Episode 3: The Vampires of New England

MERCY BROWN

Let's go back a few years, to the 19th century. This story takes place in Exeter, Rhode Island, United States. In Rhode Island and other parts of New England there was a pandemic taking place, namely Tuberculosis, then known as Consumption in America.

The illness affected the lungs mainly, breathing became difficult, people coughed a lot, coughed blood as well, they grew tired, thin and weak. It took all their life force away. The illness was called consumption because of the weight loss, it literally consumed a person. There was no cure, doctors said patients should rest, eat healthy and take a walk, however this didn't help anyone suffering from Tuberculosis.

People became afraid and came up with theories of their own. They thought passed away family members took the life force of living family members or other villagers to stay “alive” as an undead creature. They gave these undead a name as well: Vampires.

During this pandemic there was a family that lived in the small village of Exeter: The Brown Family. George and Mary Eliza Brown, were well-respected farmers, just living their normal lives.

Sadly Tuberculosis got to Mary Eliza and she passed away in 1883. A few years later their eldest daughter, Mary Olive, died of the same cause.

If that wasn't bad enough for the poor family, their son Edwin got the disease as well, in 1890. His father George had to watch how his son wasted away to this horrible plague. George did everything to cure Edwin and send him to the Colorado Spring Sanitarium, where they wanted to treat people with Tuberculosis, saying the warmer climate would help. In the meantime their youngest daughter got infected as well and passed away in January 1892 at the age of 19. Her name was Mercy Brown.

The villagers of Exeter grew more and more scared. Doctors couldn't find a cause why this family in particular suffered so much from this disease. The other villagers, however, thought they knew what was going on. They believed the illness wasn't just an illness, they thought something dark, something demonic, was at play. People believed that Edwin's mother or one of his sisters was undead, someone who lived between heaven and hell, someone who sucked the life out of Edwin to preserve their own. The people of Exeter thought the Brown family was dealing with a Vampire.

In March 1892, they convinced George Brown, who didn't believe the Vampire theory at first, to dig up the graves of Mary Eliza and Mary Olive. Their bodies were in an early stage of decomposition and that was enough for the town's people to believe they were not the vampires they were looking for.

So only one remains, Mercy. The people of Exeter decided to dig up her grave as well and discovered that her body was still in perfect condition. According to some sources her body was in no stage of decomposition and there was fresh blood in her heart and veins.

Now, it was winter, and only two months after her death AND her grave was above ground so it was only natural that her body stayed in decent shape for a longer time. This even got confirmed by a doctor who was present at the time. The villagers however ignored his medical expertise because there was one more thing that is indeed a little suspicious. Her body was not in the same position they put her when she was buried. Mercy Brown was lying on her side in her coffin. That and the fact that there was fresh blood in her heart was enough for the town's people to believe that she was the vampire that sucked up Edwin's life force to maintain her own.

The residents of Exeter, including George Brown, decided to cut her heart out of her body and cremate it. According to some sources her lungs and/ or liver were burned as well.

If that doesn't seem bad enough yet, they decided to mix the ashes of her heart with water to make a sort of tonic and have it drunk by the sick Edwin. They hoped the ashes of a Vampire Heart could cure his disease. Needless to say, their ritual failed and Edwin Brown passed away from Tuberculosis in May 1892.

After mutilating Mercy's body she was re-buried near the church of Exeter, where she now rests in peace. Even though her life was short, this story will forever continue to exist. Her grave is still often visited by tourists and other curious people and now and then someone leaves a little something behind, like jewelry, flowers, plastic fangs. It is said there once even was a note that said “You Go Girl!”.

Mercy's exhumation was the last of its kind in New England, which is why Mercy Brown is called The Last Vampire of New England.

SARAH TILLINGHAST

So this was not the first and only time people in New England exhumed a body to then burn their heart or other organs and/ or made an elixir out of it. This happened during the entire pandemic. In 1799 the body of Sarah Tillinghast was exhumed after it was said that she was a vampire as well. I read her story too and it just sounds a little less logical then the story of Mercy Brown. So here it goes.

Stuckley Tillinghast provided for his wife Honour and their children by selling apples and peaches from their own orchard. They had 12 kids in total, the youngest being born in 1790. They seemed to be a happy, normal family until their father Stuckley started suffering from horrible nightmares.

In his dreams he was standing in front of his orchard. He heard one of his daughters, Sarah, call out to him. When he turned around to find her he saw some leaves twirling around but nothing else. When he turned back to his trees he saw the leaves were turning brown and the fruit was rotting. Exactly half of his orchard was completely rotten.

The dreams were so vivid that he woke up in terror and his wife, Honour, had to calm him down. When the nightmares kept returning night after night he went and asked the local priest for help. The priest told him that he was just suffering from anxiety for the upcoming harvest season. Stuckley wasn't very convinced by this but once the harvest season was over, the nightmares actually seemed to stop as well.

