In 1892, the Brown family of Exeter, Rhode Island, gathered together in the local graveyard. They were there to bury their mother, who had just died of tuberculosis. Within a few months, her daughters, Mary and Mercy, and son, Edward, both contracted the disease and died as well. The fact that most of the family died in quick succession raised the suspicions of people in the community. Fearing that one of the people who had died was returning as a vampire, they persuaded the remaining Browns to exhume the bodies and look for signs of vampirism.
Once the bodies were unearthed, they noticed that Edward and Mary both had gone through the expected decomposition process. But young Mercy’s corpse still looked fresh. To the people of Exeter, this was undeniable evidence that Mercy was a vampire and would soon return to drain the life from the people of the town. So, Mercy’s chest was cut open and her heart was removed and burned. The ashes were then mixed with water and given to her brother to drink to protect him from the influence of the undead. But it doesn’t seem to have worked, as he too wasted away and died a few months later.
However, the case of Mercy Brown was hardly an isolated incident. Nor was it the first one of its kind. Instead, it was simply a minor part of a panic that was sweeping the region. Dubbed the “New England Vampire Panic” by the national press, the fear of vampire attacks rapidly consumed communities in the area. The answer of each community to the vampire threat was slightly different, but the fear was very real and extremely widespread.
In Vermont, it was common for the entire town to gather and celebrate the burning of a vampire’s heart. However, it was also common for the people of Vermont to not bother with the burning. Instead, it was considered enough to flip the body over in the grave. Unable to sit up, it was assumed the corpse wouldn’t be able to leave. But in more isolated, rural areas, the practice of slaying a vampire usually involved gathering a few friends and quietly opening the grave in the dead of night to burn the heart. And in many of these areas, beheading the body was believed to be necessary to kill the vampire.
Reports of exhumations and burnings in the area were reported by the press in the rest of the nation. And many people used the opportunity to poke fun at the backward ways of people in communities like Exeter. For many in the rest of New England, these people were already regarded as being uneducated and superstitious. So, the Vampire Panic was a confirmation of the stereotypes they already held. Writers and political cartoonists frequently accompanied the stories of exhumations with mocking commentary on their ignorance. For everyone else, the time when vampires were thought to exist was over. So, why did the people in places like Exeter think they were real?