Episode 37: MERCY BROWN and the Vampires of New England

New England in the 1800s was gripped with a vampire panic. Belief in the undead rising from their graves at night to feed off the living, spreading pestilence and disease, was rampant, and as families watched their children grow sickly and pale, struggling to breathe and withering away, they saw no choice but to seek out the offending creatures of the night, by digging up their corpses, hacking out their hearts and livers, burning them, and then consuming the ashes. It was seen as the only way to cure the affliction.

In reality, tuberculosis was spreading throughout the small farms and villages, a disease that was then known as consumption, as it consumed one from the inside out. But before the concept of airborne germs spreading contagious disease was understood, villagers were marching out into the night with shovels in hand, and under the light of lanterns and torches, digging up the dead and desecrating their bodies in the hopes curing sick family members.

How this ghoulish phenomenon became known to historians is an unsettling tale in itself.

Today, ladies and gentlemen, we present to you haunting tales of New England Vampires, culminating in the most famous case of all, that of Mercy Lena Brown, a nineteen-year-old farm girl whose body was desecrated in the hopes of curing her brother from the vampire curse.

The legend of Mercy Brown lives on so much so that her gravestone has been stolen and now must be guarded by police on Halloween night. Her story has inspired countless tales of horror, from H.P. Lovecraft and Bram Stroker to modern writers such as Paul Tremblay.

But who was the real Mercy Brown? And what circumstances led to the disinterment of her corpse and the removal and cremation of her heart?

Listen and find out!

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Creepy Amusement Park theme by Brandon Fiechter and Derek Fiechter, used by permission and with many thanks.

References:

Food for the Dead: On the Trail of new England’s Vampires by Michael Bell

The Belief in Vampires in Rhode Island by Sidney S. Rider

Vampire Legends of Rhode Island by Christopher Rondina

A History of Vampires in New England by D'Agostino, Thomas

The Great New England Vampire Panic | History| Smithsonian Magazine

New England 'Vampire' Was Likely a Farmer Named John | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine

The Vampires of Rhode Island: Not Unfamiliar With This Plague. Ruth Ellen Rose, 15, Exeter 1874 – The Avocado (the-avocado.org)