Mercy Brown

In Exeter, Rhode Island, several members of George and Mary Brown's family suffered a sequence of tuberculosis infections in the final two decades of the 19th century. Tuberculosis was called "consumption" at the time, and was a devastating and much-feared disease.

## Mercy Brown

### Type

Exeter, Rhode Island
V

## Description

### Age

January 1892
19

## More Info

### Date Exhumed

Tuberculosis
March 17, 1892

The mother, Mary Eliza, was the first to die of the disease, followed in 1886 by their eldest daughter, Mary Olive. In 1891, daughter Mercy and son Edwin also contracted the disease. Friends and neighbors of the family believed that one of the dead family members was a vampire, although they did not use that name, and had caused Edwin's illness. This was in accordance with threads of contemporary folklore, which linked multiple deaths in one family to undead activity. Consumption was a poorly understood condition at the time and the subject of much superstition.

George Brown was persuaded to give permission to exhume several bodies of his family members. Villagers, the local doctor, and a newspaper reporter exhumed the bodies on March 17, 1892. The bodies of both Mary and Mary Olive exhibited the expected level of decomposition, so they were thought not to be the cause. However, the corpse of a daughter, Mercy, exhibited almost no decomposition, and still had blood in the heart. This was taken as a sign that the young woman was undead and the agent of young Edwin's condition. Her lack of decomposition was more likely due to her body being stored in freezer-like conditions in an above-ground crypt during the two months following her death.

As superstition dictated, Mercy's heart and liver were burned, and the ashes were mixed with water to create a tonic and was given to the sick Edwin to drink, as an effort to resolve his illness and stop the influence of the undead. The young man died two months later. What remained of Mercy's body was buried in the cemetery of the Baptist Church in Exeter after being desecrated.

## Newspapers

### 1

Did Mercy Brown Become a Vampire? by Gordon Alexander New London, Connecticut Sunday  October 25th 1981 Page B18

*Was it a vampire that borrowed the corpse of Mercy L. Brown, to spread death to her family and her neighbours? .. Or was it TB that killed them?*

*“They was tough people in them days … it weren’t TB … it was the vampiah” claims Reuben Brown, who today lives just a mile from Chestnut Hill Cemetery in Exeter, R.I., where the incidents supposedly occured. “She was my cousin, Mercy Brown” he said.*

*In rual Ehode Island, south of Providence, the vampire legend lives. When shadows of clouds cross the hunter; moon and the dead leaves of autumn rattle in the trees, thoughts of Mercy Brown come to the minds of rural Rhode Islanders. Fears of ghouls, ghosts, and witches on broomsticks are all upstaged by stories of the Rhody vampire.*

*Rueben Brown, an 85-year old craggy-faced New England Yankee, lives in a two-century-old converted stagecoach house and looks after his dairy cows and 30 cats, his health is failing but his mind is sharp. A conversation with him becomes a shouting match, with Brown holding the floor as he tells his favorite story.*

*Brown’s raspy voice doesn’t falter as he swears that his Uncle George’s daughter, Mercy, was the vampire responsible for the death of his uncles wife, Mary, a daughter, Mary Olive, a son Edwin and several members of a neighbor family.*
*“My old friend, Charlie Sweet told me this story he swears to God was true … he was there when they dug up Mercy,” Reuben said.*

*Reuben Brown says Mary Brown, his uncle’s wife, died Dec. 8, 1883. They thought she died of “consumption,” the name at the time for tuberculosis.*

*Six months later, on June 9, 1884, a daughter, Mary Olive, 20 died of the same disease. In 1892 another daughter, Mercy L. Brown, died, leaving only a son, Edward, who contracted the same disease a year later.*

*It was then, according to Reuben’s story, his uncle George and cousin Edwin concluded that a vampire was responsible for the deaths as well as the deaths of seven girls who lived near by. All the bodies were said to have borne teeth marks on their necks.*

*A committee was formed, led by the Browns, consisting of relatives and close friends who visited the family plot on the Ten Rod Road (now Route 102) to see which one was the vampire.*

*Sweet, apparently the tale’s originator, was there and watched as the bodies of Mrs. Brown, Mary Olive, and Mercy were exhumed. According to Sweet, Mrs. Brown and Mary Olive had decomposed to skeletons, Mary {Mercy}, on the other hand, looked as frech as the day she was buried, in spite of the fact that she had been in the grave for more than a year, according to Reuben’s retelling.*

*Further examination of Mercy’s body revealed that she had fresh blood in her heart. Two members of the group, so the story goes, cut out mercy’s heart and carried it, still dripping blood, to an adjacent rock where it was burned. The bodies were returned to their graves, the group convinced that they had found and killed the vampire.*

*Reuben Brown says this act didn’t help Edwin, who died a year later of TB. The father, George Brown, however, lived to be 80 and is buried witht he rest of his family in the old Chestnut Hill Cemetery.*

