Mercy Brown, the vampire of Rhode Island.

Mercy Brown, the vampire of Rhode Island.

Mercy Brown had a number of features that allow us to call her last vampire in North America - at least in the traditional sense. Mercy Lena Brown was the daughter of a farmer and a native of rural Exeter, Rhode Island. She was only 19 when January 17, 1892 she died of pulmonary tuberculosis. March 17, 1892 Mercy were dug out of the grave, as inhabitants of Exeter suspected vampire Mercy Brown attacked her dying brother Edwin.
To better understand the nature and identity of Mercy Brown vampire, I spoke with Dr. Michael Bell, a folklorist and author of "Food for the Dead," which examines folklore and history with Mercy Brown, as well as several other cases of vampires in New England. Understanding that many people, what is a vampire, comes primarily from the work of Bram Stoker and Anne Rice novels, but the traditional vampire is different.
So, what is a traditional vampire? "Paul Braber wrote" Vampires, funerals and death, "- said Dr. Bell. - It provides the judicial interpretation of the incident with the vampires. Vampirism is a natural feature, which people at the time did not understand because they do not really know what happens to the bodies in different circumstances, the definition Brabera is a vampire - is a scapegoat. I think his definition, if you paraphrase, is: a vampire - is a corpse, which falls under the public's attention during the crisis and is the cause of this crisis. " Vampires are not romantic folklore characters from modern film, and they were the walking dead, who literally deprived of life of its victims. The attack on the vampire was a way for society physically drained and get even with evil which plaguing them. In the case of Mercy Brown is evil had pulmonary tuberculosis.
During the 1800s caused one death out of four was consumption, or tuberculosis. Consumption could kill you slowly over the years, or the disease could progress. Quickly enough, causing the person died in a few weeks. The disease affects the family and society. Dr. Bell explained that some of the symptoms of tuberculosis are a gradual loss of strength and the complexion. Victim pale, stops eating and literally wasting away. At night, the patient's condition worsens, because he is on his back, and fluid and blood may collect in the lungs. In the last stage of the disease the patient may wake up and see the blood on his face, neck, and pajamas, breathing heavy, the body lacks oxygen.
Dr. Bell believes that between vampires and tuberculosis is a direct one. He said: "The way you look sick, so always portrayed in folklore vampires - like walking corpses, as are, at least in the later stages of the disease. Skin and bones, long and curved fingernails - you look like a vampire from Nosferatu. "
The first victim of tuberculosis in the Brown family in December 1883, when his mother died of the disease Mercy, Mary Brown. Seven months later, also died eldest daughter Brown, Mary Olive. A few years after the death of Mary Olive with consumption Browns' only son, Edwin, who in an attempt to halt the disease was sent to live in Colorado, where the arid climate. In late 1891, Edwin returned home to Exeter because the disease has progressed - he essentially came home to die. Mercy battle with consumption is much less than her brother. Mercy had "galloping" variety of consumption and her struggle with the disease lasted only a few months. She was buried in the cemetery, "Chestnut Hill" behind the Baptist church on Victory Highway.
After Mercy's funeral, her brother Edwin deteriorated rapidly, and their father, George Brown, grew more frantic. Mr. Brown had lost his wife and two daughters, and now he was about to lose his only son. Science and medicine had no answers for George Brown, but he found them in folklore. Vampires have existed many centuries before the Mercy Brown. The practice of killing these "walking dead" began in Europe - some of the ways in which people dealt with vampires, lay in the fact that you had to dig up the body of the suspect, drive a stake through the heart, rearrange the remains, remove vital organs or the entire corpse cremated . All these rituals desecrated remains of the deceased person. It has been practiced quite regularly, and all the people to believe that it will save them from the vampires, or at least help, no matter how evil they may bruise.
So many deaths had fallen on the Browns family that poor George Brown probably thought he was in some degree be damned. To come to radical thought and stop death, George was not a long conversation with sympathetic to him. Maybe the Brown family was a vampire attacks from the grave? Was the vampire Mercy Brown, or is Mercy's mother or sister? George Brown wanted to dig up the body of his recently deceased daughter, remove the heart, burn it, and eat the ashes to his son because he had no choice.
In the book "Food for the Dead," Dr. Bell said an extensive interview conducted with Everett Peck, a descendant of Mercy Brown and life-long resident of Exeter, Rhode Island. "Everett heard the story from people who were there (on the exhumation of Mercy Brown), who were alive at the time - Dr. Bell said. - The newspaper "Providence Journal" says that they have unearthed all three bodies, ie Mercy's mother, her sister, who died before her, and Mercy. Everett said they only dug Mersey. He implied that this was a sign that Mercy was the only one - in the story gets something supernatural. Everett said after they have dug it (they've seen it), it turned over in his grave, but nothing of this is mentioned in the paper and does not talk about any of the witnesses. "
Mercy Brown died before the time when it was practiced embalming. During the decomposition of the body can lift, shake, they can even make a sound, because the swelling can occur, and if the wind runs, grabbing chords sounds can be heard moaning.
We do not know what position it was her body that day in March when George Brown, a few friends and family have come to investigate Mercy. But we know that she looked "too well preserved."
"The paper suggests that in fact it was not made the earth - Dr. Bell said. - In fact, she was laid in the tomb, because in the winter when the ground was frozen and could not really dig bodies were stored in vaults. When the thaw came, they were buried. So it is quite possible that it was not even really the earth. "
Her visual condition prompted the group to cut its chest and examine its innards. Dr. Bell said, "They looked at her organs. The newspaper said that in her heart and lungs was blood. It was liquid blood, which they interpreted as fresh. " Bell explained that forensic science can explain how blood can coagulate and become liquid again, but at the same time, the fluid was taken as proof that Mercy was actually a vampire and the one who sucked the life out of Edwin and possibly other victims of tuberculosis in the community.
Dr. Bell said, "They cut her heart out, and Everett said, burned it on a nearby rock. Then, as they say in the paper, they gave him to eat [the ashes of the heart] to Edwin. " The folklore says that the destruction of the heart vampire kills him, and at the use of the remains of the heart vampire spell will be broken and the victim will recover.
Kill the vampire did not help to save Edwin - he died two months later, but maybe it helped others?
The point of view of Dr. Bell's Mercy Brown is that she was a scapegoat, mentioned by Paul Barber. Dr. Bell said, "Mercy paid the price for their ignorance, fear and, in some cases, the guilt of people die because they are neighbors, friends and family, and people do not understand why and can not stop it."
Today, some say they see the ghost of Mercy Brown in front of her tombstone. Others noticed over her grave round glow. Dr. Bell said, "In folklore it is called" the light of the corpse. " It's well known phenomenon - it is reported elsewhere. This phenomenon is similar to the explanation given that this - the process of decomposition of organic matter, which in the flesh produces methane, which can light up, and similar explanations, but who knows? Faced with such things as these, you feel that this will be something worthwhile, even if you can not exactly explain it. "
Mercy Brown, perhaps the most famous vampire in North America, because it is also the last of the vampires. That event caused quite a stir in 1802, because the newspapers, such as the "Providence Journal", commented that the exhumation of combustion heart was completely barbaric action at that, we can say modern times.
As Dr. Bell said, "in the folklore always has an answer - it may be the answer, with no scientifically valid, but sometimes it's better to have any answer than none at all."