Vampires in America

Many of America's vampire beliefs were brought over by European colonists, though many British colonists arrived before vampires really entered into the British collective consciousness. Canada, in particular, was heavily influenced by the beliefs of Polish migrants. Native Americans have few vampire myths, and even modern vampire stories generally have little to do with Native Americans. Likewise, there are relatively few vampire myths belonging to African American communities, though the ones that do exist are generally found in the southern states.

## Vampires in New England

Though America has relatively few vampire legends, New England, particularly in the 19th century, had a number of them.

The earliest took place during the American Revolution. There was a man named Stukeley with fourteen children. One by one, his children started dying. After the sixth died, one of his deceased daughters, Sarah, began appearing in his wife's dreams. The bodies were exhumed, and Sarah's was not decomposed, but rather was perfectly preserved. Each body had its heart removed and burned, before they were reburied. This account was only published in 1888, roughly a century after the events it describes took place.

In 1854 a contemporary vampire story from Jewett City, Connecticut was reported. It dealt with the Ray family, a family with five children. Between 1845 and 1854, the father and two sons died of tuberculosis (which, with no known cure at the time, was considered to be an occult illness), and a third son was ill. The family believed it was their dead relatives who were causing the problems, so they exhumed and burned them.

A similar story was published in 1859 about a family in Vermont doing similar things to their relatives' corpses when they were afflicted with tuberculosis, indicating that this was a widespread belief at the time.

Another story from Vermont, published in 1890 but taking place in 1830, was about the Corwin family from Woodstock. One of the Corwin brothers died to tuberculosis, and the other became sick after six months. The body of the first brother was exhumed, and his heart burned.

One of the more famous stories was about Mary E. Brown of Exeter, Rhode Island. She died of tuberculosis in December 1883, and six months later her eldest daughter also died. In 1888, her children Edwin and Mercy also contracted tuberculosis, with Mercy dying in 1892 while Edwin survived. Two months later, the family decided to exhume the remains to see if one of them was a vampire: Mary and her eldest daughter were skeletons, but Mercy's appeared healthy, engorged with blood, and turned on its side in the coffin. It was concluded that Mercy was a vampire, so her heart was removed and burned before she was reburied. The ashes of the heart were dissolved into Edwin's medicine, but he died soon afterwards. Mercy's remains are in the cemetery behind Chestnut Hill Baptist Church, Exeter, Rhode Island, and she's still considered the town vampire in the modern day.

Scholar George R. Stetson noted that vampirism was not known as such in New England, and there was also a belief that tuberculosis was a spiritual illness instead of a physical one: as long as a person who died of tuberculosis had blood in their heart, they would not stay dead and would magically drain the blood of the living into their own body.

John L. Vellutini did an examination of these cases, and also found that, in the earlier cases at the very least, "vampire" is not actually mentioned, and instead the label is applied by later commentators of these stories. It was only by the time of the Mercy Brown case that "vampire" was being used.

### Psychic Vampirism in New England

Edward B. Tyler in his 1871 *Primitive Culture* defined vampirism using cases from New England. He said they were spiritual creations made to account for wasting disease, and that it occurred when the soul of a deceased individual left its corpse to drain the blood of the living. The victim would then rapidly decline and die. The soul returning with blood then kept the body fresh. This closely fits the idea of psychic vampirism, and is notably similar to the definition given Z. J. Piérart in the 1860s, and notably different from the Eastern European concept of a revived corpse. It was only these "psychic vampires" that were present in New England, not the revived corpses.

The practice of removing the hearts of tuberculosis victims ended in the early 20th century due to the discovery of the cause and cure of the illness. Occasionally more vampire stories are found in New England, including a notable one from 1993 where Paul S. Sledzik from the National Museum of Connecticut reported an examination of corpses in a cemetery near Griswold. These corpses had all suffered mutilations, and all had signs of having had tuberculosis.

## Further Reading

* "Early New Englanders Ritually 'Killed' Corpses, Experts Say", in *New York Times*
* *The Animistic Vampire in New England*, Stetson, G.
* *Primitive Culture*, Tyler, E.

## See Also

* Journal of Vampirology
* Vampires in Africa

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Melton, J. G. (1999). *The Vampire Book*. 2 ed. p.10-12