Previous Tentaclii picture posts on Newburyport — a key inspiration for Lovecraft’s “Innsmouth” — have included Along the Innsmouth shoreline, Newburyport – part one and part two. The images are now restored on these posts, after the site-move.

For this week’s regular ‘Picture Postals’ post I wondered if, some four years later, other pictures had become available? They had.

For context, above we see Newburyport showings its relation to its salt marshes and ocean coastline, on a U.S. Geological Survey map of 1934. Newbury and Ipswich are just south of this map.

This fine picture I found is probably fairly close to what the ‘local bus to Innsmouth’, which features in the famous tale, would have looked like. This combination carrier / bus is destined for a working life around Newbury, just south of Newburyport and in the middle of the marshes. The picture looks like it’s about the right time-period too.

Curious doings at Newburyport. A pamphlet by the aptly named H.P. Davis. Probably the same as the interior of haunted schoolroom in the photo I found and fixed in 2019.

On the Rocks, off Plum Island.

A curious Marsh Scene, Plum Island. Not one of the early pre-Photoshop montage ‘farm cards’.

School Street, Newburyport.

Inn Street. Newburyport.

An unusual garden, at the back of the High Street, Newburyport.

A (the?) tug-boat, Newburyport. 1930s?

And finally, readers will recall the U.S. submarine in “Innsmouth”. I couldn’t find one off Newburyport, but here’s one off the relatively nearby Newport.

Well, those are some newly found ‘picture postals’ that seem to chime with elements / atmospheres in Lovecraft’s “The Shadow over Innsmouth” (1931).

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.