The murder you mention occurred in September 1878 — the Rev. Herbert Hayden murdered young Mary Stannard, whom he believed was pregnant with his illegitimate child. The case was sensational at the time — although the physical evidence was overwhelming against Hayden, the jury dismissed the charges because they were swayed by the reverend’s charm and they literally thought his wife was too good a woman to suffer if her husband was put to death!

Obviously, things have changed since then.

(Shameless plug alert!) I am including the story in my book due out in September, “Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Connecticut History,” but in the meantime, you can read an excellent account of the events in “Arsenic Under the Elms” by Virginia A. McConnell.

Perhaps the formations you found were built for the settlers by Native Americans?

Through some preliminary resources and information, the information regarding it being called Rockland is indeed true, the murder part though seems to be a bit of a stretch. The last recorded murder previous to the land being called what it is today is rooted back to the early 1900′s and it is hardly considered a murder. I don’t know exactly where that information you have gathered came from, but maybe it holds true. Nonetheless, the area does seem to very desolate and creepy. Despite the idea that it is so called “haunted” honestly this happened so many times during the founding and development of what is the modern structures of the world we live in now. It does not mean suddenly the land was struck with a disease, or a mass murder took place, rather it just means people were offered to move on, or over time they just simply became vacated.

I think what you are seeing here is more the vacated land, because the land in the area is considered “valuable” because of the water resources, many times the land can be hard to even try and develop. Many times early on irrigation canals were made, and when this occured lands would usually begin the development phase and try and become townships. With that being said, there runs a good chance that the land you see here was in the beginning phases of development (ie: foundations set) when the “contractors” at the time just gave up on the project. Now there is a lot of question on the history of the place, but it definitely seems to have a weird touch.

I personally in the coming weeks will be making a trip out there. I can’t really affirm or deny what has taken place but will look into it. This is definitely no Blair Witch Project house, especially because the movie was proven to be a false representation (but good hype up lol) but I have not recieved word on whether it is completely vacant. I think what you are reading and seeing may be more figment of your imagination, but thats for the eye of the beholder.