Disclaimer: This tale is based on different accounts of this legend
Welcome back to another series of “Spooky Stories” for this year’s spooky season. If anyone hasn’t read last year’s editions, the spooky stories were “The Legend of Dolly Cole”, “The Haunting of Lambda Chi Alpha” and the “Haunted Tavern”. For the start of this year, we travel to Exeter, Rhode Island for the Curse of New England Vampire, Mercy Lena Brown.
On Jan. 17, 1892, 19-year-old Mercy Lena Brown died of tuberculosis as well as her mother and older sister before her on Dec. 8, 1883 and June 6, 1884. The only people in the family left were her older brother Edwin, who was slowly deteriorating from the disease, and her father George.
When Edwin caught the disease, friends advised him to go to Colorado Springs, hoping the spa there would help regain his health. It seemed to work as the western climate slowed the disease down. However, when he heard that Mercy died, he returned to Exeter.
After her burial, his health became worse than it was in Colorado. During a feverish dream, a common symptom of tuberculosis, he claimed he heard her voice.
“She was here, she wanted me to come with her, she haunts me,” he said.
As Edwin was slowly dying, George became desperate to keep him alive. At the time, there was no treatment or cure for the disease. He turned to several concerned neighbors who told him an old folk tale stating that flesh and blood of deceased relatives fed on the health of the living.
To put it simpler, the deceased are drawing the life force from their living relatives. At first, George was resistant to digging up his wife and daughters until Wednesday, March 17, 1892 where he had Dr. Harold Metcalf and local residents exhume the bodies.
When they tested Mercy, they found there was still blood in her heart and liver. This sent people into thinking that she was a vampire, sucking the life out of Exeter residents. Metcalf tried to explain that this wasn’t true and they appear that way because she was buried in the winter.
Still, the residents didn’t believe him and they insisted on her heart and liver be burned before reburying her. Her heart was mixed with ash and water and given to Edwin, hoping it would cure him, but instead, he died two months later, May 2, 1892. However, George survived and none of his close neighbors were affected by the disease.
This led residents to believe that this practice worked and they did it themselves as well. They would identify vampires and exhume their bodies, looking for signs that they were still “fresh.” Once they found one, they’d take out the organs and burn them. Some would eat the ashes as remedy or breathe in the smoke.
This practice ended in the early 20th century, as death rates went down and hygiene and nutrition improved. Today, people visit Brown’s grave, putting jewelry or vampire teeth by her headstone.
If you want to visit her gravestone, it’s located at 467 Ten Rod Road, Exeter, Rhode Island. Proceed with caution.