VAMPIRISM: A Rhode Island Reality

Date: 2/6/97 

From: MORIOTTI

Vampires are to Rhode Island are what witches were to 1697
Salem,Mass.,only more so; for the recorded instances of vampires
and family requests to have family memebers' graves exhumed in
Rhode Island reach into the hundreds. For a one hundred year
stretch of history, Rhode Island had become so infested with
vampires and stories, many published in local papers and bulletins,
about their attacks that Brahm Stolker took note of it and used many
of the recorded cases as part of his basis for his classic novel. 

The belief that a vampire could be destroyed by impalment is based 
on the New Englander's belief that the undead had to be staked to the
ground,face down,to keep them from returning from the grave. The
European practice of burning of the suspected corpse's heart, and
sometimes the head as well,was also pratciced to the point where the
ashes were mixed with a hot beverage, usually tea, and given to the
ones the vampire had singled out as their prey (usually fellow family
memebers). 

Out of the hundreds of cases on file in the Rhode Island
archives, two names still bring a chill to the people who now reside in
the West Greewich and Foster communities of that state. Mercy
Brown and Nelle Tillinghast. Them being the most widly known of
the hundreds of suspected vampires due to their present day
hauntings of the graveyards where they reside. If you ask most
knowedgable residents about these women, they might be willing to
direct you to the graveyard, but the chances that they will accompany
you is very slim indeed. Many have gone to the Tillinghast grave and
heard the sound of a woman weeping, or had been involved in a
conversation with a young woman, only to have her vanish once she
had had her say. Many still, having the overwhelming feeling of being
watched as they read "I AM WATCHING AND WAIYTING FOR
YOU" on the headstone of a grave where nothing will grow to this
day. Mercy Brown's gravesite is said to be haunted as well,with
repeated sightings of a strange glow moving among the stones of the
graveyard after dark. On her grave as well, nothing will survive for long.

In every case where the body of a suspected vampire was exhumed,
the remains had been discovered to have cheated death's process of
decomposition...many times to the point where their skin was still soft
to the touch, although they had been buried for months. There was
nothing like today's embalming methods in practice at the time of
these burials; so how does one explain this. Modern theroists have
explained that during the time of Rhode Island's vampire outbreak,
Tubercilosis was rampant and caused many of it's victims to be
actually buried alive. This would explain the reported screams and
cries coming from the graves of these poor souls and the fact that
their bodies had moved within their coffins after burial. But there has
yet to be a good enough explanation as to how, after months of being
buired (alive or not)why the bodies failed to show ANY sign of
decay. Nor have any theroists explained why the health of the
afflicted family members suddenly returned once the steps had been
taken to put the suspected vampire to rest. 

I am not advocating the reality or unreality of vampires...I am merley giving you the facts as
they are stated in public records and how they were reported by the
limited media of the day. It's for you to decide. As for me, I try not to
say "never" or "impossible"...more times than not I find I was wrong!

Here is a email reply I got days later I hope to dig into more info if I can find some. But for now this is all I have on Rhode Island Vampires.

Subject: Re: Fwd: reply to your bulletin board post in scifi

Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:56:02 -0400

Hi Chaz, It's too bad that most people regard vampires as these coffin abiding, bat transmuting super-creatures. Thanks to Hollywood, this is the first thing that comes to mind when people hear the word vampire. But as I stated in the posting, here in Rhode Island there was a reign of terror caused by people's strong belief in vampires that lasted just a over a hundred or so years.

If you walk through a lot of the more popular graveyards around here from that period, you'll note that every one, without exception, of the family crypts has either a locked barred door over the entrance or a solid piece of metal. This was not to keep robbers out, but to keep those residing inside in. If the body was that of a less wealthier family, it was common law that the body was placed face down and staked to the ground to insure the person would not return...such the stake thing got started. The local King's Constable was often at hand at the burials to insure that the law was carried out.

You have to remember that there was already fears instilled in these people, due to what happened just north of them in Salem. Fever and Consumption (we call it tuberculosis today) was rampant and it was not uncommon that a person would fall into a coma and believed to have died, ending up being buried alive. Yet, according to public record, there were 148 people, the youngest being 12 years old, accused of being a vampire and their remains desecrated for the good of the people. Of all these, three names still stick out as being the most notorious of them; Jullian Wright, Sarah Brown, and Nellie Tillinghast.

Jullian Wright, the youngest son of a Westerly plantation owner, died under peculiar circumstances in 1704. Shortly after his burial, a visitor to the graveyard reported having heard the young man calling out to him. Within a week, rumors of the young Jullian's nightly visitations to his home increased as several of the servants and Jullian's sister, Anna, became unexplainably ill to the point they were near death within 7 months. The Constable was summoned and the grave exhumed. According to the Constable's report in the state archives, they found the young man's body in perfect condition and the lid to his coffin scratched to the point as hole had been made in the lid. The body was beheaded after the heart was removed and a stake driven through the now overturned corpse..the Constable took care in noting that the body was found to be "Gorged with the blood of it's victims". The head and heart were burned, and the ashes saved to administer to the sick daughter and the servants as a cure from their alleged attacks. Call it hysteria, but it's a matter of public record that all but one of the servants and Anna made a fast and full recovery after what the constable reported as being the proper steps having been taken. The servant who died, an older woman, was buried "...in proper manner as to insure the public safety."

Information on Sarah Brown's case is readily available from SIGHTINGS who have done several stories on Rhode Island's most popular of it's vampires. By all reports, she was a well liked and energetic young woman in her late teens who suddenly, like Jullian, became sick and died. Soon after her burial, her family was said to have been visited repeatedly by the girl's "ghost" and her body was exhumed by her family to see if it was true that she was indeed what they had feared. Her body, after being buried for months, showed no sign of deterioration at all and it was noted as having moved onto it's side, as if in a sleep. The afflicted family members were given a brew made up her heart's ashes and were said to have been cured in short order. Whether the body had been staked or not is uncertain. To this day however, sightings of her ghost persist near the Brown Family plot in Exeter.

Another, and the last of the most famous of the state's vampires, is the second youngest to have been accused as a vampire after she died at 17 years of age in the early part of the 1800's. Living in Exeter as well, Nellie Tillinghast is often confused with the stories and legends surrounding Sarah Brown. There is no record at all of her body ever being exhumed. Like the hysteria to the north still fresh in everyone's minds even at that time, the hysteria of vampires among the early Rhode Islanders was gladly dying out. Yet, even today, the rumors of her having been a vampire still persist and seems, like she is said to be, unable to rest. It is a fact, for I have seen this myself , that her gravestone does say, "I AM WATCHING AND WAITING FOR YOU" and no grass or any other living thing will grow upon the grave whatsoever.

There are few locals that do not know where the grave is and there are fewer yet that will go near the graveyard much past sundown. The sighting of a young woman walking among the graves is as common as those who have heard her weeping, or have suddenly felt the overpowering chill of knowing they were being watched while walking through the historical graveyard or doing stone rubbings. As far as her being a vampire per se', the state records are silent, for she has never been exhumed, at least officially. But the legend itself concerning her are as old as the date upon her grave...and to every legend, there is always some morsel of truth to be found. I hope this helped you out.

Take care Andy