One of their daughters, Sarah Tillinghast, had just turned 19. She seemed to keep to herself a lot, but worked hard in the orchard or in the household. Besides that she liked to read or do some stitch-work. After the harvest season of 1799 Sarah seemed to stay in her room more and more often, until she only came downstairs to eat with her family. Soon after, Sarah got diagnosed with Tuberculosis and passed away only a few weeks later.

By spring, a few weeks after her death, her youngest brother, James, started to have pain around his chest. He said Sarah had touched him there and soon after James sadly passed away as well. It didn't take long before the other children of the family became sick too. Andris and Ruth, two girls, said that Sarah came to visit them at night, telling them she was cold. Soon after this visit, both Andris and Ruth passed away.

The family was in deep mourning and believed they were cursed by an evil spirit. Again Stuckley went to the priest for help, but he tried to convince Stuckley that it wasn't a curse and God would help them.

The Tillinghasts had children who had moved out of the house as well, there was 26-year old Hannah who lived a few miles from her childhood home. When she received the news about her family she began to spend more time with them. Not long after she started seeing Sarah at night as well, just standing at the end of her bed. You can guess it maybe, but Hannah got sick too and soon after she died as well.

This isn't where it ends however, mother Honour and the eldest son Ezra also became sick after getting visions of Sarah at night.

Stuckley, who couldn't take this anymore, asked Jeremiah Dandridge, a fellow farmer, for help. Jeremiah told Stuckley about an old tale where the dead rose from their graves to torment their families. Jeremiah also spoke about how to break the curse. Stuckley, who was convinced that this was what was happening to his family, knew what he had to do. Together with a few other men they visited his family grave and started digging up everyone. All bodies seemed to be in a far state of decomposition, but one, the body of Sarah.

By now she had been buried for about 6 months, but her body seemed to be in an almost perfect state, even though her skin was pale there was a blush on her cheeks and her eyes were open.

Tears filled up Stuckley's eyes while he cut out his daughter's heart and burned it. No one seemed to experience more visions of Sarah after this. Ezra however was too sick to recover and passed away from Tuberculosis after all.

Stuckley thought back of his nightmares where half his orchard was rotten, and now 6 of his 12 children were dead. Honour, the mother, was lucky enough to recover and they ended up getting two more children together.

Sarah and her siblings were re-buried. Even though their gravestones are rather small and discrete, I hope they found their peace.

DIFFERENT VAMPIRES

Jiangshi

The Jianshi is a creature in Chinese mythology that is like a cross between a zombie and a vampire. They are mostly known as the chinese hopping vampire, because of the hopping they do. Jianshi are one of many Chinese vampires/ zombies. Jianshi literally means stiff corpse in chinese and that name is a pretty good one, a Jianshi is a corpse in rigor mortis. This means that movement is very difficult for a Jianshi and hopping is their only way of travel. The creature has its arms outstretched in the typical zombie way, this to improve its balance. It kills living creatures at night to absorb their Qi, while during the day, it rests in a coffin or hides in dark places such as caves. One theory of how a Jiangshi was made is that at the time it was very expensive to transport a dead body. So when someone died, loved ones hired a Taoist priest who performed a ritual to raise the dead and then teach the body to hop back to its family. The priest would escort the bodies and announce its presence by ringing a bell. Looking at Jiangshi was thought to be a bad omen. There are many more theories, such as a person bitten by a Jiangshi would catch a virus that slowly transforms them in a Jiangshi, someone died an improper death such as being murdered or the dead person was not buried after the funeral; a lightning bolt strikes the coffin and animates the body, or a pregnant cat/ black cat leaps across the coffin. There are a couple of ways to deal with a Jiangshi. Mirrors can be used, Jiangshi are also said to be terrified of their own reflections. Fire can be used, a bell can be rung, Taoist talisman, stuck on the forehead to immobilise them whilst it is firmly stuck on. There are more crazy methods such as dropping a bag of coins, causing the jiangshi to count the coins. A sword charged under the light of the moon made of Chinese coins can be used in an attack against the vampire is very effective. I've also read that the burial method used at that time consisted of a 2 man team that transported the body at night, because it was cooler than. One person was carrying the body on his back and they would be covered in a thick sheet, so that no one could see the dead body. The second person was carrying a lantern and a bell and called out instructions to the carrier. This method was also used by smugglers because some local law enforcers didn't want to look at the dead body/ Jiangshi.

