Little Hope is an abandoned ghost town located in Essex County, Massachusetts. The area serves as the main location in which the events of The Dark Pictures Anthology's second installment, Little Hope, take place.
Overview[]
Little Hope is located in a very rural and remote area, with the nearest bus stop being two miles away. The town is surrounded by dense woods, some of which on its grounds, and has a large river with some creeks running through it. Such landscape has been in the town since the 17th century.
Little Hope is famous as one of the towns, along with Salem, Andover, and Topsfield, where witch hunts took place in 1692. It became the town's main and only attraction, with multiple monuments, memorials, and hiking trails can be found throughout the town, especially in the center. This reveals Little Hope as a tourist town, as evidenced by the presence of an appropriate office. Some buildings, such as the police station and bar, have a black cat on their logos, once again recalling the history of Little Hope.
Following the closure of the factory, a major source of employment, in the late 1970s, Little Hope fell into disrepair, becoming a ghost town. Being far away from the outside world, however, people rarely came into contact with the town making it almost unchanged since then, except getting overgrown with nature. While Little Hope has become a drive-by, sometimes it serves as a bypass route when the main highway is blocked, as the town stands very close to it.
History[]
1690s[]
In 1690, Little Hope was accidentally involved in King William's War when on June 23, during the celebration of Commencement Day, it was attacked by the French and Indian armies. During the massacre, the town lost 22 citizens, with 8 people killed and 14 people taken into slavery.
Two years later, in 1692, Little Hope went through dark times once more. The girl Mary Milton and Reverend Simon Carver initiated a series of witch trials in which four people (spouses Amy and Joseph Lambert, along with Mary's siblings Tabitha and David Milton) were accused of witchcraft, tried and executed. Soon the townspeople discovered that Carver had secretly studied the occult, leading to him losing his status as a pastor.
1850s[]
Tilly Johnson, promising young author novelist, became famous for her gothic novel "Tract of the Tethered" published in 1856. Unfortunately, in June 1858, Tilly was found dead in her home under mysterious circumstances.
1916[]
In 1916, some residents of Little Hope participated in World War I.
1970s[]
In the early 1970s, Little Hope faced economic difficulties. The mayor of the town, Samuel Carver, a descendant of Reverend Carver, planned to close the Ravenden Textiles Factory and sell the land to overseas developers. This led to massive protests from residents, even supported by Carver's daughter Hazel, and a petition made to try and persuade the Carver family into accepting a union offer to save the factory. However, even after the overseas buyout fell through, Carver still refused to accept the union's offer.
On January 16, 1972, tragedy befell the Clarke family. A doll placed too close to exposed gas stove caught fire and fell on the floor, starting a fire. Five members of the family, spouses James and Anne along with their children Tanya, Dennis and Megan, died trying to escape the house, leaving the youngest son Anthony the sole survivor, as he was outside during the fire. Anthony was arrested as the prime suspect in the arson, for the only witness saw him with matches in his hands, but when the real cause of the fire was revealed, he was released. Eventually, Anthony left Little Hope.
Meanwhile, on August 8, 1973, it was announced that the factory's main site would be shutting down in September of that year, leaving more than 600 workers from both the main factory and the ancillary factory without a job. This significantly affected the rest of the town's businesses, including tourism, which was the second most profitable business in Little Hope, but failed as well, with visitors more and more preferring the attractions of Salem. On October 20 of the same year, the town was stunned by another event. Reverend Leonard Carson was arrested for leading the Satanic masses and subsequently lost the status as a pastor. It shocked the townspeople as Carson helped many parents in dealing with their troubled children, including the late Clarkes.
1979 is the last year of Little Hope's activity. With the Ravenden Textiles Factory having been shuttered for almost 6 years now, leading to the mass exodus of residents and closure of businesses, the town was now on its last legs. The situation eventually came to a head during a meeting at the town hall on October 12 of that year. Given the lack of tax revenue coming in, and after another round of bank foreclosures on the residents, it was decided by a vote to declare disincorporation of the town. With the last forty residents planning to move away, Little Hope officially became a ghost town.
2000[]
While Little Hope has been left abandoned for 20 years, slowly reclaimed by nature, the forest surrounding the town saw a decent amount of activity mostly from extreme sports enthusiast. A system of caverns in the forest called Hobb's Deep was famous for ice climbing, and in 2000, a recently married couple Rachel and Eric King were going to visit Little Hope territory for such experience.
Unfortunately, after stopping at a roadside diner 3 miles outside of the town, the couple were involved in an automobile accident when a truck rammed into their car as they were pulling out of the diner's parking lot, resulting in Eric losing his right leg.
