A History of Vampires in New England

by Thomas D'Agostino

  Dr. Harold Metcalf, the Medical Examiner of the District, who examined the bodies, is a young and intelligent graduate of Bellevue. He is a Providence boy and, after his graduation, located in the city, but three or four years ago removed to Wickford. He is not one to believe in the vampire superstition. He spent too long a time on the hospital aid wagons which are sent into the New York streets from Bellevue, to believe in anything relating to the human body which cannot be proven by the ordinary methods of medical science. He was called into the affair because he was the best physician nearest to Exeter, and examined the bodies because he was paid to do it. He in fact discouraged the suggestion, and affirmed that the result would be futile. He made his examination as yesterday’s Journal stated, without exceptional results, according to his own belief, but found in one of the bodies, to the satisfaction of many of the people down there, a sign which they regarded as the proof of their theory. When he removed the heart and liver from the body, a quantity of blood dripped therefrom. “The vampire,” the attendants of the doctor said - and then, conforming to the theory of the necessity of destroying the vampire, burned the heart and liver. The people who urged the husband and father to exhume the bodies believe the vampire was found, and if the young man for whose sake the experiment was made recovers from his illness, they will, it is presumed, by reason of their acceptance of the truth of the tradition, consider the recovery due to the destruction of the spectral agent of his apparently fatal illness.

  The vampire is described in the Century Dictionary as follows: “A kind of spectral being or ghost still possessing a human body which, according to a superstition existing among the Slavic and other races of the lower Danube, leaves the grave during the night, and maintains a semblance of life by sucking the warm blood of men and women while they are asleep. Dead wizards, werewolves, heretics and other outcasts become vampires—and anyone killed by a vampire. On the discovery of a vampire’s grave, the body, which it is supposed, will be found fresh and ruddy, must be disinterred, thrust through with a whitethorn stake and burned, in order to render it harmless. In the Encyclopedia Britannica and other books, a similar description of the theory occurs. They all recount that the tradition comes from Europe and did not originate among the Indians. Its earliest existence is said to have been in Southwestern Russia, Servia, Poland and Bohemia. It is claimed also that it has prevailed to a certain extent in India, though the authorities at hand do not refer to this. The sole authority for the origin and prevalence of the idea outside of the Slavic peoples rests in stories written by two or three noted Frenchmen and a number of less prominent English writers. From 1730 to 1735 the tradition took on renewed life, and starting in Hungary, spread all over Europe, and to America. At this time, two of the principal books, written upon the subject were published; De Masticatione Mortuum in Tumulis, and Camlet’s (Calmet’s) Dissertation on the Vampires of Hungary translated into English in 1750. The belief and the tradition was now marked by varying impressions of the form that the vampire took, and quite as variant opinions of the means necessary for the crushing of the power of the being or essence.

  In all forms of the tradition, the vampire left its abode, and wrought its object, at night. When the full moon shone and the sky was cloudless, its opportunity was supposed to be most favorable. It left the body of the dead at the back of the neck, and appeared as a frog, toad, spider, venomous fly, from that moment until it returned to the grave and its corpse home. Its active moments when wandering about were spent in sucking the blood of the living and this was invariably the blood of some relation or friend of the dead. From this feeding, the body of the dead became fresh and rosy. Another form of the tradition, but with far less acceptance, was that the soul of the living man or woman left the body in his sleep in the shape of a straw or fluff down. It was wafted to the victim on the night breezes and returned to the living without a warning of the visit, the victim being left pale and wan, and the vampire-man being freshened and invigorated. Grantier has diverted the sense of the tradition to the plot of a powerful short story. For the eradication of the curse, the old method was always the digging up the body of the dead and the driving of a stake through the heart, the cutting off of the beard, the tearing out and burning of the heart, or the pouring of boiling water and vinegar into the grave.

  How the tradition got to Rhode Island and planted itself firmly here, cannot be said. It was in existence in Connecticut and Maine 50 and 100 years ago, and the people of the South County say they got it from their ancestors, as far back in some cases as the beginning of the 18th century. The idea seems never to have been accepted in the northern part of the state, but every five or ten years it has cropped out in Coventry, West Greenwich, Exeter, Hopkinton, Richmond and the neighboring towns. In the case that has called out this reference to the subject, the principle persons interested were a farmer, George T. Brown, and his son Edwin A. Brown, a young man living near Shrub Hill, about two miles east of Pine Hill, which is the center of Exeter. The family had within four years suffered the loss of the wife and mother, four years ago; a daughter, Olive B., three years later, and Mercy Lena, another daughter, during the past winter. The son, Edwin A. Brown, was taken with the same disease, a harsh type of consumption, two years ago. His sister Lena became ill while he was in Colorado, where he had gone to improve his condition. Three weeks since, Edwin, finding his health fading, even in that favorite resort for consumptives, returned to Exeter.

