The "CURSE" of Dudleytown?

Ok, lets jump right to the point. IS Dudleytown cursed? If so, then the curse either came through the Family or the land.

CURSES ON THE PEOPLE. Let's start by looking at what we have been told.

First, and foremost--the curse came through the Dudley line. But what Dudley line we ALL have to question. We are given TWO different genealogies to work with depending on who is telling the story---and it will be quite easy to see through genealogy and history, that both are not only wrong, but IMPOSSIBLE!! Remembering that to believe in the Dudley curse, you must accept one of them, lets look at them individually:

1) The line from Robert, Earl of Leicester. This is the most common link to the Dudley's of Dudleytown....there is only one problem...there is no proof of any link from Leicester to William of Guilford (from whence come the Dudley brothers of Dudleytown). A quick look at any biography will show that Robert Dudley had only two sons (one was illegitimate). The legitimate son of Robert died young, too young to marry. The illegitimate son moved to Italy, and had children there......and all the boys stayed there. So, there goes that line. No link here.

2) The line from (Gov) Thomas Dudley of the Massachusetts Bay Company. This theory was most recently put out in the book Ghost Hunters by Ed and Lorraine Warren. They state that the Dudley Brothers were nephews of Thomas Dudley. Again, a quick look totally disproves this. Thomas Dudley DIED 84 years BEFORE the Dudley brothers were even born. Additionally, he was NOT "hacked to death", but died of that dreaded disease--old age--at his home in Roxbury Mass. BOTTOM LINE: The two lines came from different Dudley families, and NO one has ever completely proved the lineage of Gov Thomas Dudley, while the line from the Dudleytown Dudley's has been proved! And there goes that theory.


And there is another problem with this theory anyway. NO one has been able to say WHEN such curse would have been placed on them! The only exception to this is the Warren's book "Ghost Hunters." We will look at the Warren's research on another page. Other than that exception, no story of Dudleytown has ever placed the "curse" on any particular Dudley, or even the entire line. Should we accept either theory, the ONLY unfortunate happenings to the Dudleys (ESPECIALLY to those in theory number one--where we have all the beheadings) are political things that THEY brought about themselves!!

Additionally, IF the LINE were cursed, then the death of the LAST person in that line would mark the end of the curse.......it, too, would die. That, until just the last 20 years, has always been the rule.


As a final act of providing proof of their being no connection to, or between, any of the above principals in our story, allow me to set forth the birth and death dates of all of them.

Edmund Dudley .....1462-1510..... He is our foundation.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.....24 June 1532 - 4 September 1588.....The "curse" pivot.

Son Robert Dudley......... 1573 - September 1649........He is the ONLY person that could provide male offspring to carry any "curse"

William Dudley......11 September 1608 - about 1680........The first ancestor of the Dudleytown Brothers to arrive in America

To be connected to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, William Dudley would have HAD to be a son of the Earl of Leicester. He was not. As we can see, Robert's ONLY surviving son was a CONTEMPORARY of William Dudley, the ancestor of the Dudleytown brothers—not related to him.

Now, some stories name an "Abijah" (or some spelling like that). I have never found an Abijah Dudley in the genealogical records. That is because there isn't any. A look at the town records--if anyone would read them--shows that the Cornwall scribe made an error. One sentence after he lists "Abijah" he states "...said Abiel..." Yes, a simple spelling error that anybody reading the record would have caught. Now, as for Martin--he was there, and in fact married Gideon's daughter! (yes folks, the Dudley brothers [except for Abiel] got married and had children) The "curse" must have missed these important facts. He was from Massachusetts, according to the marriage entry in the church records of Cornwall's 1st Congregational Church---he was from a different line of the family. He supposedly ran a Tavern, and was referred to as "Captain." This has NOT been validated, but he was NOT a cousin. The only other Martin Dudley in Ct. that I am aware of--who belonged to this line, anyway, was not born until 1779 to Zebulon Dudley. This is outside of the curse, again, and obviously from a different line. He could NOT have been a cousin, unless genealogical sources are wrong.

So now we have a problem. NO "cursed" links to any one that had been beheaded, or had any unfortunate thing happen to them.

And there goes the "curse" of the Dudley line. So lets move on to:

CURSES ON THE LAND. Ah, now maybe here! And there are two problems. Again, lets take them one by one:

1) There is NO evidence of anyone placing a curse on the place. None. There never has been. In fact, there is NO one I have ever talked to that remembers if anyone ever did! They say they just heard it. Or think it, or "it just HAS to be."

2) Curses work while you are in or at the place, NOT when you leave. And that is exactly what the Dudleytown curse did--its seems to have worked on those who left (with the exception of the last two incidents).

Ok, while it is true that a curse attached to a person CAN follow that person, you must first determine if and when THAT PERSON was cursed. Some paranormal investigators will point that out, but in most classic investigations done by competent researchers, curses on places stay AT the place--they will not follow an individual unless it is a curse on a person. That is why when you leave a cursed place, you leave the ghost, paranormal happenings, everything behind. The curse, however, remains on the place either until it is lifted, or (if a time specific curse) until the time of the curse ends. There has never, to my knowledge, ever been an instance of a person visiting a cursed place and taking the curse with them. If that were to happen, then the curse leaves the place, and attaches to the person. At the death of that person, the curse would end.

Ok, to show the whole thing, lets go through the strange deaths one by one and find out WHO, if anyone, was besieged with what appears to be a curse of any sort....with the exceptions of those who died in the plagues. This will be done on the next page!

Bibliography

Dean Dudley, History of the Dudley Family, 1898, Higgenson Books

Adlard, George, The Sutton Dudley's of England and the Dudley's of Massachusetts, 1862, Higgenson Books

Chamberlain, Paul H. Dudleytown, 1966, The Cornwall Historical Society.

Cornwall Vital Records, available through the Cornwall Historical Society

Vital Records of the First Congregational Church, Cornwall, Ct.

In Addition, Compton's, Encly. Britannica, or Funk & Wagnall's Encyclopedia's can provide many of the dates above.