Photo of Jennings Hall at Bennington College in North Bennington, Vermont, courtesy of J.W. Ockler.

America is a haunted country, and as we count down the days till Halloween, Monster Librarian plans to share some destinations for travelers looking to travel someplace special for the Halloween season.

North Bennington, Vermont might seem like a peaceful village, but it’s also where author Shirley Jackson, best known for her novel The Haunting of Hill House and her short story “The Lottery”, lived for most of her married life.  Jackson’s husband, Stanley Hyman, was a professor at Bennington College, and it is speculated that the inspiration for Hill House is the Jennings Music Building on the Bennington College campus. In her book Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life biographer Ruth Franklin suggests that the Everett Mansion near Old Bennington is a better candidate, but two creepy, potentially haunted buildings in the same area means she could have been inspired by both.  This article from Vermont news station NBC5 has some great photos of Jennings Music Building matched to quotes from The Haunting of Hill House, in case your only option for travel is via armchair.

There’s also a story that Jackson based the town square, where a truly monstrous community ritual occurs, in “The Lottery” on Lincoln Square in North Bennington. According to her, while walking through the square on her way home from the post office, she had the idea for the story and immediately wrote it down.  The Fund for North Bennington quotes Jackson’s writing to the San Francisco Chronicle about the story. Jackson writes:

Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult. I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story’s readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.

J.W. Ockler has written a little about both locations here.

Jonah Daniell has written up a walking tour of Jackson-related locations for Literary Bennington: in addition to visiting Jennings Hall and Lincoln Square, Jackson and her family lived in a house at 12 Prospect Street at first and later bought a house at 66 Main Street. Both of these are now private residences. Powers Market, where Jackson did her shopping, is still there, and if you visit the library, you can see a cat statue she used to own.  For such a noted writer, the town where she lived and wrote hasn’t done much to recognize her, although recently the local literary festival was renamed for her and the date moved to June 27, the date of the events in “The Lottery.” If you’re a Jackson fan and in or near Vermont, put North Bennington, Vermont on your bucket list.