  The local correspondent of the Journal tells the story of the call for Dr. Metcalf to hunt out the vampire, and of what occurred when the graves were searched as follows:

  It seems that Dr. Metcalf attended Mercy Lena Brown during her last illness, and that a short time prior to her death he informed her father that further medical aid was useless, as the daughter, a girl of 18 or 19, was in the last stages of consumption. The doctor had heard nothing further from the family until about a week ago when a man called on him and stated that Edwin A. Brown, the son, was in a dying condition from the same disease, and that several friends and neighbors fully believed the only way in which his life could be saved was to have the bodies of the mother and two daughters exhumed in order to ascertain if the heart in any of the bodies still contained blood, as these friends were fully convinced that if such were the case the dead body was living on the living tissue and blood of Edwin. The doctor sent the young man back, telling him the belief was absurd. Last Wednesday the man returned and told the doctor that Mr. Brown, the father, though not believing in the superstition himself, desired him to come up to satisfy the neighbors and make an autopsy of the bodies.

  On Wednesday morning therefore, the doctor went as desired to what is known as Shrub Hill Cemetery, in Exeter, and found four men who had unearthed the remains of Mrs. Brown, who had been interred four years. Some of the muscles and flesh still existed in a mummified state, but there were no signs of blood in the heart. The body of the first daughter, Olive, was then taken out of the grave, but only a skeleton with a thick growth of hair remained.

  Finally, the body of Lena, the second daughter, was removed from the tomb, where it had been placed till spring. The body was in a fairly well preserved state. It had been buried two months. The heart and liver were removed and in cutting open the heart, clotted and decomposed blood was found, which was what might be expected at that stage of decomposition. The liver showed no blood, though it was in a well-preserved state. These two organs were removed, and a fire being kindled in the cemetery, they were reduced to ashes, and the attendants seemed satisfied. The lungs showed diffuse tuberculous germs.

  The old superstition of the natives of Exeter, and also believed in other farming communities, is either the vestige of the black art, or, as the people living here say, is a tradition of the Indians. And the belief is that, so long as the heart contains blood, so long will any of the immediate family who are suffering from consumption continue to grow worse; but, if the heart is burned, that the patient will get better. And to make the
cure certain the ashes of the heart and liver should be eaten by the person afflicted. In this case the doctor does not know if this latter remedy was resorted to or not, and he only knows from hearsay how ill the son Edwin is, “Never having been called to attend him.”

  All mention of “the vampire” is omitted from this account of the exhuming, but this signifies nothing. The correspondent simply failed to get to the bottom of the superstition. The files of the Journal where reference is made in them to the practice of the tradition in Rhode Island, without exception speak of the search of the graves in such cases as attempts to discover the vampire. The last illustration of the practice was six or seven years ago in the same county, and it was then so described. Previous accounts of the digging up of bodies for the same purpose are also inspired by the vampire theory. Otherwise the analogy between this case and those which occurred in Europe in the 18th century is perfect, except in the confinement of the theory to a special disease, and the terrible suggestion that the patient must take the ashes of the vampire internally to be cured. These ideas are not, so far as can be learned, based on any form of European tradition. The books and authorities of Europe do not connect the theory with consumption, nor, in its legend, turn upon that application, with the victims eating the vampire. This presentation of the theory must be of American or Rhode Island origin, and most likely it can be claimed as the exclusive possession of Rhode Island’s country people. It is horrible to contemplate, and the local correspondent can hardly be blamed for attributing it to the Indians. It seems very odd that the South County people alone should ever had re-gendered and accepted such fancies.

  A little may be added to the story upon the medical side. The family was not hereditarily consumptive, but consumption is, of course, liable to start from causes besides family predisposition. The physicians, on the other hand, are unwilling to affirm that it is invariably contagious, but assert that it abounds from causes closely allied to the operation of a contagion. For example, a person remaining in the room with a consumptive, attending upon such a sufferer during his or her illness, or living subsequent to the death of a consumptive under the same hygienic conditions, is generally considered to be in danger of the disease. Thus in the case of this family, even providing the children did not take the disease from a hereditary susceptibility to it, they were subjected to its influence, for they all lived in the farm house with their mother when she died, the daughter nursed her, and by the time the son took it, he had been under its fatal power according to intensified, if not multiplied circumstances of danger. In regard to the blood and the condition of the heart of the daughter Lena, who had been dead but two months, Dr. Metcalf’s statement that the blood and the unexhausted molecular composition of the heart were not signs of a state of affairs at all unusual, will be borne out by any good physician, for it is well known that the heart, the fountain of the blood, usually retains till the final time of decomposition the semblances of its function.

  Dr. Metcalf made his autopsies in the cemetery before the men who had been employed in digging up the bodies, and they, according to the doctor’s story as told by the correspondent, appeared satisfied that the cause of Edwin Brown’s illness, or the remedy for his cure, had been found. They had believed a vampire lay in one of the bodies; they had searched for it; they had found it. If the sick man is now cured by the adoption of these means, which includes his absorption of the cremated heart of his sister, it is assumed that, believing as these people do, they will assign the cause of returning health to the remedy they adopted. What therefore is one to say? It is a temptation to treat the whole affair as something ridiculous, but if it be so regarded, the facts in the case likewise, suggest the most sorrowful and hideous of pictures. To write and interpret the facts in their unvarnished form, here in this city, but 25 miles from the scene, is a task requiring imaginativeness almost sufficient to cover an inhuman rite of the Africans of the upper Congo, or to compass one of Rider Haggard’s most thrilling chapters.

