The story of Evelyn Nesbit is amazing and horrifying. A story where The Great Pond is a sacred site, the ancient goddess, Evelyn Nesbit, is connected to the site, its powers, and the ancient legends of the area.
She was married to one of the leading murder culprits of the early 20th century, Harry K. Thaw. The murder case, Evelyn Nesbit’s connection to Stanford White, and the trial, all have this crazy ‘only in the early 20th century’ feel to them.
Evelyn Nesbit met the Abenaki legend, the Wendigo, and in the process becomes a ‘Goddess herself’. She is immortal, timeless, all-seeing. Yet despite her powers, she struggles sometimes with her own conscience, and the morality of her actions.
She met the Wendigo in the ‘Great Pond’, at the time of her affair with Jack Clifford, in 1901. They met in the woods. Evelyn was out by the lake, at night. She came across the Wendigo, who is an ancient spirit, a being of immense power and knowledge. Evelyn felt a sense of peace, and understanding from the creature. It offered her its gifts, its help. The Wendigo beccame her partner, her servant in the coming eons, it now helps her and teaches her the arts of its nature. It can create parallel realities, time-travel… It gives her great powers, immortality… And immortality has a price.
She is the latest in a long line of immortal Priestesses. She is being hunted by an ancient cult, who fear her and her power. She hid from them, at the Chateaugay Lake campsite, where she met the Wendigo.
Yes. The price of immortality was her sanity. She became detached from reality, time, and people, even those she was once close to.
This is the cost of immortality, and the Wendigo spirit’s gifts.
The ancient secret cult is called ‘The Children of the Old Ones‘. The name comes from the Lovecraftian works of HP Lovecraft. The idea is that an ancient race of creatures from space, called ‘The Old Ones‘, want revenge for what this ancient Priestess did to them hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Cthulhu and other dark entities are her servants, and her dark will is enacted through them. The story explores different historical events related to Evelyn Nesbit Thaw, and what the dark entity might have gained from them.
It is amazing that those buildings are still there. The camp of prohibition, the history of Evelyn Nesbit Thaw and Harry Thaw, Stanford White, the murder and the trial, the fact that so many of the principals, key events, and locations are still around, are still there, it’s amazing. So few places still around today still possess that same sense of being at the centre of such momentous, important events. Wow. Yes, it’s sad to think that these places, that have such important pieces of history to offer, often get torn down. I had heard of the ‘five chimneys’, I think it was a hunting club for wealthy men at the time of Prohibition, and that they used the camp for bootlegging. And that the Nesbit/ Clifford relationship was forged at the camp.
the camp was built around 1909, and was used as a hideaway for Evelyn, her dance-partner, and her husband. And was used for bootlegging alcohol during prohibition, between 1920 and 1933. When prohibition was made law, bootlegging became a national industry, and a new business.
What mysteries of Chateaugay Lake haunt you?