CONNECTICUT’S CURSED LOCATIONS: DUDLEYTOWN

written by Rick Mancini

The Curse: Located in a dense patch of woods that has come to be known ominously as the “Dark Entry Forest,” hidden beneath shadowy mountains and hills, lies an abandoned stretch of land known throughout the years as “Dudleytown.” The land has a rich and haunted history, and many believe that the ruins of this once thriving town are plagued by more than just ghosts - it’s marked by the terrible “Dudley family curse.”

Dudleytown was actually a village located several miles south of what is now Cornwall today. Settlers to the area, including the now-infamous Dudleys, founded the town in the late 1940s. It started out as a prosperous farming community that also saw great success in the iron trade. For years, Dudleytown flourished, its population growing and its iron industry booming.

Then the town began to die.

No one’s quite sure of the exact factors that led the townspeople to abandon Dudleytown. Some speculate that the hilly area made for poor long-term farming, while others blame the dwindling iron resources or the trend of settlers moving further west. Depending on who you talk to, you may hear that the Dudleys had brought a terrible curse with them to their settlement, and the alarming number of deaths, suicides, and bouts of madness that afflicted the family led to them leaving the town behind. The town fell into ruin, and today, all that’s left are the foundations of a few decrepit buildings and empty cellars.

But the tragic tale of Dudleytown continues. Many people who’ve lived in the area or spent time on the abandoned grounds of Dudleytown have fallen victim to the supposed “Dudley curse,” going mad or committing suicide. Plenty of people have reported demonic possessions on the premises and even sightings of “strange creatures” stalking the trees of Dark Entry Forest. Renowned paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren visited Dudleytown in the 1970s and said the land was “demonically possessed,” sparking the curiosity of ghost hunters and demonologists around the world. The 1999 movie The Blair Witch Project, which featured a similar haunted forest, also led to a surge of interest in investigating haunted locations and resulted in many incidents of trespassing and vandalism at Dudleytown.

Over the years, the descendants of the Dudley family have been quick to debunk the “Dudley curse,” claiming reports of strange incidents in the area are false or overblown. But the land still continues to hold a fascination for ghost hunters and explorers alike.

Visiting the Site: Unfortunately, it’s impossible to explore the remains of Dudleytown today, as the area is owned by the Dark Entry Forest Association and is strictly off limits to visitors. The grounds are patrolled constantly by guards and state police who will arrest and prosecute anyone found wandering the area. This hasn’t stopped many wannabe investigators from sneaking inside, but we at Cursed Connecticut do NOT endorse this sort of behavior.

37 COMMENTS (condensed)

STACI G wrote:

November 13th, 2020

I’m one of those “wannabe investigators” this article mentioned, and even though this story might get me in a hell of a lot of trouble, I think it’s important for me to share the truth of what happened to me and my fiance when we visited Dudleytown.

Brandon and I have always been interested in studying the occult and stuff, but we mostly went to check out Dudleytown out of boredom from quarantine. We didn’t see any guards out patrolling Dark Entry Road, but there was a big sign warning against trespassers which we of course ignored. It was nighttime so we were able to sneak onto the grounds without being spotted. The woods are super dark and creepy but we were able to find our way to the ruins after a bit of wandering.

As soon as we got there, a couple of weird things started happening. I kept getting calls on my phone that would ring a couple of times before going straight to static. Brandon also said he kept seeing these strange shadows out of the corner of his eye. He’d brought a gun and mace just to be on the safe side but whatever was out in the woods didn’t bother us. It was super creepy though.

There’s not much to see in Dudleytown, just a bunch of foundations from collapsed buildings and a whole lot of trees. We didn’t like the vibe there though so we didn’t stick around for long. Before we left, though, we took a couple of stones from the ruins as a little souvenir of sorts. We honestly didn’t think twice about it. Who was going to miss a couple of rocks?

Well, that was when the bad stuff started happening. My brakes went out on the drive back home and nearly sent us careening off the road into a ditch. Then in the weeks that followed we started having this really awful string of bad luck. Brandon lost his job, our basement got flooded, I broke my arm, and all the plants in my garden up and died. Plus we kept getting more of those weird staticky calls on our home phone. I thought about calling the police to report prank calls or something but the static made me feel really weird and I wasn’t sure we were being pranked at all.

It took us about a month to wonder if all this bad luck had anything to do with the rocks we’d taken from Dudleytown. Neither of us believed in the curse but we couldn’t deny that things had been much shittier than usual for us lately. We took the rocks over to our neighbor who’s always claimed to be sort of a psychic and she freaked out when she saw them, said that their energy was real bad and that we needed to get rid of them right away. 

Brandon thought she was full of crap and dumped the rocks in her front yard on our way out. We thought that would be the end of it, but then we found out that our neighbor’s house had been raided by the cops one night (we’d always suspected she was some kind of drug dealer) and she’d been shot and killed in a police scuffle. We were horrified, but not as horrified as when we went outside and saw those same two rocks planted like lawn ornaments right in my garden. It was fucking terrifying. I wasn’t sure if Brandon believed in the curse now, but I sure as hell did. We needed to find a way to get rid of these stones before we ended up dead too.

I’m planning a trip back to Dudleytown, and Brandon’s reluctantly joining me. Maybe putting the rocks back where they belong will keep them from coming back to us like some kind of curse magnet. I don’t know if it’ll work, but I have to try. Hopefully I’ll have some good news for you guys when I make it back.