The Last Vampire of New England
Mercy Brown and her family lived in Exeter, Rhode Island in the 1880s. Unfortunately, the town got hit with “consumption” aka tuberculosis and her mother and sister died in 1883 and 1884 respectively. In 1889 her brother Edwin had started to get sick. He moved out to Colorado which seemed to stop the progress of the TB. In January of 1892 Mercy Brown died from TB as well. It is now thought that she had what was called the “galloping” kind meaning she was probably asymptomatic since her mom and sister died. Just in case you dont know much about TB, the symptoms are fever, bloody cough, and wasting of the body/muscles. Or as was written by someone from the late 1800s a disease that progressed by “draining the life and blood out of somebody”.
When Mercy died her brother came back for her funeral. And immediately his symptoms came back. The townspeople were afraid that consumption was coming back and decided something must be done! The town doctor tried to ease their concerns but it didn't work. According to them clearly what was happening was a vampire was draining the life from the family at night! With this logic, the only way to save Edwin was to kill the vampire! So they started digging up bodies. Mom and sister (both named Mary) looked like they should. They were decomposing since they had been buried for 8-9 years. Now Mercy had died in January and reports are unclear as to if she had been buried or put in a crypt. However, as we know now, bodies outside in New England winter will freeze, which will delay decomposition. This was viewed with suspicion by the townspeople and she was declared a vampire. [This next part is a bit gross if you want to skip to the next paragraph.] How does one both kill a vampire and heal a living person? Whelp, you cut out the heart (and some stories say also the liver), burn it, have the ashes put in a tonic, and give that tonic to the living person who is sick to drink.
Edwin died less than two months later. The family's graves are in a cemetery in Exeter, Rhode Island but Mercys headstone has been reinforced with a metal band to protect the headstone from being stolen. Mercy Brown is rumored to be the inspiration for Lucy Westerna in the book Dracula as her story was found in his notes.
If you want more stories like this and background on the beliefs of people that brought them to this conclusion…a podcaster I follow has a book coming out soon (Ive already pre-ordered) called Exhumed. His podcast is called Lore about spooky and strange stories, beliefs, and weird happenings in history around the world.
https://www.aaronmahnke.com/exhumed
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grave-mercy-brown
https://www.rihs.org/have-mercy/
https://newengland.com/yankee/history/vampire-mercy-brown-rhode-island/
