What is the full name of the Vermont folklorist who corresponds with Albert Wilmarth in 'The Whisperer in Darkness'?
Answer
Henry Wentworth Akeley
Answer
Henry Wentworth Akeley
The Vermont folklorist who corresponds with Albert Wilmarth in The Whisperer in Darkness is Henry Wentworth Akeley.
Akeley lives in an isolated farmhouse near Townshend, Vermont, in the hills near Dark Mountain. He writes to Wilmarth after strange reports emerge during the Great Vermont Flood of 1927. Their correspondence begins as an argument about local legends and unexplained creatures, then develops into evidence of the Mi-Go, the extraterrestrial beings associated with Yuggoth.
Akeley is more than a mysterious correspondent: his letters provide the story's central transition from skeptical folklore to cosmic horror. Wilmarth eventually visits the farmhouse, where disturbing events make him suspect that the apparent Akeley may be an impostor and that the real man's brain has been placed in one of the Mi-Go's cylinders.
The name is easy to confuse with George Goodenough Akeley, who is Henry's son and is mentioned in the story's background. Francis Wayland Thurston belongs to The Call of Cthulhu, while Marinus Bicknell Willett is the investigating doctor in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.
Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026