WEBVTT - What Was New England's Vampire Panic?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.

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<v Speaker 1>Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, today's episode gets a

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<v Speaker 1>bit graphic about nineteenth century tuberculosis, death and post burial happenings.

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<v Speaker 1>So listener discretion is advised, because yes, it was a

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<v Speaker 1>scene only Dracula, Lestat Nadia and their blood spottered ilk

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<v Speaker 1>could love. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,

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<v Speaker 1>New Englanders were gripped by vampire panic. In desperation, they

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<v Speaker 1>began dismembering suspected vampires and hopes of driving off the

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<v Speaker 1>terror and death that threatened to upend their lives. So

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<v Speaker 1>how did vampires come to invade the newly created United States.

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<v Speaker 1>It all began in some unfortunate New England villages as tuberculosis,

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<v Speaker 1>then called consumption, ravaged entire families and communities. This bacterial

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<v Speaker 1>lung disease, which spreads easily among family members, gives those

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<v Speaker 1>infected horrific symptoms, fever and ashen appearance, and some can

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<v Speaker 1>eyes in some cases that bleed from their mouths. It

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<v Speaker 1>was a slow, deadly course of disease, almost as if

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<v Speaker 1>the life was gradually being drained out of the patient.

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<v Speaker 1>It earned the name consumption for the way it caused

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<v Speaker 1>dramatic weight loss. So severe was the epidemic that it

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<v Speaker 1>claimed around two percent of the region's population from to

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<v Speaker 1>eighteen hundred and eventually killed perhaps a quarter of the

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<v Speaker 1>East Coast citizens. We spoke by an email with folklorist

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<v Speaker 1>and author Michael Bell. He said, imagine a communicable disease

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<v Speaker 1>a great deal slower to manifest than COVID nineteen, with

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<v Speaker 1>symptoms even more ambiguous. One that did not explode through

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<v Speaker 1>a population, leaving in its wake the dead and those

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<v Speaker 1>who survived through good fortune or natural immunity, and then

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<v Speaker 1>disappear or become latent. A disease that instead, once it grasped,

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<v Speaker 1>person could go in and out of remission over a

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<v Speaker 1>period of months, or years, or even decades. No one

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<v Speaker 1>understood how diseases spread back then. All they knew was

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<v Speaker 1>that as consumption victims perished, their surviving family members would

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<v Speaker 1>begin to fall ill one by one. Neighbors could be

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<v Speaker 1>afflicted too, seemingly at random. Some families would be all

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<v Speaker 1>but wiped out, while others escaped completely intact. So frightened

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<v Speaker 1>villagers began to believe that the first to die were

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<v Speaker 1>perhaps vampires of sorts. At night, the rumors went those

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<v Speaker 1>sharp toothed blood suckers would wriggle out of their graves,

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<v Speaker 1>stock their own families, and slowly but surely suck the

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<v Speaker 1>life out of them until they too died horrendous deaths.

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<v Speaker 1>Terrified villagers reasoned there was only one way to halt

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<v Speaker 1>the vampire attacks, but first they had to dig up

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<v Speaker 1>the bodies and examine them. If the corps appeared to

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<v Speaker 1>be less decayed than expected, that sliced the bodies open

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<v Speaker 1>and sift through the internal organs. If those organs contained

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<v Speaker 1>liquid blood, the person was deemed possessed. Bell said. The

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<v Speaker 1>theory seems to have been that this corpse was being

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<v Speaker 1>inhabited by some sort of evil spirit that was sustaining

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<v Speaker 1>itself by draining the life or blood from the living.

