A new article on “H.P. Lovecraft and Block Island”. By Edward Guimont, a PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut, who looks deeply and diligently for connections to the place but comes up rather empty handed. He does however end on the fascinating point that Lovecaft was very distantly related to Barlow….
R. H. Barlow, a young collaborator [was, as] Lovecraft discussed in an August 27, 1936 letter to their mutual friend Elizabeth Toldridge […] descended from Rathbone1. In a visit to Lovecraft in the summer of 1936, Barlow and Lovecraft discovered that Barlow’s family tree split with the original Rathbone’s son, making the two authors sixth cousins.
Lovecraft also had had some distant family-tree members living on Block Island, but I’ve never yet found any mention of him going there to check the graveyards etc.
1. John Rathbone = “one of the original 16 purchasers of Block Island from 1661 now immortalized (under the spelling John Rathbun) on the Settlers’ Rock plaque near the North Light.”