Village of the Damned: Dudleytown

Dudleytown is an abandoned settlement, located in a valley known as the Dark Entry Forest, in northwestern Connecticut in the United States, best known today as a ghost town.

The misfortunes that have occurred in Dudleytown, starting in the 1700s, are so terrible and numerous that its nickname is “Village of the Damned.” The now deserted town is said to have been home to many suicides, disappearances and even demonic activity that have given rise to several urban legends. It is believed that the founders of the village and by extension, the village itself are forever cursed.

Since the mid-1920s, the land occupied by the village has been maintained by philanthropists as a private land trust, who worked to reforest the land after decades of agricultural use. Only a few traces, such as cellar holes, remain of the original village. Due to rumors of ghost activity beginning in the 1980s, the village site has been subject to frequent vandalism, and the owners have since closed the land to the public.

Dudleytown was never an actual town. The name was given at an unknown date to a portion of Cornwall that included several members of the Dudley family. The area that became known as Dudleytown was settled in the early 1740s by Thomas Griffis, followed by Gideon Dudley and, by 1753, Barzillai Dudley and Abiel Dudley; Martin Dudley joined them a few years later. Other families also settled there.

Dudleytown is said to be haunted. A local rumor that has been frequently shared on the internet alleges the founders of the town were descended from Edmund Dudley, an English nobleman who was beheaded for treason during the reign of Henry VII. From that moment on, the Dudley family was placed under a curse which followed them across the Atlantic to America. This curse is blamed for instances of crop failures and mental illness, as well as several purported violent deaths in the village. Local historians have found no genealogical link between the Dudley family of Cornwall and the English nobleman and noted many other factual inconsistencies in the rumors. Records have shown the land was originally occupied by the Mohawk Nation, as sacred ground. The village’s decline has instead been attributed to its distance from clean drinking water and unsuitable soil for cultivation. One confirmed case of suicide of a village resident took place in New York state rather than within Cornwall.

Since the 1990s, police in Cornwall have responded to numerous cases of vandalism. The 1999 movie, The Blair Witch Project, about a haunted forest, prompted increased interest in the allegedly haunted village. It is legally off limits. This increased the frequency of such incidents. The owners of the Dudleytown’s property have closed it to the public.