Stratford and Stephen King

As you drive up or down West Broad Street between Rockwell Avenue and California Street, you pass by a home at 1543 West Broad Street, built in 1910, which might, at first glance, belie its historic significance. From 1955 through 1961, the third floor of this home served as the childhood residence of the famous author, Stephen King, his mother, and his older brother. In at least three of Stephen King’s books, he either describes his time growing up in Stratford, or uses Stratford locations as settings for his books.

In a somewhat biographical sense (the first section of Mr. King’s book, Hearts in Atlantis), he describes his grammar school years in Stratford. King uses familiar names of schools and locations in Stratford, but he gives Stratford the moniker “Harwich”. In Mr. King’s most well-known novel, Carrie, he names Stratford “Derry”, and uses his memories of the Stratford Library in settings for his “Derry Town Library”. 

In The Shining, Mr. King’s Overlook Hotel’s setting is in a fictionalized “northern Maine” location, but King has acknowledged that some of his “Maine settings” are influenced by his Connecticut roots. In Pet Sematary, the Creed family’s home in Gilead, Maine, is a fictionalized version of places in New England much like Stratford.

However, for pure Stephen King Stratford literary representation, you must read On Writing by Stephen King. There is no fictionalization in this account by Mr. King, just actual depictions of Stephen’s days as a boy in Stratford. They are very humorous and well worth the read.

Mr. King describes the area where the large, unoccupied truck storage building stands at West Broad and I-95 as “the Barrens”:  “…A block down the hill, not far from Teddy’s Market and across from Burritt’s Building Materials, was a huge tangled wilderness area with a junkyard on the far side and a train track running through the middle. This is one of the places I keep returning to in my imagination; it turns up in my books and stories again and again, under a variety of names. The kids in it called it the Barrens; we called it the jungle. Dave (Stephen’s brother) and I explored it for the first time not long after we had moved into our new place.”

I have often thought that Stephen King would have loved knowing, assuming he does not, that he lived and played just yards from where Stratford’s accused witch, Goody Bassett, was hanged. His home was also just a very short walk from the Riggs’ home, which stood on West Broad near its intersection with Barnum Avenue. In the 1880s and 1890s the Rigg’s home was considered the very most haunted home in Stratford:

“About three minutes’ walk from the railroad station on what is known as Clapboard Hill stands a small white house, which at the present time is attracting much attention. Several years ago the house was occupied by the late Jonathan Riggs and his wife.

…About five years ago Mrs. Riggs died, and there immediately followed a series of nocturnal rappings and apparitions, which have been continued at intervals to the present day. Mr. Riggs was the first to hear the strange noises, and he often asserted that his wife appeared to him, and that he could not get any sleep.

He got his granddaughter, Miss Addie Dorman, to attend to the household duties, but she became so frightened at the doings of the midnight visitors that Frederic Lewis, a neighbor, was induced to sleep at the house. For a time the noises ceased, but they began again after a short time”.  (New York Sun, April 16, 1885).

Lastly, several volunteers at the historic William Perry house next to the Baldwin Center have reported several instances of paranormal activity on the second floor of the house in the evenings. Perhaps the spirit of Goody Bassett, or some of the other ghostly influences from West Broad, influenced the young Stephen King and helped create the famous horror novel writer we know today.