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Jerusalem's Lot, Maine (often shortened to 'Salem's Lot or just the Lot) is a fictional town and a part of writer Stephen King's fictional Maine topography. 'Salem's Lot has served as the setting for a number of his novels, novellas, and short stories. It first appeared in King's 1975 novel 'Salem's Lot, and has reappeared as late as his 2019 novel The Institute. The town is described as being located in Cumberland County, between (or including parts of) the towns of Falmouth, Windham, and Cumberland, near the southern part of the state about 10 miles north of Portland. A map on King's official website, though, places 'Salem's Lot considerably further north, approximately in Northwest Piscataquis.
King, a native of Durham, Maine, created a trinity of fictional Maine towns – Jerusalem's Lot, Castle Rock and Derry – as central settings in more than one work.
History[]
The town that would become Jerusalem's Lot was founded in 1710 by a preacher named James Boon, the leader of a cult of schismatic Puritans. The cult became notorious in the region for its open embrace of witchcraft and for its amoral sexual practices, including inbreeding. Jerusalem's Lot became an incorporated town in 1765, but was abandoned in 1789 after Boon and his followers mysteriously vanished. The mass disappearance occurred not long after Philip Boone, a wealthy individual and unknowing descendant of James Boon, obtained an occultic book known as De Vermis Mysteriis; Philip Boone disappeared along with the rest of the village.
When Jerusalem's Lot was incorporated in 1765, Maine was still part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The town got its name from a myth about one of the earliest residents, Charles Belknap Tanner, who raised pigs; one of these pigs was named Jerusalem. One day, Jerusalem escaped from her confines into a nearby forest, and became aggressive and wild. Tanner began warning young children who trespassed on his property to "Keep 'ee out o' Jerusalem's wood lot," lest the pig devour them. Eventually, the phrase "Jerusalem's Lot" was adopted as the town name.
At an unknown date sometime after Boone and McCann's exploration, people began inhabiting the town again. The town had a representative named Elias Jointner in the House of Representatives by 1896. As chronicled in the novel 'Salem's Lot, Jerusalem's Lot has been identified as a residence for great and mysterious evil, particularly vampires.