TPT Jan 96

This article is Rhode Island Fears Vampires / Strange Survival of a Grisly Superstition

### Print Info:

* The Times
* Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
* 19 Jan 1896, Sunday Page 13
* Relevant to:

 Other Versions: The Boston Daily Globe, January 27th 1896, New York World Feb 2nd 1896

 Note: Superscript is notation, not a part of the article.

### The Article

**RHODE ISLAND FEARS VAMPIRES**

**STRANGE SURVIVAL OF A GRISLY SUPERSTITION UP IN NEW ENGLAND**

**PEOPLE DIGGING UP BODIES**

The Belief That People Who Have Dies of Consumption Leave Their Graves and Suck the Blood of Members of Their Own Families, Dooming Them to a Like Fate

Recent ethnological research has disclosed something very extraordinary in Rhode Island. It appears that the ancient vampire, superstition, still survives in that State, and within the last few years many people have been digging up the bodies of defunct relatives for the purpose of burning their hearts. In one district, comprising half a dozen towns in the immediate vicinity of Newport, scores of such exhumations have been made, the purpose being to prevent the dead from preying upon the living. The belief entertained is that a person who has died of consumption is likely to arise from the grave at night an suck the blood of surviving members of his or her own family, thus dooming them to a similar fate.

The Discovery of the survival in highly-educated New England of a superstition dating back to the days of Sardanapalus and Nebuchadnezzar {669-640 BCE} has been made by George R. Stetson, an ethnologist of repute. He has found it rampant in the district which includes the towns of Exeter, Foster, Kingstown, East Greenwich and many scattered hamlets. This region, where abandoned farms are numerous, is the tramping ground of the book agent, the chrome peddler and patent medicine man. The social isolation away from the larger villages is as complete as it was two centuries ago. Here Cotton mather and the host of medical, clerical and lay believers in the uncanny ideas of bygone centuries could still hold high carnival. Not merely the out-of-the-way agricultural folk, but the more intelligent people of the urban communities are strong in their belief in vampirism. One case noted was that of an intelligent and well-to-do head of a family, who some years ago lost several of his children by consumption. After they were buried he dug them up and burned them in order to save the lived of their surviving brothers and sisters.

There is one small village distant fifteen miles from Newport where within the last few years there have been at least held a dozen resurrections on this account. The most recent was made two yeas ago {1894} in a family where the mother and four children had already succumbed to consumption. The last of these children was exhumed and the heart was burned. Another instance was noted in a seashore town, not far from Newport, possessing a summer hotel and a few cottages of hot-weather residents. An intelligent man, by trade a mason, informed Mr. Stetson that had lost two brothers by consumption. On the death of the second brother, his father was advised to take up the body and burn its heart. He refused to do so and was consequently attacked by the disease. Finally he died of it. His heart was burned and in this way the rest of the family escaped.

This frightful superstition is said to prevail in all of the isolated districts of Southern Rhode Island, and it survives to some extent in the large centers of population. Sometimes the body is burned, not merely the heart and the ashes scattered. In some parts of Europe the belief still has a hold on the popular mind. On the continent from 1727 to 1735 there prevailed an epidemic of vampires. Thousands of people died, as was supposed, from having their blood sucked by creatures that came to their bedsides at night with goggling eyes and lips eager for the life-fluid of the victim. In Servia {Serbia} is was understood that the demon might be destroyed by digging up the body and piercing it through with a sharp instrument, after which it was decapitated and burned Relief was found in eating the earth of the vampire's grave. In the Levant {roughly Eastern Mediterranean} the corpse was cut to pieces and boiled in wine.

There was no hope for a person once chosen as a prey by a vampire. Slowly but surely he or she was destined to fade and sicken, receiving meanwhile nightly visits from the monster. Even death was no relief, for-and here came the most horrible part of the superstition-the victim, once dead and laid int he grave, was compelled to become a vampire and in his turn to take up the business of preying on the living. Thus vampirism as indefinitely propagated. Realize, if you please, that at that period, when science was hardly born as yet and no knowledge had been spread among the people to fight off superstition, belief in the reality of this fearful thing was absolute. It existence was officially recognized, and military commissions were appointed for the purpose of opening the graves of suspected vampire and taking such measures as were necessary for destroying the latter.

Vampirism became a plague, more dreaded than any form of disease. Everywhere people were dying from the attacks of the blood-sucking monsters, each victim becoming in turn a night-prowler in pursuit of human prey. Terror of the mysterious and unearthly peril filled all hearts. Evidence enough as to the prevalence of the mischief was afforded by the condition of many of the bodies that were dug up by the commission appointed for the purpose. In many instances corpses which had been buried for weeks and even months were found fresh and life-like. Sometimes fresh blood was actually discovered on their lips. What proof could be more convincing, inasmuch, as was well known, the buried body of a vampire is preserved and nourished by its nights repasts. The blood on the lips, of course, was that of the victim of the night before. The faith in vampirism entertained by the public at large was as complete as that which is felt in a discovery of modern science. It was an actual epidemic that threatened the people, spreading rapidly and only to be checked by the most drastic measures. The contents of every suspected grave were investigated and any corpse found in such a condition as that described was promptly subjected to "treatment". This meant that a stake was driven through the chest and the heart being taken out was either burned or chopped into small pieces. For in this way only could a vampire be deprived of power to do mischief. In one case a man who was unburied sat up in his coffin, fresh blood on his lips. The official in charge of the ceremonies held a crucifix before the face as saying, "Do you recognize your Saviour?" chopped the unfortunate's head off. This person presumably has been buried alive in a cataleptic trance.

The records of the measures adopted during that period for the suppression of vampirism are official and perfectly authentic. There is no doubt that the accounts which they give of the finding of bodies fresh and undecayed are true. How is the phenomenon to be accounted for? Nobody can say with certainty, but it may be that the fright into which people were thrown by the epidemic had the effect of predisposing nervous persons to catalepsy. In a word, people were buried alive in a condition where, the vital functions being suspended, they remained as if dead for awhile. It is a common thing for a cataleptic to bleed at the mouth just before returning to consciousness. According to the popular superstition the vampire left his or her body in the grave while engaged in nocturnal prowis. The epidemic described prevailed all over South-Eastern Europe, being at its worst in Hungary and Servia {Serbia}. It is supposed to have originated in Greece, where a belied was entertained to the effect that Latin Christians buried in that country could not decay in their graves, being under the ban of the Greek Church. The cheerful notion was that they got out of their graves at night and pursued the occupation of ghouls. The superstition as to ghouls is very ancient and undoubtedly of Oriental origin. Generally speaking, however, a ghoul is just the opposite of a vampire, being a living person who preys on dead bodies, while a vampire is a dead person that feeds on the blood of the living. If you had your choice which would you rather be, a vampire or a ghoul?

### Citations

**MLA:** “Rhode Island Fears Vampires.” The Times Philadelphia, 19 Jan. 1896, p. 13.

**Chicago:** "Rhode Island Fears Vampires." The Times Philadelphia (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), January 19, 1896.

**APA:** Rhode Island Fears Vampires. (1896, January 19). The Times Philadelphia, p. 13.