Jerusalem's Lot: The Dark History

Stephen King has masterfully composed stories that highlight the people and culture of Maine.  Most readers, if asked, would identify the most memorable town in King’s work as Castle Rock or Derry.  The number of King's stories based in these locales could easily explain this.  Take the name of this blog site as an example of that impact.  These two towns have been discussed in earlier articles. However, King has written such a body of work that it is hard to identify every place that he has used. The Stand (1978) alone has scenes in excess of fifty locations throughout the United States.  Regardless, we will still take a look at some of these special places in this and future articles.

Jerusalem’s Lot is a small Maine town with a long history that includes a time when it was a ghost town.  Jerusalem’s Lot is commonly referred to as “’Salem’s Lot” by the locals.  That name has become synonymous with evil or cursed for many people in the nearby communities.  From the founders to some of the residents in recent years, the town has a unique, yet very dark, history surrounding its population.

The following is the historical timeline of the town of Jerusalem’s Lot based on the works of Stephen King and documented in The Complete Stephen King Universe by Stanley Wiater, Christopher Golden and Hank Wagner:


1710   James Boon led a splinter group of the original Puritan settlers from
            southern Maine to the location that the town would later be established. 
            Boon is the group’s spiritual leader who worships a demonic creature 
            known as “the worm.”  His group also worships this dark entity. 
            Boon, like some other cult leader’s in history, breeds with many of the 
            women in their sect.

1741   Preacher’s Rest, an adjoining hamlet, is founded. The name would 
            later be changed to Preacher’s Corners.

1765   Jerusalem’s Lot becomes an incorporated township.

  

1782   Robert and Philip Boone build a house called Chapelwaite in the Lot 

            near Preacher’s Corners. The brothers were descendants of James 

            Boon, but were unaware of their connection to the fanatical leader.

1789   (October 27) Robert Boone follows his brother, Philip, to the original 

            church where James Boon and his cult worshipped the demon 

            creature. Robert had become involved with the founder’s cult, which 

            still existed in the area. The events of that night have been lost in history. 

            The next day, the town was completely deserted. The fate of its 

            residents is unknown.

1850   Charles, the grandson of Robert Boone, moves into Chapelwaite, the 

            family estate.  He discovers documents that reveal some of his family’s 

            history.  The residents of Preacher’s Corners do not treat Charles 

            kindly. He relates their attitude toward his family to the horrific events 

            associated with his ancestors.

            (October 27) Charles Boone discovers the worm and the “rotted 

            zombielike form” of James Boon in the abandoned church in 

            ‘Salem’s Lot.

1896  The ghost town becomes resettled as new people move into it. The 

           events of the past are unknown or believed to be nothing but legends. 
           The main street is named Jointner Avenue in honor of a local 
           politician. The road had previously been known as the Portland Post 
           Road.

1928  Hubert Marsten and his wife, Birdie, move to ‘Salem’s Lot.  Marsten 
           was the president of a large New England trucking company.  However, 
           It was not known to the residents of the town that Marsten was an 
           assassin for the Mafia.

1939  During the summer of this year, Marsten shoots  

           and kills his wife before hanging himself.  It was           

           later discovered that Marsten had been 
           in contact with a mysterious man who 
           lived in Germany, which was ruled by 
           Hitler’s Third Reich at that time. The 
           man in Germany was later revealed to 
           be a vampire named Kurt Barlow.

1951  Ben Mears, a young boy from ‘Salem’s 
           Lot, enters the abandoned 
           Marsten House, which is said to 
           be haunted. The young Ben enters 
           the attic and sees what he 
           believes to be the ghost of Hubie Marsten. Ben 
           Mears would never forget the events of that fateful day. 

1971  (October) James Robert Boone, the final descendent of founder James 
           Boon, moves into Chapelwaite. Though it is believed by many that the 
           ancestral home was haunted, there are no more references to the evil 
           associated with cult, the worm or the living corpse of James Boon.  
           Some believe that the evil could be brought back to life under the proper 
           conditions.


1975  (September 5) Ben Mears returns to the town after his wife, Miranda, is 
           killed in a motorcycle accident.  Mears, a writer, hoped to write a new 
           novel while visiting his boyhood town.  Mears discovers that two 
           “mysterious European gentlemen” had purchased the Marsten House, 
           which haunted his dreams.

              By mid-fall of that year, the majority of the Salem’s Lot residents had been killed,  transformed or left due to the evil activity of the vampire Barlow.  Ben Mears and Mark Petrie kill Kurt Barlow, destroy as many vampires as possible and then flee the empty township. 

              

1976   In the winter of 1976 or early months of 1977, Mears and Petrie return to ‘Salem’s Lot and burn the town.  Newspaper had been reporting stories about suspicious disappearances near the abandoned town.  Mears believed these disappearances to be associated with the vampires created by Barlow.

1978  (January 10) The Lumley family from New Jersey are taken by vampires near the burned-out town of ‘Salem’s Lot.  Herb Tooklander and his friend Booth, both of whom live in a neighboring town, also report nearly being abducted in a similar fashion.

