The gothic novel first appeared in Britain in the eighteenth century, and was quickly adapted into an American literary genre. The earliest American gothic novels were set in New England (because pretty much all American literature was at this point), and the wilds of the preindustrial northeast still offered the menace and darkness to form the backdrop to such tales. The suggestions of wildness, and madness, also implied a critique of the colonial project, a challenge to “manifest destiny” with the lingering question of “should we be here at all?”. The characters of Charles Brocken Brown’s
This answered a few questions I'd ambiently had about this very obvious tradition - thanks!