A Day in the Life of Lovecraft: 16 July 1927

It was I who fled frantically out of Innsmouth in the early morning hours of July 16, 1927, and whose frightened appeals for government inquiry and action brought on the whole reported episode. I was willing enough to stay mute while the affair was fresh and uncertain; but now that it is an old story, with public interest and curiosity gone, I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly-shadowed seaport of death and blasphemous abnormality. The mere telling helps me to restore confidence in my own faculties; to reassure myself that I was not the first to succumb to a contagious nightmare hallucination. It helps me, too, in making up my mind regarding a certain terrible step which lies ahead of me. - The Shadow Over Innsmouth

Some feel that Innsmouth had roots in Essex County. This is an image of the rare book: The Wheelman's Handbook of Essex County which allegedly contains brief sketches of cities and towns previous to it's printing date of 1884. The woodcut image is very eerie, isn't it!