Events of Little Hope[]
1972[]
Little Hope officially appears in the 1972 prologue, which retells the tragedy of the Clarke family. Some time after the fire, Reverend Carson holds a funeral for the family members, attended by some people including Anthony and Vince, Tanya's boyfriend, who has since come to hate Anthony.
2019[]
Little Hope also appears in the 2019 prologue. As a result of an accident on the main road, an unnamed bus driver is forced to take a detour through an abandoned town. Distracted by noisy passengers, the bus driver fails to see a girl suddenly appear on the road. Trying to avoid her, the driver swerves off the road and the bus crashes.
Some time later, the college class, consisting of Professor John and his students Andrew, Angela, Daniel, and Taylor, come to their senses after the bus crash. Trying to find help, as well as find the missing bus driver, the group encounters a series of supernatural phenomena. First the fog preventing them from leaving the town, then the people from Little Hope of 1692 who look exactly like them, and finally sinister demons haunting them after the execution of their doppelgangers. Traveling through Little Hope, the protagonists are taken back in time several times and try to stop the witch trials while continuing to flee from the demons. At the end, having reached the end of the town, the group confronts the past one last time and either saves their souls or becomes part of Little Hope's dark history.
As dawn breaks, it is revealed that Andrew is in fact the bus driver, or Anthony, who has been hallucinating throughout his journey through Little Hope as a result of psychological trauma. In the end, he leaves town redeemed for his sins, commits suicide continuing to blame himself for the death of his family or arrested by the police, called by Vince who hasn't forgiven Anthony for the death of his girlfriend.
Events of House of Ashes[]
Rachel exits the diner and throws a box of fried food to Eric as she enters the car. After talking a little about ice climbing, Rachel then tells Eric that a man who served her told her that she'll never be as happy as she is, to whom Eric tries to comfort her. As they drive away, a truck crashes the couple's car at full speed.
Town Map[]
1692[]
Little Hope in 1692.
Locations of the town in 1692 include:
- First Lambert House - The house belonged to the Lambert spouses until Amy's execution.
- Second Lambert House - The house Joseph moved to following confiscation of his lands by Carver.
- Milton House - The house belonged to the Milton family.
- Courthouses - Three courthouses where trials were held during witch hunts.
- Houses of other families - Houses owned by other families who lived in Little Hope, including Blanchard, Lovejoy, Phelps, Bixby, Chandler, Osgood, Garrison, Abbot, Ballard, Blunt, Howell and Roger.
Present Time[]
Little Hope in present time.
Locations of the town in present days include:
- Main Road - The central road that runs through the whole town.
- Black Cat Bar - A small bar located on the edge of town.
- School - The elementary school closed to trespassers. Not far from the school there is a playground.
- Police Department - A police station located near the town center.
- Whitman Mart - General store/gas station located next to the police station.
- Bridge - Large overhanged bridge on the main road. Although it seems to be collapsed, in reality the bridge is actually intact.
- Cemetery - A large cemetery where many residents of the town are buried since the 17th century.
- Museum - A historical museum dedicated to the Little Hope witch trials. The building formerly served as Tilly Johnson's house.
- East County Church - An old church with a bell tower founded in the mid-17th century. Since its inception, it has had 18 pastors.
- Ravenden Textiles Factory - The main source of work whose closure marked the beginning of the end of Little Hope.
- Clarke Family Home - The house belonged to the Clarke family until January 1972. The ruins of the house left after the fire are still standing to this day.
Trivia[]
Little Hope in Andover.
- Little Hope is the most populated and visited location in the anthology, with nearly 90 known people.
- So far, Little Hope is the only setting where all chapters take place.
- Little Hope is based on Salem and their infamous witch trials.
- There are 4 communities called "Little Hope" in real life (in Alabama, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin). However, the town represented in the game is fictional, being located in Andover, Essex County, Massachusetts.
- As revealed in one of the bonus comics, Anthony is shown living back in Little Hope, in the apparently rebuilt Clarke house, where he is visited by his therapist Hannah Stone. However, as it turns out at the end of the comic, Hannah was another hallucination of Anthony, who supposedly visited the town in an attempt to cope with psychological trauma.
- A map of Little Hope in 1692 shows that there were many other powerful families besides the Carvers, as some of the natural landscapes were named after them. (Blanchard's Plain, Ballard's Pond, Roger's Brook)
- Little Hope, along with the Repository, are the only locations in the anthology that reappears in other installments.
- In case of Little Hope, it is mentioned by the Curator in Man of Medan finale and appears in one of the flashbacks in The Ancient One in House of Ashes.
- In Switchback VR, Little Hope and the surrounding woods are called the Cursed Forest.
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| Key Locations | Little Hope | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Little Hope |
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| Other | The Repository • Roadside Diner | ||||||