  In the mentioning of the books by Ranft and Calmet, the word “mortuum” should probably be mortuorum, and in the copy of the article it appears that Calmet’s is spelled “Camlet’s.” Also, in Grantier’s section for eradication of the curse, the article does state “the cutting off of the beard” as opposed to what may have been meant: “the cutting off of the head.”

  The writer seems to want to reiterate the idea of vampirism in the previous work, trying to cite previous articles and writings as his platform. He also mentions that the tie between vampires and consumption is of American origin. Perhaps he never read Voltaire’s description of a vampire. The writer also mentions that Mrs. Brown had died only four years earlier when in truth she had been buried a little over eight years at the time of the exhumations. Mary Olive died six months after her mother, not three years later like the article states.

  Mercy was held in the Keep at the cemetery due to the fact that, being in the throes of winter, the ground was frozen solid and a proper grave could not be dug until the spring thaw. The Keep—or crypt, as some call it—is a small building in a cemetery where the bodies of the deceased who die in the winter can be held until spring. Some families used to keep their loved ones in the cellar of the home or, as in the case of the Hale Homestead, home of Nathaniel Hale, in the attic. Both places were cold enough, if not actually freezing, to keep the deceased well preserved until they could be buried. Most rural families had their own private graveyards somewhere on their property. Because of this practice, Rhode Island has the most cemeteries in the United States, with about thirty-three hundred and counting. Many of these had their personal little Keeps as well.

  Looking at the Keep from the Brown burial plot. This is where Mercy was being held pending proper burial following the spring thaw.

  Another use for these small crypts was to store the body for several days in case the person suddenly woke up. There were bells attached to them, and food was placed within. If the person woke up during the several-day period, he or she could ring the bell and be let out. This is supposedly where the term “wake” comes from. Many times, a person was in a coma or appeared to have died but would wake up suddenly. The idea of holding them in the Keep served well in many cases where contagious diseases would not allow the person to be laid out in the house.

  In response to the Journal articles, there was a commentary written to the editor of the now-defunct Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner, a weekly paper that covered the Phenix and Kent County areas of Rhode Island from 1876 to 1906:

  Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner

  Letter to the Editor

  March 25, 1892

  Mr. Editor, as considerable notoriety has resulted from the exhuming of three bodies in Exeter cemetery on the 17th inst., I will give the main facts as I have received them for the benefit of such of your readers as “have not taken the papers” containing the same. To begin, we will say that our neighbor, a good and respectable citizen, George T. Brown, has been bereft of his wife and two grown-up daughters by consumption, the wife and mother about eight years ago, and the eldest daughter, Olive, two years or so later, while the other daughter, Mercy Lena, died about two months since, after nearly one year’s illness from the same dread disease, and about two years ago Mr. Brown’s only son Edwin A. , a young married man of good habits, began to give evidence of lung trouble, which increased, until in hopes of checking and curing the same, he was induced to visit the famous Colorado Springs, where his wife followed him later on and though for a time he seemed to improve, it soon became evident that there was no real benefit derived, and this coupled with a strong desire on the part of both husband and wife to see their Rhode Island friends decided them to return east after an absence of about 18 months and are staying with Mrs. Brown’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Willet Himes. We are sorry to say that Eddie’s health is not encouraging at this time. And now comes in the queer part, viz: The revival of a pagan or other superstitions regarding the feeling of the dead upon a living relative where consumption
was the cause of death and so bringing the living person soon into a similar condition, etc, and to avoid this result, according to the same high authority, the “vampire” in question which is said to inhabit the heart of a dead consumptive while any blood remains in that organ, must be cremated and the ashes carefully preserved and administered in some form to the living victim, when a speedy cure may (un)reasonably be expected. I will here say that the husband and father of the deceased ones has, from the first, disclaimed any faith at all in the vampire theory but being urged, he allowed others if not wiser, counsel to prevail, and on the 17th inst., as before stated the three bodies alluded to were exhumed and then examined by Doctor Metcalf of Wickford, (under protest, as it were being an unbeliever). The two bodies longest buried were found decayed and bloodless, while the last one who has been only about two months buried showed some blood in the heart as a matter of course, and as the doctor expected but to carry out what was a forgone conclusion the heart and lungs of the last named (M. Lena) were then and there duly cremated, but deponent saith not how the ashes were disposed of. Not many persons were present, Mr. Brown being among the absent ones. While we do not blame any one for there proceedings as they were intended without doubt to relive the anxiety of the living, still, it seems incredible that any one can attach the least importance to the subject, being so entirely incompatible with reason and conflicts also with scripture, which requires us “to give a reason for the hope that is in us,” or the why and wherefore which certainly cannot be done as applied to the foregoing.