Abandoned, But Not Forgotten: 4 Connecticut Ghost Towns

CONNECTICUT — There may not be any tumbleweeds blowing across Main Street or eerily creaking saloon doors, but these four Connecticut ghost towns have just as much character as the stereotypical forsaken suburb of your favorite Westerns.

To be clear, by "ghost" town we mean abandoned, but two of these became ghost towns in no small reason because they were haunted first — or so some paranormal investigators believe.

Easily the state's most storied ghost town is Johnsonville, located in East Haddam. The 64-acre parcel traces its legacy back to the Neptune Mill. Powered by the Salmon River, the mill produced yarn and twine. Emory Johnson built his homestead near the Neptune in 1846, and soon a second mill, called Triton. The village that grew up around his mills would eventually take his name.

Aerospace equipment manufacturer and entrepreneur Raymond Schmitt bought the town from the Johnson family in 1965, according to Atlas Obscura. He then acquired a hodgepodge of 19th century buildings, horse-drawn carriages and even a paddle steam ship and had them shipped to Johnsonville, with a master plan of building a Victorian Era themed tourist attraction. His plans ran counter to those of the local zoning czars, forcing him to ghost Johnsonville in 1994, a year after Billy Joel's sepia-dripped "River of Dreams" music video was filmed there.

Hotel developer Meyer Jabara bought all 64 acres in 2001, with plans to develop a neighborhood of upscale Victorian style single family homes and townhouses. Those plans fell through, and In 2017, it was purchased by Philippines-based religious group Iglesia Ni Christo who put up "No Trespassing" signs throughout the property.

If Dudleytown, in Cornwall, were the product of a fiction-writer's pen, you would be justified in calling the prose "a tad overwrought." Imagine giving this elevator pitch to your publisher: It was built on Mohawk tribal grounds, can trace its creepy legacy to a 16th century royal curse, was hammered by a mysterious plague, and nearby mountains shade the region so heavily the adjacent woods are named "Dark Entry Forest."

In fact, to call it merely a "ghost town" is to undersell it. Famed Connecticut paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (of "The Conjuring" movie series) determined the town was "demonically possessed."

It's privately property now, but you can see why developers aren't racing to build a cute little vintage village on top of it. According to the local historical society, the people who live there are "completely fed up with thrill-seeking, would-be ghost hunters."

An infestation of paranormal enthusiasts also caused the shutdown of another Connecticut ghost town, this one in Pomfret. According to Atlas Obscura, Bara-Hack had been a Welsh settlement dating from the late 18th century and is now private property surrounded by "No Trespassing" signs.

The tiny mill town founded by Obadiah Higginbotham and Johnathan Randall encountered some tough economic sledding and was abandoned before the start of the Civil War.

Or... was it? The website DamnedCT, chronicler of all things macabre in the Nutmeg State, reports that the noises of livestock, wagon wheels, children playing, and people singing have all been heard in the area, and recorded by ghost chasers. In fact, cataloging the Bara-Hack spooks became such a popular tourist activity that the current owners of the property have closed it off to those hoping to spy some specters.

If you have a hankering to visit a Connecticut ghost town that you can actually visit without breaking trespassing laws, set your GPS for Gay City. Located in Hebron, the wooded enclave of the Gay family and their friends and trading partners was founded in 1796.

According to the Bolton Historical Society, Gay and his crew were members of a decidedly non-Puritan religious order that made a point of serving whiskey at its semi-weekly church services. This caused the founders to butt heads with the surrounding Congregationalists, who were no doubt really irritated when the town erected a distillery in 1811.

All good times, until the main mill (mysteriously) burned down to the ground (three times), and the town never recovered. The forest began to reclaim the area in the late 19th century, but the 1,500-acre area remained the legal property of the Gay family. Emma Foster, last remaining member of the clan, deeded it over to the state in 1943 on the condition that it be called Gay City State Park and that whatever remained of the town structures and graveyard be kept intact. You can visit it today as easily as any of the other 138 Connecticut state parks, without fear of finding any "no trespassing" signs or demons.