Abandoned Dogtown

We first learned of the abandoned community of Dogtown after going to see the movie The Forest, based on a real, and supposedly haunted, forest in Japan. I had done a Google search for haunted forests to read more about it, and among other links to come up was a place in Gloucester Massachusetts called Dogtown Forest, a place with its own share of supernatural lore. We’re not believers in ghosts, but the idea of taking our kids to a supposedly haunted forest was something not to be passed up.

Dogtown is an abandoned community that, during its peak in the 1700’s, was home to approximately 100 families. Due to a "change in economic conditions" (which I guess means nobody really knows the reason why) the town was abandoned by the 1800’s. Today what evidence remains of this town consists of a main road, some side roads that are more paths than roads, and many cellar holes.

Although interesting by themselves, what really makes Dogtown unique is that during the great depression, out of work stone-cutters were hired by local philanthropist Roger Babson to carve inspirational messages on boulders throughout the woods.

We found many of these rocks on the aptly named Boulder Trail, however some we had to search out in the woods. Usually any patch of ground that appeared to have been trafficked would lead to something interesting. A few of the boulders toward the end we even needed to cross these train tracks to get to. After stopping to play on them, that is.

Tina was especially happy we crossed the tracks to search out the remaining boulders, as it was there she found her favorite message. I still expect to find a poster sized version of this hanging in our kitchen one of these mornings.

We were so caught up in searching out the messages that we really only explored the boulder side of Dogtown. A whole other section that we never got to, where many of the cellar holes exist, remains an adventure for another weekend.  Trying to find all the carved rocks, over two dozen total, was the theme of this day and more fun than any of us expected. Although the fun and games did come to a brief halt when we made the kids pose with this message.

At the end of the day Dogtown turned out to be a perfect mix of hiking, history, and exploring.  For those who enjoy any of these things we highly recommend this trip.

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