In 1939, the town of Arkham was shrouded beneath a veil of suspicion regarding a townsperson named Eve Dyer. Eve was a homemaker who inheirited a farm from her father and, shortly thereafter, widowed by her husband, Archibald Dyer, whose death left her destitute and caring for their four children.

Eve was in desperate need of help to tend the farm and required that her young children do a good deal of the labor rather than attend school. The children's health suffered greatly and neighbors began to voice their disdain about the widow living in the large farmhouse on the hill.

In an effort to save her home, Eve solicited her children to emplore their young friends to help work the farm in exchange for a small wage after school.

The sight of children performing back-breaking labor only furthered the disapproval of the locals who began to spurn Eve and her clan altogether - some even forbidding their children from working there despite their own financial hardships.

Events at this point are somewhat unclear and at the mercy of the only record of the day - rumor and gossip. However, two facts are undeniable - children began to go missing and Eve paid a harsh price.

What follows is gleamed from the stories:

A sickness descended upon Arkham (possibly a form of cholera or severe respitory sickness) claiming its most vulnerable citizens - the children. The town doctors were at a loss to discern the nature of the illness but the source seemed to be the Dyer house.

All the children who had fallen ill had eaten food sold by Eve's young helpers and citizens began to remark how rarely they had seen the widow Dyer for quite some time. In fact, her own children had been absent from the fields for nearly a month and only the young ones she had hired were seen in town or working on the farm.

The sickness and its perceived link to goods farmed from the Dyer farm led the locals to boycott anything that came from the farm and forbid the remaining children from working there..

This condemnation was followed by a wave of disappearances of the former child workers of the Dyer farm whose parents had already become uneasy with their glassy eyes and distant demeanor. Parents of the missing children attempted to involve the sheriff, who paid a visit to the Dyer house but found no sign of the missing. As he attempted to explore the farm at length, the sheriff was deterred by Eve's eldest child, Henry, who informed the lawman that his mother and siblings had travelled to Louisiana to seek relief from the unknown sickness that had spread throughout Arkham.

A few weeks later, it was said that a neighbor saw Eve and her other children return late one night. This sighting was followed by a week where three more local children, not previously employed at the Dyer farm, went missing. Another neighbor began to spread tales of strange lights and chanting late one night from the Dyer house, and, after a night of heavy drinking, a group of angry locals decided to see exactly what was going on at the Dyer house for themselves.

Carl Franklin, a prominent local farmer and church deacon, led the mob to the home and saw Eve in the throes of some strange ritual over the lifeless bodies of some of the missing children. In a rage, the mob tore into the home, seized Eve, and forced her from the kitchen to the den where they cast into her own furnace and burnt her alive.

There was no trail of evidence left to follow after the murder of Eve Dyer. Arkham seemed to take relief in the fact that its pariah had been dealt with, and, with so many police involved in the mobscene and Eve having no living relatives to notify, the whole incident became a bad memory.

It is said that some of the missing children were found alive in the home and they and their families left Arkham - never to return. No mention of the Dyer children persisted and those who participated in the siege never spoke of what happened to them. The only record that remained, Carl Franlin's personal writings, lay dormant deep within the bowels of the church, sealed away from prying eyes.

The Dyer house stayed empty for nearly twenty years until the town put the farm up for auction in 1956 where it was purchased by a real estate developer, Roman Fitzgerald, who intended to cut the farm into lots and build a subdivision. During the planning stages, Roman moved his family into the house temporarily until the spec home was constructed.

Six months later, Roman abandoned the project and abruptly moved the family out of the home after an incident where his young son, Jude, died after falling down the attic stairs. Roman offered no explanation for his speedy departure, but the locals began to talk of a Dyer curse.

The 1960s brought more new occupants, but each in turn left abruptly and without cause, passing the house over to other owners tempted by the low asking price. One family, the Kendalls, even petitioned a priest to perform a cleansing of the property, but were met with some resistance that led to their exit and the presiding priest’s institutionalization.

The last family to inhabit the home, the Bishops of Minneapolis, took ownership of the property in late 1972. Initially, the family lived in the Dyer house without incident, until, nearly a year later, Grace Bishop, the mother, sequestered herself in a room in the attic and refused to leave. Clark, her husband, sought a doctor but returned to find his wife and children dead in the small attic that had become Grace's home.

Since the Bishop tragedy, the Dyer house has stood in silence. None have dared enter its doors for fear of angering what the locals refer to as the “Curse of Arkham,” or , in some guarded circles, as the wrath of Eve Dyer - herself.

Recently, in early March 2008, a television producer and his team of paranormal investigators learned of the existence of the Dyer house and set out to chronicle their experiences there for the television show - Beyond the Grave.

What became of their visit has only added to the lore of the the Dyer house, its perceived curse, and sealed their fate as well . . .