Frederick Ransom, a twenty-year-old Dartmouth College student born on June 16, 1797, died of consumption on February 14, 1817. Frederick’s father began to fear that his son might rise from the grave and begin to feed on the rest of the family, thus taking them to their graves. He therefore sought to have Frederick exhumed and his heart cut from his body and burned in order to save the family from imminent death. Daniel was only three years old at the time of the incident but recollected the eerie event with strikingly vivid detail.
The quaint little Woodstock Green in Woodstock, Vermont, where a vampire exorcism was said to have taken place, twice. Photo courtesy of Victoria Julian.
The family was told that consumption, the early name for tuberculosis, was hereditary in the Ransom family. As stated before, many doctors and researchers believed that the disease was hereditary and not a contagious affliction. Even young Daniel was told that he would never see old age, as the white plague would take him to the grave before his thirtieth birthday. Daniel’s father, being perhaps a bit desperate and superstitious, ordered Frederick’s body to be exhumed and his heart to burned at Captain Pearson’s blacksmith forge. The cure, however, failed to work; Mrs. Ransom died in 1821, followed by a daughter in 1828 and two sons in 1830 and 1832. Once again, we see the blacksmith forge being used as part of the ceremony for the exorcism of the evil that was upon them. Mothers used to pass their sick babies over the forge of a blacksmith in hopes that its magical powers would cure the toddler’s ailments. Some went as far as having the blacksmith tap the child, who was laid upon the anvil, three times in the afflicted area with his hammer.
The Ransom account was published in the Vermont Standard in the 1890s. The manuscript resides in the Williams Public Library on Woodstock Green. For the rest of the century, families would use the same grisly method in hopes that this remedial effort might put an end to the infirmity that was ravaging New England households. Perhaps this is why Mr. Ransom decided to write his recollections at the time he did. By then, exhumation was a somewhat common occurrence in New England. Rider’s Book Notes, Stetson’s “Animistic Vampire” and the pamphlet on consumption and its causes in New England by Dr. Henry Bowditch (see chapter on Saco, Maine) undoubtedly received some press. Coupled with the many other articles from reporters and newspapers, it seems that it was almost in vogue to write of vampirism, which was, years before, a shunned topic.
1827
FOSTER, RHODE ISLAND
Nancy Young, the oldest daughter of Levi and Annie Perkins Young, died of consumption on April 6, 1827. Her sister, Almira, soon became ill and began a rapid decline in health. Other family members began to wane in the same manner. Friends and family were convinced that something supernatural was at play. While searching through some records of Foster, Rhode Island haunts (namely the Ramtail Factory), I came upon a curious entry in the Foster Public Library. The following text comes from the Foster town records, as entered on October 14, 1892, under the title, “Interesting Notes Of Foster In 1827—Capt. Young’s Purchase” It was notated, “The Gleaner today presents its readers with the fourth paper on the reminiscences of Foster, as originally published.” Library director Kris Chin was familiar with the old document, reprinted here in its entirety.
Sixty years ago or more Capt. Levi Young of Sterling, Conn., who married Annie Perkins, bought the extreme southern portion of the original “Dorrance purchase” and erected a house thereon which is now the southwestern corner house in the town of Foster and commenced life as a farmer. His oldest daughter, Nancy, a very bright and intelligent girl, at an early age became feeble in health and died of consumption on April 6, 1827, aged 19 years. Previous to the death of Nancy, the second daughter, Almira, a very sprightly girl, commenced a rapid decline in health with sure indications that she must soon follow her sister. The best skill of the most eminent physicians seemed to be all in vain. There was a large family of children and several of them were declining in the same manner. Mr. Young was a very worthy and pious man and wished to do everything possible to benefit his family, and he had the sympathy of all his friends and neighbors.
The installment goes on to tell of the actions the family and friends took to relieve the Youngs from their plight:
There seemed to be a curious idea prevailing at the time in some localities, that by cremating or burning the remains of a departed friend or relative while the living relatives stood around and inhaled the smoke from the burning remains, that it would eradicate the disease from the systems of the living and restore them to health.
A short time after the decease of Nancy, in the summer of 1827, the neighbors and friends at Mr. Young’s request came together and exhumed the remains of Nancy, and had her body burned, while all the members of the family gathered around and inhaled the smoke from the burning remains, feeling confident, no doubt, that it would restore them to health and prevent any more of them falling a prey to that dread disease, consumption.
But it would seem that it was no benefit to them, as Almira died August 19, 1828, aged 17 years. Olney, a son, died December 12, 1834, aged 29 years. Huldah died August 26, 1836, aged 23 years. Caleb died May 8, 1843, aged 20 years. Hiram died February 17, 1854, aged 35 years. Two other sons lived to be older but are now dead. The youngest daughter Sarah is the only one now living of the family. She seems as yet to have escaped the disease of consumption. Some scientific persons thought perhaps the water in the well contained impurities which caused the disease as the whole family were of exemplary habits and very much respected; but it seems to have not been so, as no disease of that kind has visited the people who have since occupied the same premises.
Possibly this is the only instance of cremation in Rhode Island for the purpose of curing or preventing disease.
