This week my regular ‘Picture Postals from Lovecraft’ post visits Dunwich. Or rather, visits “The Dunwich Horror” country in the form of the region around Wilbraham, Mass. Lovecraft visited here for eight days, and the terrain and atmosphere inspired one of the best-loved horror tales of the 20th century.

Far to the west, across marshy meadows where at evening the fire-flies dance in incredibly fantastic profusion, the benign bulk of Wilbraham Mountain rises purple and mystical. The region, being very old and remote, is full of the most extraordinary folklore; some of which will certainly find lodgment in my future stories” (Selected Letters II) … “this mountain & all the land for miles around belonging to Miss Beebe” (Letters to Family).

This, for him, was Wilbraham. The two Wilbraham settlements shown on the survey map of the era were quite distant from his spot, away over the other side of a long and rolling mountain range. These settlements were North Wilbraham (on the rail tracks) and Wilbraham (a few miles south of North Wilbraham). A neighbour’s Ford farm truck was sent by Miss Beebe to collect Lovecraft from the train station at North Wilbraham, and this ran him down to the Beebe place — which was quite a way east of and on the other side of the mountain(s) from Wilbraham.

In the following 1917 view of the local fair we almost certainly see Miss Beebe, who Lovecraft stayed with in Wilbraham. We have good pictures of their place (see my Lovecraft in Historical Context #4). As Lovecraft tells us, Beebe owned a lot of land and was the ‘queen bee’ among the women of the district. She was very central to all its social events such as this, coordinating matters extensively via the telephone that also features prominently in “The Dunwich Horror”.

As such I’d say Beebe is likely to be the blonde middle-age woman with the up-do hair, seen in the middle of the picture. The tall well-dressed woman adjacent is likely the local school teacher, who also appears in a local history book’s picture of Beebe planting a tree at the local school.

Miss Beebe, along with her cousin Mrs Miniter, was a mine of local lore and had a large antiquarian collection. Which Lovecraft reports filled almost every nook of the house when he visited. Including little glass bottles…

She began saving [glass] bottles when they were the despised […] her method of hanging them in windows, known for years as “Beebe style” is now generally adopted. (“Extensive collection of antiques of late Evanore O. Beebe is sold”, The Springfield Republican, 1929).

Possibly also salt and pepper shakers, since a remarkable shaker collection popped up in Wilbraham shortly after the death of Miss Beebe and the sale of her collections…

I wonder if this was Miss Beebe’s collection, purchased and re-housed circa the early / mid 1930s? As one can see here in a ‘for sale postcard’ from this mini-museum, some would have had a somewhat surreal aspect — had Lovecraft seen them.

Lovecraft also visited nearby Hampden and the large town of Monson (approved of), and on the way visited “the other side of the mountain”. This being Wigwam Hill in the centre of the range, which according to the map sat directly opposite the Beebe place. The low “strangely domed” mountains run in a long chain, as is made clear by the geological maps and some of the photographs of the time. But on this “other side” he noted the blasted heath where nothing grew. There is of course no postcard of this site, although a geologist recorded the crest thus…

Along the crest of Wilbraham mountain there are found numerous bands of hornblende, of the same age as the Chester amphibolite. This hornblende is fissile and splits into thin layers. The surface shows a black, satiny appearance by reason of the interlacing needles of hornblende crystals.” (Copeland, Our County and its People, 1902)

The above quote might give some geologist readers a clue about why the ‘blasted heath’ might have been blasted of life. As Lovecraft described it…

A strangely blasted slope where grey, dead trees claw at the sky with leafless boughs amidst the abomination of desolation. Vegetation will grow here no longer — why, no one can tell.” (Lord of a Visible World, first hb edition, page 241)

… the vegetation never came right again. To this day there is something queer and unholy about the growths on and around that fearsome hill.” (“The Dunwich Horror”)

Some readers may also be interested to learn, re: “Colour Out of Space”, that there was a Wilbraham Mountain Spring Water Co. that failed. Of course his “Colour” was written March 1927, before the first Wilbraham visit (there were several others). But the influences of the “blasted slope” and the water co. might have come via a letter from Mrs Miniter and Miss Beebe.

