Dudleytown

Dudleytown is an extinct settlement in Connecticut, better known as Owlsbury. A remote extension to the town of Cornwall, it is best known for its "haunted" forest, where surviving hillbillies are said to attempt to deter visitors with creepy stories.

The legend of Dudleytown.

The legend of Dudleytown tells that the lord Leycester, fifth son of the evil duke of Northumberland himself sired a son named William. This is inconsistent with the known facts, (see Roger Dudley) and must be until otherwise proven, disregarded along with much of the original Dudleytown mythology, which: "has now grown into a legend so preposterous that it tries both the credulity and patience of anyone even remotely concern with the facts.": “The Lure of the Litchfield Hills Magazine, summer 1964” By Paul Hilliard Chamberlain, Jr. Curator, Cornwall Historical Society.

"...The industrious Dudleys gave their family name to the growing community, but also in the certain estimation of many they were responsible for the "curse" which a century or so later would help transform the thriving village into a crumbling ghost town."

As part of the general migration inland from coastal Connecticut, the first English settlers began to arrive in the middle years of the C18th. In 1738 Thomas Griffis was the first to bare title to property on this high land in the southern part of the Cornwall township some two years before a road was even laid out for the region. Other families soon followed, with Gideon Dudley buying land in Cornwall, the first of the Dudley family to appear in 1747, although some report their presence as early as 1632.

Cornwall, Connecticut.

Cornwall village itself was never a large settlement, but was inhabited by farmers, millers, blacksmiths and various other itinerant workers. Initial settlement at Cornwall thus far recorded then began in 1738, and the community was incorporated in 1740, as part of Cornwall spporting a farming community, located at an elevation of nearly 1500 feet. All that now remains of this early settlement are some foundations, cellars and remnants of buildings erected over a century after the founders initial log cabin was established.

"Cornwall consists of mountains and upland farms surrounding a small central valley, avoided by the first settlers because of its heavy stand of pine, which made land clearing difficult." 

Not withstanding such difficulties Griffis soon had neighbours who begun to clear the land, building additional homesteads and constructed stone walls from the abundant stone found readily evrywhere. At least two of these neighbours were to be Abiel and Barzillai Dudley (Abiel is recorded as having sold his land Barzillai, and bought more land in Cornwall on the 31 December 1748).

That there were Dudleys in Cornwall before 1750, is clear as Abiel was included in the tax list of 1744, and by 1748 Gideon Dudley had been recognized as a tax payer. Later, on the 2nd of January, 1749 Gideon Dudley was born in Cornwall, the son of Gideon. Abiel Dudley later acquired additional land in Cornwall on the 23rd of October, 1753. Joseph Dudley, son of Gideon, was born in 1755. Barzillai Dudley had married Sarah Carter on March the 6th, 1750 in Cornwall and they raise two children, Sibe, born in 1750, and Sarah in 1752. 

"Although the village was given the name "Dudleytown" no record of any church has been established, with the pastoral care of the community being undertaken by the Congregational Church in Cornwall Plain, and to a lesser extent, in nearby Warren."

Barzillai Dudley is found listed in Captain Lyman's company for the period during the French and Indian War for 14 days in 1757 but is again recorded in the 1758 Cornwall Tax Records. He seems to have chosen thereafter to remove himself and family as no further tax records are found. I speculate that Capt. John Lyman, was that soldier born on the 12th October of 1693, (d. 9 Nov 1787 at Hockanum, Mass.) and whom wed in 1718 to Abigail, the daughter of Joseph Moseley.

Along with other early arrivals, although the population never exceeded 100, the Dudleys cleared the land, planted buckwheat, hunted deer for the winter store and established their farms on the rough upland plain. Small streams were dammed to supply power for at least three mills, but Dudleytown was isolated by its very location. 

On the Dudleytown plateau, during the ice age glaciers had removed most of the topsoil leaving an abundance of glacial rock and granite ledges, as is evidenced by the maze of stone walls bounding farm lots, roadways, bridges, fords, and sluiceways. The bridges and fords were built at convenient crossings, but 'seldom does one see any sign of the rock having been quarried'.   Abiel Dudley's property however was sold to the township in 1771 and Gideon was recorded in the Cornwall Tax Records for the last time 1773. He departed shortly there after, abandoning 30 years of toil. By 1766 Gideon and Joseph, his sons had died preceded by their mother Elisabeth Dudley, his wife, in 1765.