Sarah is now dead but lived many years after removing from the old place.
Dwight R. Jencks now owns and occupies the farm and has done so for years with a healthy family and no death in the house to the knowledge of the writer since the Young’s family passed away. Kc.
This is the only known case where the family actually stood around inhaling smoke as a cure. The writer at the time was either referring to the uniqueness of the exorcism or was not aware of the cases that took place several years earlier. In the earlier incidents, we saw the heart, liver and lungs being removed and burned. We also began to see an emerging pattern: the Rhode Island vampire was, perhaps by mere coincidence, being characterized as a young woman between eighteen and twenty-two years of age. This is a pattern that would persist through the rest of the nineteenth century. Also, as one looks at the timeline of Young family deaths due to consumption, one notes that there is a twenty-seven-year span between the first death and the last. Many families lost several members in a much shorter span. It is no wonder many New Englanders turned to folklore and superstition to try and eradicate what medical doctors could not.
The gravestone of Nancy Young of Foster, Rhode Island, who died in 1827 and was dug up and burned while the family stood around inhaling the smoke in hopes that it would cure their affliction.
In regard to Rhode Island vampire cases, Mercy Brown and Nancy Young are the only two with legible grave markers (save for the Aldrich stone in North Smithfield). The rest are either fieldstones, missing or cannot be located for one reason or another. Arlene and I made several visits to the Young lot and found that it is, as reported, on the Connecticut–Rhode Island line. Our friend Ron Kolek Jr. of the New England Ghost Project accompanied us for one of the treks to the far end of Foster. With permission from the owner of the land, we visited the small cemetery and looked at the gravestones, which were all of the same style. We began to try some EVP (electronic voice phenomena) recordings. The area was quiet, being mostly farmland off the beaten path, so we figured the tranquil setting might be the right combination for receiving a few answers from the other side. Could we actually get some answers about what happened so many years ago? What if we had firsthand information from those who were present in 18
27? It may sound a bit farfetched, but that is the purpose of EVP work, to get answers and information that helps in paranormal cases. Yes, we treated even the vampire cases with a bit of a paranormal edge. After all, there could still be lingering energy. Unfortunately, there were no voices captured on the recorder. We did, however, substantiate the dates and record the information we needed before heading off to the next stop on our exploration of Rhode Island vampires.
Anthony Dunne, a director at WGBY, took great interest in the New England vampire stories. He contacted me to help him with filming a television special on location at many of the region’s places of legend and haunts, as I had already visited and written about them. During the filming of the award-winning 2009 WGBY documentary, Things That Go Bump in the Night: Tales of Haunted New England, we chose the Young lot as one of the places to film. As we approached the small cemetery, I noticed something different right away: the lot had been cleaned up. There were no more fallen branches or small trees strewn across the graves. The major brush had also been cleared away, and the stones that were hidden in the bramble were now easily accessible. One of the residents of the home adjacent to the cemetery came out to see what we were doing.
Historical Cemetery # 142 in Foster, Rhode Island, where the Young family is buried. The stones tilt in all directions. Note Levi and Anna in foreground.
“Come to see the witch?” she asked.
“Actually, she was supposedly a vampire,” I said quietly.
“Oh, that’s right, she was a vampire. That’s what I meant.”
I did not want to speak too much or too loud; we were filming the cemetery, and less noise would make it easier to edit later. When we were done, the woman told us that she and her husband had cleaned up the cemetery, as it was looking rather neglected. It was then that I related to her the story of what had transpired in 1827.
Foster Historical Cemetery #142 sits on the border of Rhode Island and Connecticut, off Jenks Hill Road on private property. It is a rather interesting cemetery in both its location and appearance. It is very typical of the New England family burial lots common throughout the region. The stones are tilted from side to side or back and forth within the confines of the short stone wall of the burial ground.
In 1827, consumption was also being called the white plague and was viewed as a romantic disease by many. It was thought that the disease created a euphoric state of higher awareness in the afflicted person. If one suffered from a slow consumption, it was considered a kinder form of death, as the sufferer was able to put his affairs in order. Consumption became, to the wealthy, a form of spiritual enlightenment. Upper-class women actually began to make up their skin to look chalky and pale in order to achieve the corpselike hue of a consumptive victim. In 1828, Lord Byron stated that he would rather like to die from consumption, thus furthering the romantic notion of the disease by making it a disease of artists. It is doubtful that the rural folk of New England were sharing in this upper-class revelry and folly.
1830
WOODSTOCK, VERMONT
In 1830, another vampire exorcism was said to have taken place in Woodstock concerning a family named Corwin. Much like the other tales of New England’s undead, a family member succumbed to consumption. Another member of the family, a brother, soon exhibited signs of the same disease. A certain Dr. Joseph Gallup was credited with telling the family that as long as there was the blood of the sick brother in the heart of the deceased, the terror would continue until the second Corwin was taken to the grave. This implied the work of a vampire. There was only one solution: cut out the heart of the evil demon and end the trepidation once and for all.
