr.; Martin family; Martin, Esdras; Mowry, Selectman; Orne, Eliza; Phillips, Cyrus; Phillips, Rev. Jabez; Phillips, Jared; Phillips, Marius; Phillips, Sylvan; Pierce, Nick; Dr. Rowley; Sargent, Joe; Sargent, Moses and Abigail; Southwick, Adoniram; Waite family; Waite, Abigail; Waite, Asaph; Waite, Asenath; Waite, Ephraim; Waite, Horvath; Waite, John; Waite, Luella; Whateley family

Streets and Points of Interest

Adams St.; Bank St.; Baptist Church; Bates St.; Broad St.; Church St.; Congregational Church; Devil Reef; Eliot St.; Esoteric Order of Dagon; Fall St.; Federal St.; Ferrand's Drug Store; First National grocery store; Fish St.; Gilman House; Hammond's Drug Store; Innsmouth Harbor; Ipswich road; Lafayette St.; Main St.; Manuxet River; Marsh Refinery; Marsh Refining Company; Marsh St.; New Church Green; Old Square; Order of Dagon Hall; Paine St.; Public library; River St.; Rowley Road; South St.; State St.; Town Square; Waite St.; Washington St.; Water St.

Sailing Vessels

Columbia; Eliza; Hetta; Malay Pride; Ranger; Sumatra Queen;

Nearby Locations

Boynton Beach; Falcon Point;
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