He almost certainly also saw this…

This “grotto” was in the Academy grounds. We know that Lovecraft made one outing when he and his friend Mrs Miniter took a woodland trail behind the private prep school (Lord of a Visible World, first hb edition, page 241). Thus he likely saw this evocative spot. The extensive grounds of the Academy also took in “The Dell”…

“Cold Spring Glen”, anyone? There was also a wooded reservoir, presumably also part of the same woodland walk.

I can’t find this particular detail, but I assume that since Mrs Miniter grew up in Wilbraham she was thus educated at its large Academy. And would have known the young ladies’ dorm, here newly colorised…

Here we see the main entrance to the Academy, perhaps 1920s or 30s. Newly colorised. Note the curious ‘Turban’ like effect of the globe above the sculpted head.

And finally, I also found this from Wilbraham on eBay. Possibly the 1930s? Difficult to date, but the sharpness of the lens and the probably-remote location suggests post-1930s. Could have been made by an old glass-plate camera and superb lens left over from a past era, but who would lug one of those up a mountain? Might even be the early 1950s, with a camera brought back from Germany.

Anyway, we see some of the many rocks. Some of these around Wilbraham were and presumably still are, huge… though now probably orc-scrawled with graffiti. One example is the ‘Whale Rock’ seen below. Though if Lovecraft saw these larger rocks is not known.

As summer settles in nicely (at least here in England), this week’s ‘Picture Postals’ follows Lovecraft down to the sunny Florida coast. In this case to the summer retirement and fruit-shipping town of Dunedin, Florida.

Dunedin centre, possibly late 1940s or early 1950s?

In the early 1930s this was the home of his friend and fellow writer Henry S. Whitehead. With freight-train loads of citrus fruit growing nearby and shipping from the rail-yard at the back of the town. The devastating winters of the early 1890s had however denuded the area of much of its population (they had moved away, rather than died) due to the abrupt failure of the citrus industry. According to the history of the local Episcopal church, by the 1920s the area’s church-going population had yet to fully recover and the depopulation problem seems to have continued into the 1930s. As such, I’d add, the local church was perhaps lucky to get a man of Whitehead’s calibre and experience with children. As Lovecraft wrote to his aunt…

He seems to be the idol of everyone in Dunedin, & especially of the small boys — whose psychology he understands very minutely as a result of long experience in directing boys’ summer camps.

There is a local official archival site for pictures, but they use that stupid “Checking if the site connection is secure” check-wall, which never resolves. So I’ve had to draw on other sites and postcard sellers. Including this gem showing the local bus. Lovecraft went on several local trips, and was probably tootled around in this bus wearing a tropical ‘safari’ type suit. Though sadly he did not also sport a British Empire-style pith-helmet…

In fact, he writes that he wore no hat at all with the suit, which was unusual for him. Actually Lovecraft may not have seen much of the small urban retail centre in Dunedin during those weeks, since Whitehead preferred to shop in the larger town of Clearwater.

As Lovecraftians will recall, it was a relatively brief friendship in person. With Lovecraft meeting and staying with Whitehead for many weeks in summer 1932, finding him an ideal host and rather usefully someone of the same bodily-build — Lovecraft was thus able to wear one of Whitehead’s old white tropical suits when the heat became too much even for him. It appears to have been a very productive visit for Lovecraft, physically and psychologically. As evidenced by letters and the poignant poem “To a Young Poet of Dunedin” (the 17 year old Allan B. Grayson, who was staying with Whitehead) of 30th May.