*According to Dr. Raymond McNally, author of “In Search Od Dracula” and an an expert on Vampire Lore, accounts of the Mercy Brown incident were published in the now defunct New York World and those clippings, found among Bram Stoker’s working papers, led to the novel Dracula, published in 1897.*

*Dr. Buckland’s book claims 19th century Rhode Islanders believed in vampires and backed up these views by occasionally exhuming graves of family members to see if they were vampires. If the dead were determined to be vampires, the families burned the hearts or remaines to rid themselves of whatever afflictions the vampires might have caused.*

*The paranoia was similar to that surrounding the witchcraft trials of Salem, Mass., in 1692, which resulted in about 20 persons being put to death for allegdly practicing witchcraft, McNally said.*

*The recent Dracula or vampire renaissance has resulted in scores of new books, movies, plays and TV specials where the vampire is portayed as anything from a suave monster to a nice guy-comic with a biting sense of humor.*

*The most memorable interpertation of Stoker’s usperstar was given by the widely imitated Bela Lugosi who appeared in Hollywood’s first Dracula film. Lugosi’s performance depicts Count Dracula s a suave but sinister aristocrat with a heavy Hungarian accent and tube of Bryicreem on his slicked-down hair. Lugosi was so impressed with the role he later adopted the “Dracula Look” as his own and upon his death was buried in his Dracula trappings, cape and all.*

*In later years, for a change of pace, George Hamilton played Dracula in ‘Love at First Bite’ as a young dashing character with a sense of humor and an attraction for singles bars.*

*Rhode Island vampires, Buckland says were neither as glamorous nor as dramatic as Stoker’s character. They couldnt or wouldn’t turn into bats, didn’t dress in tuxedos or wear long black capes.*

*Rhode Island vampires, Buckland says, did their thing differently, usually preying on friends and members of the immediate family.*

*Demonologist Edward Warren of Monroe, Conn., claims vampires were possessing demons moving from one body to another, preying on family and friends as they slept. These nocturnal visits would result in diseases such as Consumption or Pneumonia for the victim. When the victim finally died, the demon would possess his or her body and move on to other victims, using the new body as a base of operations.*

*Reuben Brown, ending his story with a twinkle in his eye, admitted that imagination is a powerful thing, which leads one to think that this old Yankee enjoys spinning a tale… a tale that he has told so often that he is starting to believe it himself.*

*Perhaps Reuben Brown is like all of us who enjoy a good scary story around Halloween and like to believe in Robbie Burns; “things that go bump in the night.”*

*According to Buckland, who sounds like he too only believes half of his findings, said 'the educated man or woman should no more turn his back on a legend than a good painting … neither will stand up too well under analysis in the light of day.“*
### 2

Weird Superstition 1892

WEIRD SUPERSTITION.

A STRANGE BELIEF AMONG RHODE ISLAND NATIVES.

Consumption a Vampire That Fastens Itself Upon a Family and Sucks Blood From First One and Then Another.

Those interested in folk-lore should know of recent developments of the vampire superstition in Rhode Island. Rhode Island is a thickly settled and highly civilized state. Along the great watercourses and long the shores of the Narragansett Bay it is one great village, but back toward the Connecticut line one can find forests which never have bowed to the ax, and a race of people who preserve all the superstitions and traditions of another age. Among the curious superstitions among the people living in these isolated regions is that of the vampire. It is not a belief in the existence of a human vampire such as Byron told of when he curdled the blood of his hearers with the tale of Lord Ruthven, or such as forms a part of the folk-lore of certain parts of Europe, but one which seems peculiar to these people and the origin of which would repay investigation. They believe, many of them, and believe it thoroughly, that consumption is not a disease, but the result of the operations of a mysterious creature called the vampire, which fastens itself upon a family and unseen, and therefore indestructible by ordinary means, sucks the blood from first one victim and then another. They believe that from the lonely graveyard on the rocky farm an influence steals for death as long as the body of the dead consumptive has blood in its heart, for there the vampire is at work and is draining the blood of the living victim into the body of the dead.

To get rid of the vampire it is necessary to exhume the body and burn the parts, generally the heart, where the vampire lives, and administer the ashes in some manner to the living and afflicted ones. There is a strong element of mysticism in the minds of these people, and it is not perhaps strange that the dread scourge of consumption which baffles medical science and sweeps away so many of the sturdy New England race should be invested by them with the weird superstition of the vampire.
The most recent case of an outcrop of the vampire superstition occurred last March. George T. Brown, a respectable farmer of Exeter, lost his wife about eight years ago, his daughter Olive two years later and his other daughter, Mercy, last January, all dying daughter, Mercy, last January, all dying from consumption. Mr. Brown’s son Edwin, a young married man, is also a consumptive. He went with his wife to Colorado Springs, having heard of the curative properties of that place in cases like his, and stayed there eighteen months but got no better. Then a longing came to him and his wife to see again the pine trees and the old familiar faces in Rhode Island, and he came back to Exeter, his native town.