In the chronology of the area a "Plague" (probably smallpox) reached Cornwall and Dudleytown during 1774. What the cause of this illness was is not specified, but is important in the context of the numerous infant deaths recorded in the small community over the previous decade. Although Abiel Dudley dies of old age in November 1799.

Of the various plagues that affected C18th North America, perhaps the none were more devastating than the smallpox outbreak of 1775 to 1782. An appearance of yellow fever occurred in the United States during 1702. Thirty five further outbreaks were recorded from this initial event until 1800 reoccurring almost annually between 1800 and 1879.

Charcoal manufacturing in Dudleytown.

"During the 19th century iron was smelted at Cornwall Bridge and West Cornwall, utilizing local charcoal": From The Connecticut Guide, 1935.

Kent may be described as a mountain country, cut by a deep river valley with broad bottom lands where there was once an important iron industry, which had sprung up soon after the settlement. Of the early furnaces, one was located on Forge Brook, at the entrance to Macedonia Park, where 'oak timbers can still be seen under the water'.

"There was a forge at East Kent, ore being transported up the mountain on horseback. By 1845 there were three blast furnaces in operation, employing 280 hands and turning out 3,000 tons a year just north of Kent village."   Dudleytown was poorly planned as a farming community in an area that was unsuitable for agricultural endeavourers if for no other reason than by virtue of its location, being shadowed by a group of mountains (Bald mountain, Woodbury mountain, and Coldfoots triplets), subsequently it receives scant illumination regardless of the suns location.

Given the abundance of trees reportedly hacked down the area was clearly suited for the manufacturing of charcoal, a fundamental constituent in iron working.

There was an abundance of dense tree cover everywhere which was readily available to be felled. White pines, oaks, and native chestnut, as well as other native trees were used to build the houses at first, later the houses would be made of stone, which lay on the ground in abundance. The wood was later used to make charcoal for the nearby iron works. 

"The iron furnaces of Litchfield county, Cornwall Bridge, Kent village, and other nearby towns, needing fuel for the smelters at length caused the hills to be entirely cleared of timber, which was used for charcoal until the local traditions of smelting were replaced."

Dudleytown in decline.

For a hundred years "Dudleytown" expanded and prospered, from the hard work and versatile skills of the 30 to 40 families who lived there over several generations. During the latter part of the C18th, many prospered from the booming iron industry centered around the "great furnace" on nearby Mt. Riga.

During the American civil war, almost every Dudleytown family augmented its farming pursuits by cutting and burning wood for charcoal to stoke the numerous furnaces thereabouts, some families even operating their own backyard smelters, fed by locally mined ore, heated with local "wood-coal".   By 1800, Dudleytown had developed sufficiently to posess its own town hall and meeting house. Improved access by way of Dudleytown and Dark Entry Roads, to accommodate the heavy traffic of horses and riders and a growing number of substantial dwellings followed. 

Aside from the curse it is clear other factors effectively undermined the stability of the community, once the trees were gone, the spring and summer rains and run off from winter snow soon washed most of Dudleytown’s soil down the mountain. 

As for the general decline of the Dudleytown residents, a combination in the general reduction of the local industry, mostly timber and iron based, by the advent of modern techniques like the Bessemer process for making steel in the late 1800's, and the opening of great expanses of farmland in the West, combined with improved means of transport to distant markets the people from Owlsbury begun to find other locations with better prospects. 

By the time the "Chestnut blight" hit Connecticut in the early 1900’s, there wasn’t a soul left to claim permanent residency in Dudleytown. 

"A sawmill moved in temporarily to clear the diseased Chestnut wood and charcoal manufacturers continued to operate on a limited scale, but no one really cared to live in the area, for it was impossible to scratch a living from the shallow, rocky soil."

With no new families moving in to occupy the abandoned homesteads, the houses that had stood for a hundred years crumbled, their massive, hand cut beams collapsing, to decay beneath a protective blankets of wild tiger lilies. Wild brush and vine now reduce Dark Entry and Dudleytown Road into no more than tangled trails, cast, along with the remains of Dudleytown into a perpetual gloom, the resident owls pronouncing a melancholy judgment.