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<v Speaker 1>This spiritual possession had to be destroyed, and the evil

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<v Speaker 1>bond between the living and dead needed to be broken,

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<v Speaker 1>usually by burning the infected organ and sometimes feeding the

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<v Speaker 1>ashes to those who were ill to be extra sure

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<v Speaker 1>that the vampire would not arise again. Sometimes the corpses

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<v Speaker 1>were beheaded, some had their bones shattered and rearranged in

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<v Speaker 1>a skull, and crossbones symbol, but Bell reiterates that these

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<v Speaker 1>assumed vampires were never living people, and they didn't often

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<v Speaker 1>use the term anyway. He said, the vampires were always corpses.

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<v Speaker 1>The people who were performing the ritual never referred to

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<v Speaker 1>the corpses they exhumed as vampires, although some outsiders, including

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<v Speaker 1>newspaper writers and local historians, sometimes labeled these consumption rituals

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<v Speaker 1>as vampirism. According to Bell, desperate grave digging scenes played

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<v Speaker 1>out at least eighty times throughout the vampire panic. Often

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<v Speaker 1>the bodies were disinterred at night, the grizzly ceremony attended

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<v Speaker 1>only by close relatives, but some Vermont towns took things

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<v Speaker 1>a step further, burning organs for hundreds of witnesses to

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<v Speaker 1>see and perhaps providing them some hope that the plague

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<v Speaker 1>of vampires was ended. Bell said. The earliest documented consumption

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<v Speaker 1>vampire ritual I found is from Willington, Connecticut, in seventeen

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<v Speaker 1>eighty four. The last authentically documented case occurred in eighteen

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<v Speaker 1>ninety two in Exeter, Rhode Island. These dates coincide with

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<v Speaker 1>the consumption epidemic in New England, which began to rise

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<v Speaker 1>dramatically in the late seventeen hundreds and continued to the

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<v Speaker 1>eighteen hundreds. But in eighteen eighty two, the year that

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<v Speaker 1>German physician Robert Coke proved the tuberculosis was caused by bacterium,

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<v Speaker 1>the vampire rituals slowed to a halt. But before it

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<v Speaker 1>all ended, there was a climax of sorts, one that's

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<v Speaker 1>become known as the Mercy Brown vampire incident. The story

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<v Speaker 1>goes like this. In two a Rhode Island farmer named

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<v Speaker 1>George Brown watched consumption kill his wife and then two

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<v Speaker 1>daughters in succession. Then his son Edwin became deadly ill too.

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<v Speaker 1>Although he wanted no part of the ritual, villagers eventually

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<v Speaker 1>persuaded Brown to let them exhume the bodies of his

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<v Speaker 1>wife and daughters for examination. The bodies of his wife

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<v Speaker 1>and one daughter were just bones, but Mercy, the most

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<v Speaker 1>recent to die just two months prior, was very intact.

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<v Speaker 1>That she died in midwinter and thus was partially preserved

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<v Speaker 1>by the frigid temperatures did not stop the examiners from

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<v Speaker 1>being suspicious. They also noted that her fingernails and hair

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<v Speaker 1>had grown, which we now know as an optical illusion

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<v Speaker 1>caused by the flesh retracting around them. But armed with

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<v Speaker 1>this evidence, the villagers were certain that found their vampire.

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<v Speaker 1>They cut out her heart and burned it in For

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<v Speaker 1>good measure, they had Edwin drink the ashes and hopes

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<v Speaker 1>that he'd recover. Not long after, consumption claimed him too.

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<v Speaker 1>Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that Rhode Island was reportedly

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<v Speaker 1>called the vampire capital of America. Such was the power

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<v Speaker 1>of the Exeter vampire slayings that their stories carried across

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<v Speaker 1>the Atlantic. According to some accounts, when Irish born writer

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<v Speaker 1>Bram Stoker, the author of the novel Dracula, died in

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<v Speaker 1>witnesses say they found newspaper clippings of the Mercy Brown

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<v Speaker 1>saga in his files. Today's episode was written by Nathan

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<v Speaker 1>Chandler and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this

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<v Speaker 1>lots of other creepy topics is at how stuff works

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<v Speaker 1>dot com. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio. For

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