On March 17, shortly after his return, it was decided to dig up the bodies of the his mother and sisters and see if the vampires were still at work. A physician was sent for from the village of Wickford, a considerable distance away. He came and made an examination of the exhumed bodies. In the heart of Mercy, the last of those who had died, was found blood. The heart and lungs of the dead girl were thereupon burned. How the ashes were disposed of was kept a profound secret. Only a few people were allowed to be present at the cremation and no detailed account of it can be obtained, but it must have been a weird ceremony on the bleak New England hillside with the March winds blowing over the desolate country.

The Gleaner, a paper published in the Pawtuxet Valley, gives an account of another case of similar nature which occurred in the town of Foster, R.I., some years ago. Levi Young, who lived on a farm in the southwest corner of the town, had a large family of boys and girls. Some of them died young from consumption and the others showed signs of the disease. When Nancy, one of his girls, had been dead three months, her body was exhumed and burned “to kill the vampire,” while the remaining members of the family stood around and inhaled the smoke. These things took place in the most densely populated state in the union, but among a people living isolated regions, among whom all ancient traditions and superstitions are tenacious of life.

## Notable Write Ups

### 1 History.com - The Last American Vampire

https://www.history.com/news/the-last-american-vampire

..."Dr. Harold Metcalf, who had raised his objection to the entire affair, assured everyone that the lack of decomposition of Mercy’s body was perfectly consistent with the fact that she had been dead for less than two months. Knowing that medicine had done nothing to save the Browns, the people of Exeter ignored the doctor’s proclamations and took the presence of fresh blood in Mercy’s heart as a sign that she was undead."...

### 2 Smithsonian - The Great New England Vampire Panic

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-new-england-vampire-panic-36482878/

..."But some neighbors, likely fearful for their own health, weren’t content with prayers. Several approached George Brown, the children’s father, and offered an alternative take on the recent tragedies: Perhaps an unseen diabolical force was preying on his family. It could be that one of the three Brown women wasn’t dead after all, instead secretly feasting “on the living tissue and blood of Edwin,” as the *Providence Journal* later summarized. If the offending corpse—the *Journal* uses the term “vampire” in some stories but the locals seemed not to—was discovered and destroyed, then Edwin would recover. The neighbors asked to exhume the bodies, in order to check for fresh blood in their hearts."...

### 3 NewEngland.com - When Rhode Island Was “The Vampire Capital of America”

https://newengland.com/today/living/new-england-history/vampire-mercy-brown-rhode-island/

..."But that did not keep Rhode Island from becoming known as the “Vampire Capital of America.” South County, whose isolated villages resembled the lonely hamlets of Transylvania, was a hotbed of vampire rumors between 1870 and 1900. When Bram Stoker, who wrote *Dracula* in 1897, died, newspaper accounts of vampire Mercy Brown were found in his files."...

## A Word to Legend Trippers and Goths

It is in extreamly poor taste to show up at Mercy's grave at sunset with fake blood and plastic fangs. Just be nice, okay? It's a grave. Not an attraction.

You are not being edgy or original so just stop it. These instagram and facebook photos I keep seeing are a fucking embarrassment. Don't bring a Ouija board, don't leave plastic fangs or mini stakes behind, don't chip off pieces of the headstone as a "souvineer" or drink beer on her grave. Don't take anything or damage anything. It's a real grave with a heartbreaking story. Do not add to Mercy's pain by disrespecting her grave. If you truly believe in the supernatural, then think of it like this -- her spirit isn't seeing you as a "fan" she's seeing someone else joining the mob who's screaming at her that she's something she wasn't.

## Hoax Photo

Unfortunately, there is a person out there who takes random photos bought off e-bay and repackages them claiming they are in life photographs of women involved in the New England Vampire Panic. The creator can claim "artistic expression" all they want, but this shit has actually turned up on genealogy websites where descendants of the families have commented on them. And yes, these fakes are from the same person who claims exclusive rights to use certain late-Victorian typefaces.

## References

* Tucker, Abigal (October 2012). "The Great New England Vampire Panic". Smithsonian Magazine. Smithsonian Institution
* Spiers, Richard (2004). "Mercy Brown: A Real Rhode Island Vampire". Underworld Tales Magazine.
* Bell, Michael E. (2001). Food for the Dead - On the Trail of New England's Vampires. New York: Carrol & Graf Publishers. 338. ISBN 0786708999.
* Did Mercy Brown Become a Vampire? by Gordon Alexander New London, Connecticut Sunday  October 25th 1981 Page B18
* Weird Superstition 1892 Published in: The Sherman County Dark Horse Eustis, Kansas, USA 4 Aug 1892, Thu · Page 7
* https://www.history.com/news/the-last-american-vampire
* https://newengland.com/today/living/new-england-history/vampire-mercy-brown-rhode-island/

## Further Reading

* Smithsonian Magazine account of Historical Vampires

* Monsterquest Vampires in America
* Monsterquest: VAMPIRE SCARE IN NEW ENGLAND (S2, E10)
* https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grave-mercy-brown
* https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6628164/mercy-lena-brown
* https://www.history.com/news/the-last-american-vampire