The deceased was exhumed from Nathan Cushing Cemetery in Woodstock as a crowd assembled on the green. It is written that most of the town showed up to witness the exorcism. A fire was cast on the green, and the heart of the exhumed brother was cut out and burned to ashes. The ashes were then put into a pot to be buried in a hole dug in the center of the village green. Some of the ashes were saved for use as medicine for the ailing Corwin.
The pot was put into the fifteen-foot-deep hole and covered with a seven-ton slab of granite. The townspeople sealed the hole in hopes of vanquishing the evil that had befallen the Corwin family. After the pot had been interred, the townspeople sprinkled the freshly turned earth with bull’s blood. The dying brother was made to drink the mixture of ashes and bull’s blood, along with some medicine, in order to cure his illness. Whether the cure worked is a mystery; so are the whereabouts of the Corwin family, the slab and the pot.
This account also appeared in Dr. Michael Bell’s Food for the Dead and Christopher Rondina’s Vampire Hunter’s Guide to New England, although both have asserted that there is no evidence that this particular exorcism was ever performed. Records show no existence of a Corwin family interred at the Cushing Cemetery. Even the green has been excavated in search of the seven-ton slab of granite and pot of ashes. Nothing of the sort has ever been found. Could the facts have been diluted over time? Perhaps the names were misspelled or changed by accident. Maybe it was another town. Records show that a Dr. Gallup did reside within the town, but other than that, there are no written documents to prove that the macabre event ever took place. It appears to be one more mystery in the ever-elusive tale of the New England vampire.
1841
SMITHFIELD, RHODE ISLAND
Few, if any, residents of Smithfield, Rhode Island, are aware of the fact that there is a case concerning the word vampire buried within their town. But alas, they gave it away in 1871, when a portion of the town was divided into North Smithfield, Lincoln and Woonsocket. Just shy of the North Smithfield–Woonsocket border is the Union Cemetery Annex on Great Road. This burial ground includes several smaller graveyards along the eastern edge. Among those smaller lots, covered in brush and saplings, is the grave of Simon Whipple Aldrich. Simon was the youngest son of Colonel Dexter and Margery Aldrich. Simon died of consumption on May 6, 1841, at twenty-seven years of age.
While filming the 2009 award-winning documentary for WGBY, Things That Go Bump in the Night: Tales of Haunted New England, producer Anthony Dunne wanted to see for himself this special gravestone. Since I had been assisting him with the Rhode Island stories and some of the Massachusetts ones as well, I was more than happy to show him this piece of Rhode Island’s history. We had already spent a whole day trekking through the Ocean State filming some of the more interesting places of legend and lore. He arrived with WGBY videographer Mark Langevin. Paranormal United Research Society member Kevin Fay accompanied me. As we exited our vehicles, I was excited about finding the Aldrich stone. I could now officially state that I had visited every known and identifiable vampire grave in Rhode Island. I already had Connecticut covered, and as for Vermont, well, Arlene and I at least found some of the Spaulding family graves and the lieutenant’s stone. The ironic part of this visit was that it was the closest grave of “vampire interest” to where we lived. We had driven by the cemetery annex many times, yet Arlene and I had never ventured into the brush to pay a visit.
The stone of Simon Whipple Aldrich in North Smithfield. The first two lines on the bottom say it all.
As soon as we were in the thicket, a small dilemma arose: there were numerous little plots scattered throughout the woods. Many of them were heavily covered with brush. After several minutes of searching, I called out to everyone to look for a site clear of brush and with the ground around it well worn, as many people surely would have visited that particular grave. No sooner had I finished that statement than Mark yelled, “Over here, I found it!”
We all headed in the direction of the grave. It was amusing to note that there was a well-worn path leading from the main cemetery annex right to the Aldrich stone—about as obvious as the roped-off teller lines at a bank.
I first heard about the grave several years ago during a meeting with Ray Dowaliby, founder and owner of Scars magazine. He had asked me to do a vampire article to promote the magazine and gave me s
ome slim details on what he knew of the Aldrich story from a visit he once paid there. I looked up the cemetery and vital records to find out more about the family members and the grave that bore a rather strange inscription.
Simon Whipple Aldrich was one of several family members who died at a relatively young age. His older sister died shortly before him, and his younger sister died three years after. In fact, several of the children died within nineteen years of one another at fairly young ages. Polly, born in 1801, died on August 13, 1825; Patience, born in 1808, died on December 12, 1831; Anna, born in 1818, died on May 14, 1842; and Betsey, born in 1828, died on May 12, 1844. Although consumption might have been to blame, there is no record of any of the family being exhumed. The interesting aspect of this account is what is carved in Simon Whipple Aldrich’s stone: “In Memory of Simon Whipple Youngest son of Col. Dexter Aldrich & Margery his wife who died May 6, 1841 aged 27 years.” The inscription below reads: “Altho consumption’s vampire grasp had seized thy mortal frame, ------------------- ing mind.”
The bottom of the stone has been cemented into the base, covering the rest of the inscription, which may have consisted of two or more lines. But the upper portion is quite revealing. Did the Aldrich family believe a vampire was at work, or was this just a metaphorical way of saying that the dreaded disease was a microscopic vampire that sucked the life out of the living?
A History of Vampires in New England Page 8