Yara-ma-yha-who

The yara-ma-yha-who is a creature of Australian aborigines mythology. The creature resembles a little red frog-like man with a very big head, a large mouth with no teeth and suckers on the ends of its hands and feet. They supposedly live in trees and when a traveller rests under their tree it drops down and uses its suckers to drain the victim's blood. After that it swallows the person, drinks some water, and then takes a nap. Upon awakening it regurgitates the victim, leaving them shorter than before. The victim's skin also has a reddish tint to it that it didn't have before. It repeats this process several times. At length, the victim is transformed into a Yara-ma-yha-who themselves.

Chedipe

The Chedipe is a vampire witch from the region around the Godavari River in India. Women who die an unnatural death, such as in childbirth or by suicide, and prostitutes may become chedipes. Chedipe also literally means prostitute. They are associated with devadasis, girls who were dedicated to a Hindu temple god and were often treated as temple prostitutes. A Chedipe is often seen as a naked woman riding a tiger, she can also transform into a tiger but she keeps one human female leg. A Chedipe finds a house, breaks in and puts all the residents to sleep. She then sucks the blood of all the men in the house through their toes. The Chedipe will do this for multiple nights in a row until the victim is drained of blood. The Chedipe in many cases has intercourse with the victim and feeds on the resulting sadness and pain of this “infidelity”.

Strigoi

The Strigoi are troubled, undead spirits in Romanian folklore. They can transform into animals, become invisible and gain vitality through the consumption of human blood. One of the first historic mentions of a strigoi was of a man called Jure Grando. He was a man who supposedly terrorized his village 16 years after his death. I find a lot of parables from Grando very similar to Count Dracula. Grando lived in Croatia, Dracula lived in Transylvania. The distance between Transylvanian, which is part of modern Hungary, and Istria, which is part of modern day Croatia, is about 1000km. Count Dracula is killed by decapitation and simultaneously being stabbed in the heart by a wooden stake, Grando is also decapitated. However Grando was a simple peasant whilst Count Dracula was a count. A strigoi can be a man born under certain conditions. These conditions could be dying without being married, commiting suicide, diying by a witch’s curse or being born the seventh child of the same sex in a family.

Vetala

The Vetala is an evil spirit out of Hindi mythology. It is said that they dwell around charnel grounds and graveyards. They are also capable of possessing corpses. They do this to move around. The corpses themselves do not decompose any further. Vetala are known to drive people mad, kill children and cause miscarriages.

Upyr

The Upyr is a demonic being from Slavic folklore, it is mostly seen as the prototype of the vampire. Upirs drank human blood, and used their superhuman strength to tear the victims to shreds. They could also kill with breath or shriek. People cursed before death could become an Upyr, but also a lot more “stranger” people could become an Upyr. Such as redheads, left-handed, those with limp, unibrow, double set of teeth or with a gray mark on the back and religiously "other". To prevent some from becoming an Upyr the corpse should not be carried out of the house via the front door, but taken out via a special exit. Corpses were often buried with garlic in their mouth to prevent the resurrection. People suspected of being a Upyr were given a vampire burial. The head would be cut and put between the legs, the corpse could be burned, nailed to the coffin or repositioned to lay face-down. The belief was that a corpse that awakens would then be dragged down to hell. The Russian vampire or a Wurdulac is supposedly the same type of vampire. The terms are synonymous.

Vrykolakas

The Vrykolakas is an undead creature of Greek folklore. A huge difference between a “regular” vampire and the Vrykolakas is that the Vrykolakas primarily eat human flesh, specifically the liver. The Greek believed that someone became a Vrykolakas if they lived a sacrilegious life, someone was excommunicated, they were buried in unconsecrated ground or someone ate meat from a sheep that was bitten by a wolf or werewolf. A Vrykolakas does not decay, they swell with the amount of meat they consume. A Vrykolaka knocks on people's door at night, there is a suppertition in certain Greek villages that you only open the door at the second knock. This is because the Vrykolaka only knocks once and calls out the name of the inhabitant. The body of the Vrykolaka should be destroyed by exorcising, beheading and burning the suspected corpse. This can only be done on Saturday because this is the only day a Vrykolaka rests.

DISEASES

Porphyria Cutanea Tarda / PCT

PCT or sometimes called the vampire disease is a blood disorder that affects the skin. Porphyria is a type of blood disease that makes the creation of heme difficult, heme is a component of hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. It helps red blood cells carry oxygen and gives them their red color. The symptoms of PCT appear on the skin. It causes photosensitivity, blisters appear on areas exposed to the sun and can cause hyperpigmentation.

Rabies

Rabies is a viral disease that affects the brain and central nervous system. Rabies is transmitted through infected saliva. A person who’s infected with rabies will act paranoid, be more agitated, hallucinated and become extremely violent towards others. Rabies will also cause people to become hydrophobic, commonly it is thought that this is because the rabies virus infects the nervous system and the reflex that you get from choking on water is what is triggered if the infected sees or thinks about water. The inability of swallowing water is also what causes the foaming at the mouth which is the way Rabies is transferred.