As you might be able to conclude from this historical timeline, Jerusalem’s Lot shares a similar event in its history as another early settlement in America. Roanoke, Virginia was the site of two early colonies where its residents disappeared without a trace, once in 1587 and again in 1590.  Beyond the similarities, there is no known connection between Jerusalem’s Lot and Roanoke.

To read more about the history and events that occurred in Jerusalem’s Lot, read the following King stories:  ‘Salem’s Lot (1975), “One for the Road” – a short story in the collection Night Shift (1978), and “Jerusalem’s Lot” – a short story also in Night Shift (1978).

              

Derry, Maine: A Town of Unspeakable Evil (Part 1)

Derry, Maine: A Town of Unspeakable Evil

Part 1 – Intro and History

In Stephen King’s world, evil lurks in the darkness, balanced with a sliver of good that prevents it from engulfing everything in its path.  However, Derry is a different kind of town, a place where evil is so entrenched that most of the residents are not even aware of its presence.  Derry looks like every typical American town with average citizens and a Norman Rockwell picturesque setting.  It could be Anywhere, USA; but it is not! 

Derry has a town square where the courthouse and surrounding shops compose the community’s center of activity and life.  Popular local stores provide all the necessary commodities of life and the gossip that small American towns seem to use as fuel for life.  Mr. Norbert Keene’s drugstore located near the square is the place where most residents of Derry fill their prescriptions and doctor their ailments.  The Derry Public Library is close to the center of town and is an important setting in the events that occur in the little town.

Outside of the square, Derry has several famous landmarks that everyone in town knows, and some that they go out of their way to avoid.  Kitchener Iron Works is part of the town’s history and an important business for Derry residents as well as Stephen King’s stories.  On the outskirts of town is the infamous place known as “The Barrens,” which is where the runoff water from the town streets eventually flows.  “The Standpipe” is located in Derry Memorial Park, which is “within a shout” of the Barrens, as described by Mike Hanlon in his unpublished book, Derry: An Unauthorized Town History (IT, page 149).  Derry also has a tall statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe, the Big Blue Ox, which are fictional characters from American folklore. One of the most recent landmarks in Derry is a statue dedicated to the memory of the “lost children” of the town (Dreamcatcher).  

Derry has a tragic and dark history that is reflective upon the evil that lives in the small New England town.  This history is the focus of Mike Hanlon’s book that is mentioned in the previous paragraph.  Here are some of the events that Hanlon retells in his book:

          1741 – The entire population of Derry township vanishes. Hanlon
          compares it to the Roanoke Island, Virginia colony, where all of
          the colonists disappeared in the early settlement of North America.

1851 – John Markson kills his entire family with poison, then consumes a deadly “white nightshade” mushroom.

1879 – A crew of lumberjacks find the remains of another crew that spent the winter snowed in at a camp in the upper Kenduskeag, at the tip of the modern-day barrens. All nine had been hacked to pieces.

1906 – On Easter Sunday, the Kitchener Ironworks explodes during an Easter egg hunt, resulting in 102 deaths.

1930 – The Black Spot, a Negro social club, is burned to the ground by the Maine Legion of Decency. Dozens perish.

1958 – One hundred and twenty-seven children, ranging in age from three to nineteen, were reported missing in Derry.

1985 – Nine children are murdered; their killer is never apprehended. Also the year of the “Great Flood,” which results in millions of dollars of damage to the town.

1994 – Feminist Susan Day is killed when Derry resident Ed Deepneay – driven insane by an otherworldly being named Atropos – launches a kamikaze attack on the Derry Civic Center as Day addresses a capacity crowd. 

(Source for above history – The Complete Stephen King Universe: A Guide to the Worlds of Stephen King, 101-102.)

Although one has to live in Derry to understand the darkness of the town, even visitors have a feeling that something is odd about it.  Mike Hanlon states, “Those who have visited Derry refer to it as being ‘not right’” (IT, 151). Jake Epping aka George Amberson says that there is something “wrong” about the town. (11/22/63, 121).  Even residents of nearby Haven report seeing and hearing strange things in the town as they travel through it (The Tommyknockers).   

Derry has had a few famous residents that call the town “home.” Mort Rainey, author of two novels and a short story collection, resided in Derry with his wife until he went insane after his divorce (“Secret Window, Secret Garden”).  William Denbrough, a best-selling author and screenwriter, is one of Derry’s most famous native sons (IT).  Mike Noonan, another best-selling author, hailed from Derry and had a summer cabin near Dark Score Lake, which is near the town (Bag of Bones).  Richie Tozier, a childhood friend of William Denbrough, left Derry and became an excellent deejay that was known as “the Man of a Thousand Voices” (IT, 63).

Interesting statistics about Derry (The Complete Stephen King Universe, 101):

·   The murder rate in Derry is six times the murder rate of any other town of comparable size in New England.

·   In Derry, children disappear unexplained and unfound at the rate of forty-to-sixty per a year.

Due to the importance of Derry in King’s work and the vast amount of information that is available about the town, the article about Derry will be divided into two parts; this entry being the first of those parts.