Mercy Brown

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Origins:

Mercy Lena Brown was the youngest of three children, born to George T. and Mary Eliza Brown in Exeter, Rhode Island, around 1873.

In December 1882, tuberculosis took its first victim of the family: Mary Eliza; Eldest child Mary Olive followed her in death in 1884. Per the Smithsonian ("The Great New England Vampire Panic", 2012):

“The last few hours she lived was of great suffering, yet her faith was firm and she was ready for the change.” The whole town turned out for her funeral, and sang “One Sweetly Solemn Thought,” a hymn that Mary Olive herself had selected.

There was a brief respite for several years, but middle child Edwin A. began to sicken, attempting to find respite in Colorado Springs around 1890. And finally in January 1892, Mercy fell quickly ill with the disease, dying on January 17, 1892.

Edwin had since returned home to Exeter in what local papers called "a dying condition," and was very likely to follow his family.

This was not a rare occurence; at this point in time, tuberculosis accounted for nearly 25% of all deaths in New England. To fall with the illness was a inevitable death sentence, as it had an 80% mortality rate. Fresh, clean air; brown sugar melted in water; horseback riding were only a few options given by doctors to their patients. Science had only recently discerned its bacterial source, but a meaningful treatment wouldn't become available until 1940. Furthermore, while medical science had made discoveries on the illness, that knowledge hadn't fully penetrated rural society.

With no cure and little hope of survival, superstition arose to fill in the cracks. In particular, what would later become known as the "The Great New England Vampire Panic," using Old World folklore to ascribe meaning to the seemingly random deaths that permeated every community and to give the still-living a feeling of control over the whole matter. Per the Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner, March 25, 1892:

The revival of a pagan or other superstitions regarding the feeding of the dead upon a living relative where consumption was the cause of death and so bringing the living person soon into a similar condition, etc.

Locals never used the word "vampire," but it was often applied by those looking in. Per the Boone County Republican, August 3, 1892::

Those interested in folk-lore should know of recent developments of the vampire superstition in Rhode Island. Rhode Island is a thickly settled and highly civilized state. Along with great watercourses and along shores of the Narragansett Bay it is one great village, but back toward the Connecticut line one can find forests which never have bowed to an axe and a race of people who preserve all the superstitions and traditions of another age. Among the curious superstitions among the people living in these isolated regions is that of the vampire.

[....}

They believe, many of them, and believe it thoroughly, that consumption is not a disease, but a result of the operations of a mysterious creature called the vampire, which fastens itself upon a family and unseen, and therefore indestructible by ordinary means, sucks the blood from fist one victim and then another. They believe that from the lonely grave-yard on the rocky farm an influence steals for death as long as the body of the dead consumptive has blood in its heart, for there the vampire is at work and is draining the blood of the living victim into the body of the dead.

To get rid of the vampire, it is necessary to exhume the body and burn the parts, generally the heart, where the vampire lives and administer the ashes in some manner to the living and afflicted ones.

While newspaper accounts vastly (in my opinion) overblow the true belief in such things, neighbors did come to George with this idea. For a while, he rebuffed them, not wishing to dig up his wife and children for no reason, but as Edwin grew sicker and sicker with no hope of recovery, he finally agreed.

On March 17, a small band of men (George did not participate), a local reporter, and a physician gathered in the cemetery and made short work of digging up the three graves of Mary Eliza, Mary Olive, and Mercy Lena. Per The Providence Journal, March 21, 1892:

It seems that Dr. Metcalf attended Mercy Lena Brown during her last illness and that a short time prior to her death he informed her father that further medical aid was useless, as the daughter, a girl of 18 or 19, was in the last stages of consumption. The doctor had heard nothing further from the family until about a week ago, when a man called on him and stated that Edwin A. Brown, the son, was in a dying condition from the same disear, and that several friends and neighbors fully believed the only way in which his life could be saved was to have the bodies of the mother and the two daughters exhumed, in order to ascertain if the heart in any of the bodies still contained blood, as these friends were fully convinced that if such where the case the dead body was living on the living tissue and blood of Edwin. The doctor sent the young man back, telling him the believe was absurd. Last Wednesday the man returned and told the doctor that Mr. Brown, the father, though not believing in the superstition himself, desired him to come up to satisfy the neighbors and make an autopsy of the bodies.

On Wednesday morning, therefore, the doctor went as desired to what is known as Shrub Hill Cemetery, in Exeter, and found four men, who had unearthed the remains of Mrs. Brown, who had been interred for years. Some of the muscles and flesh still existed in a mummified state, but there were no signs of blood in the heart. The body of the first daughter, Olive, was then taken out of the grave, but only a skelton, with a thick growth of hair, remained.

Finally the body of Lena, the second daughter, was removed from the tomb, where it had been placed till spring. The body was in a fairly well-preserved state. It had been buried two months. The heart and liver were removed and in cutting open the heard, clotted and decomposed blood was found, which was what might be expected at that stage of decomposition. The liver showed no blood, though it was in a well-preserved state. These two organs were removed, and a fire being kindled in the cemetery, they were reduced to ashes, and the attendents seemed satisfied. The lungs showed diffuse tuberculosis germs.

The old superstition of the natives of Exeter, and also believe in other farming communities, is either a vestige of the black art, or, as the people living here say, is a tradition of the Indians. And the belief is that, so long as the heart contains blood, so long will any of the immediate family who are suffering from consumption, continue to grow worse; but, if the heart is burned that the patient will get better. And to make the cure certain, the ashes of the heart and liver should be eaten by the person afflicted. In this case, the doctor does not know if the latter remember was resorted to or not, and he only knows from hearsay how ill the son Edwin is, never having been called to attend him.

Whether or not Edwin did end up eating the ashes of his younger sister's heart and liver, he died in May 1892.

While the exhumation of Mercy Brown is only one of many from this "Vampire Panic," she was the last and likely the most famous of the set, one example of the intersection of fear, grief and superstition. Even reports from the time emphasize the many reasons why her body would be relatiely pristine, with blood still in the organs, largely a combo of being stored above-ground during the winter months and only recently being buried once spring arrived. From, again, The Providence Journal, March 21, 1892:

They have believed a vampire lay in one of the bodies; they had searched for it; they had found it. If the sick man is now cured by the aboption of these means, which includes the absorption of the cremated heart of his sister, it is assumed that, believe as these people do, they will assign the cause of returning health to the remedy they adopted.

What, therefore, is one to say? It is a temptation to treat the whole affair as something ridiculous, but if it is so regarded, the facts in the case, likewise, suggest the most sorrowful of pictures.