Jerusalem's Lot (Stephen King)
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. 'Salem's Lot first appeared in King's 1975 novel "'Salem's Lot", and has reappeared as late as his 2013 novel "Doctor Sleep" (see list below). 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 ten miles north of Portland. A map on King's official website, though, places 'Salem's Lot considerably further north, approximately in Northwest Piscataquis.
Old Salem
Salem was originally settled by members of the Moravian Church, a Protestant denomination that first began in 1457, out of the followers of John Huss (Jan Hus, 1369–1415) in the Kingdom of Bohemia and Moravia, now part of the Czech Republic. In 1722, the German-speaking exiles finally found protection on the estate of Count Zinzendorf, a Saxon nobleman, where he allowed them to create the village of Herrnhut as their home. First settling in North America in Savannah, Georgia in 1735, they moved to Pennsylvania in 1740, where they founded several communities (Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Lititz). Because of development pressures, they looked for more space to create their church communities. Purchasing just over from John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville, one of the British Lords Proprietor, in the Piedmont of North Carolina in 1753, they sent groups from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to begin construction. They founded the transitional settlement of Bethabara, North Carolina (translated as "House of Passage," the first planned Moravian community in North Carolina in 1753, in Bethania, North Carolina) in 1759.