Finding there was a relative paucity of antiquities, Lovecraft appears to have turned his attention to the town’s many cats and to the wealth of exotic flora and fauna. Especially birds including, curiously, whippoorwill birds…

Whippoorwills? I’ll say we have ’em down here! Exotic ones too with a liquid rolling note apparently more complex than that of their northern kinsfolk… I first heard them in the mystical dawn outside my window, and half imagined that they were voices calling across the ultimate void from Beyond.” (Lovecraft to Derleth)

Last night we saw the white tropic moon making a magical path on the westward-stretching gulf that lapped at a gleaming, deserted beach on a remote key. Boy! What a sight! It took one’s breath away!” (Lovecraft to Derleth)

Dusk on the shore at Dunedin.

Lovecraft also visited the nearby Anastasia Island, seeing a seething mass of alligators. Here “surians” = alligators…

Tall trees casting a sinister twilight over shallow lagoons — funeral garlands of trailing Spanish moss ‐ and the whole ground surface alive with scaly, wriggling saurians”.

Doubtless we’ll get the full story and backdrop in the forthcoming book on Lovecraft in Florida.

I’ve found a location of the church for which Whitehead was rector (Lovecraft uses the work “rector”)…

Episcopal Church Church of the Good Shepherd (Episcopal), located on the southeast corner of Edgewater Drive and Albert Street.

It would have been in the southern edge of the main settlement at that time. However, it seems the church has since been moved. The Web page for the history of this church has…

In 1958 land was purchased to provide for future expansion and the church was moved to its present site and further enlarged.

Thus I suspect this card shows the 1958 site and expansion…

Perhaps 1958?

The core 1899 structure still stands (though greatly expanded since the early 1930s, and on a new site), and is now one of the historic sites included in town tours.

The Web page for the church also has the “old vicarage” moving…

in 1955 … the old vicarage and Parish House were moved away and a new Parish House built on the site.”

So the “old vicarage” would likely be the house Whitehead had in the early 1930s? It’s unclear if the Parish House is now on that site/address, though. Also, possibly the current church authority there is not aware of the history re: Whitehead, as it has…

Into the 1940’s the small congregations at Safety Harbor, Tarpon Springs, New Port Richey, and Dunedin were served by a single priest or, at times, a seminarian. Our first resident priest, the Rev. Cannon Eric Robinson, arrived in 1947. The Reverend Charles Folsom-Jones came in 1953 as Good Shepherd’s first full-time vicar.

Yet surely Whitehead was resident? And “rector” appears to = “priest” for Episcopalians. Joshi has it that… “the Gulf of Mexico was only a few feet from Whitehead’s front steps”, so the rector’s house was presumably somewhere nearby on the ocean-fronting Edgewater Drive. But possibly Whitehead is missing because the church doesn’t have the church records for the 1930s?

He arrived to take up his post in October 1929, according to a local newspaper report on his first reception event where he met all the other local churchmen. Thus, when Lovecraft was there, Whitehead had been rector for around two and a half years.

The sort of gnarled trees and verdant foliage one might have encountered in the back-gardens of Dunedin.

It’s possible that Whitehead’s “vicarage” (if that’s where he was living) lacked either a shady garden and/or a sea-view, since Lovecraft was generously offered the any-time use of a “tastefully landscaped” seaview garden next door. This was offered by the Metzen neighbours from Detroit, who had a retirement place “on the shore, a trifle north” of Whitehead. I’ve been unable to locate this, which might have helped identify the actual Whitehead address.

Along the shoreline.

I am at this moment on the sun-baked gulf shore under a palm tree.” (Letter to Henry George Weiss)

The Lovecraft-Whitehead correspondence is no more, with Lovecraft’s letters destroyed and Whitehead’s lost. By December 1932 Whitehead had unexpectedly died, and Lovecraft remarked in a letter…

Many stories of his remain unpublished, including a new series centring in a sinister and decaying old New England town (a kind of Arkham) called Chadbourne.” (Selected Letters IV)

Could this be a lost section of the early Lovecraft-inspired Mythos? All I can find is the posthumous “The Chadbourne Episode” of 1933. But, according to Lovecraft, there was a “series” of these tales.