The Shadow Over Innsmouth

The narrator explains how he instigated a secret investigation of the ruined town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, a former seaport isolated from other nearby towns by vast salt marshes by the U. S. government after fleeing it on July 16, 1927. The investigation ultimately concluded with the arrest and detention of many of the town's residents in concentration camps as well as a submarine torpedoing Devil Reef, which the press mistakenly reported as Prohibition liquor raids. He proceeds to describe in detail the events surrounding his initial interest in the town, which lies along the route of his tour across New England, taken when he was a 21-year-old student at Oberlin College. While he waits for the bus that will take him to Innsmouth, he busies himself in the neighboring Newburyport by gathering information on the town and its history from the locals; all of it having superstitious overtones. The town was once a profitable port and shipbuilding center during the colonial period and the American Revolution. It industrialized in the early 19th century but began to decline after the War of 1812 interrupted shipping. The Innsmouth South Seas merchant Obed Marsh built a profitable gold refinery but the town only deteriorated further after riots and a mysterious epidemic eliminated half of its residents in 1845. Obed also founded a pagan cult called the Esoteric Order of Dagon, which became the town's primary religion. Outsiders and government officials, including Census Bureau agents and school inspectors, are treated with hostility.