Dudleytown, located in/near Cornwall, Connecticut, isn't actually a town so much as the ruin of a former farming community now. All that's there now are some foundations, root cellars, and chimneys. Dudleytown was founded by Thomas Griffis, who took title in 1738. Other families began arriving and settling down to farm, with the first Dudleys arriving in 1747. I've read that the area became known as Dudleytown because Dudley soon became the more prevalent of the last names in the community, and I've read it's because the original Dudley family was very involved in community affairs. Whatever.

The first thing that should have been apparent was that Dudleytown was very poorly planned. It was a farming community in an area that was terrible for farming. It got little sun, and the ground was horribly rocky. There was an abundance of trees that had to be hacked down. Besides this, the place just seemed horribly unlucky.

In 1792 Gershom Hollister fell to his death during a barnraising at the home of William Tanner. There were also tales that he was murdered, but they are unsubstantiated and thought to be a result of the legend of Dudleytown. William Tanner himself was under suspicion, but never convicted of anything. He was said to have gone mad, rambling about demons and such. You must also consider, though, that he lived to be 104, so these ramblings might have been caused by senility. In 1804 Sarah Faye, third wife of General Herman Swift, was struck and killed by lightning during a thunderstorm. Supposedly the General went mad afterwards. This incident is always brought up as part of Dudleytown history, even though the Swifts lived about five miles away. Mary Cheney, wife of Horace Greeley, committed suicide one week before her husband lost his bid for the Presidency. She hung herself by putting a noose around her neck and kicking out the chair she was standing on. She was born and raised in Dudleytown. The Carter family incident is another one that happened to former residents of Dudleytown. They moved to Dudleytown in 1759, and moved out in 1763. Indians slaughtered the family in their new home near Binghamton, New York. There are various other stories of families disappearing, dying from disease, etc., but I think you get the idea by now.

Okay, so what about "haunted Dudleytown" today? One of the more famous and publicized events is a TV camera crew's experience. Supposedly, they saw a huge black shadow emerge from one of the cellars, followed by an overpowering feeling of being suffocated. The team had to abandon their filming objectives when their equipment failed to work. Strange lights and sounds have been reported. People claim to feel oppressed or "not right" when visiting the grounds. There have been claims of seeing green glowing unknown animals in the forest.

I don't post directions to Dudleytown simply because it isn't really "visitable." It is illegal to be on the grounds, as a matter of fact. If you do visit, through no encouragement of mine, please be courteous and try to avoid harassing the locals. They feel the only thing wrong with Dudleytown is its attraction to curiosity seekers and ghost hunters!