Bellairs was born a stone's throw from Battle Creek, Michigan, where Kelloggs and Post cereal companies began and as a result various aspects of Glomus's life are spoofs on these companies and their founders. Since the Dixon adventures take place in Massachusetts, not Michigan, Bellairs easily moved his cereal factory to New England.
Still, why name the town Gildersleeves? It's not the first fictional town Dixon and Professor Childermass visit. You won't find Van Twiller, New York, Stark, New Hampshire, or Stone Arabia, Maine, on maps. But these fictional names usually mean something geographically and, in these cases, the names are from prominent figures or battle sights around New England. So are these any Gildersleeves in New England?
William Camp Gildersleeve (1795-1871) was a merchant and abolitionist whose home in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Good to know. Perhaps Bellairs was sightseeing in Pennsylvania and liked the name, possibly because it reminded him of an old time radio program he was likely familiar with on some level.
The Great Gildersleeve (1941–1957) was a US radio comedy show centered on Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, a character from the radio situation comedy Fibber McGee and Molly. Harold Peary (1908–85), pictured above, originated the Gildersleeve role on Fibber McGee and Molly in 1938. The character proved popular and, in 1941, was given his own radio comedy show, the first known spin-off hit in American broadcasting history.
There's also the Andrew Gildersleeve Octagonal Building in Mattituck, New York, and Gildersleeve Mountain in Kirtland, Ohio.
Those are my theories, but "just because" works just as well.
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