Just over a hundred years ago, residents of Exeter, Rhode Island became convinced that one of their own was returning from the grave to feed on the lives of their own relatives. In 1892, the family of Mercy Brown family started dying off from a terrible sickness, one by one. The town blamed her – even though by then, she was one of the victims. 125 years later, her undead vampire legend is still infamous in New England.
In the late 1800’s, rural Exeter was thinly populated, with just around 960 residents in 1890. Tuberculosis was slowly taking those remaining lives. “Consumption,” as it was known then, was the leading cause of death in the U.S. in the 19th century. It was a very unpleasant way to go, often drawn out for a year or more. According to one description of a victim at the time: “the weak, emaciated figure, forehead drenched with sweat, face a livid crimson, eyes sunk, breath laborious, and with a cough so relentless the wretched sufferer barely had time to speak.”
The disease was easily passed between people living in close quarters, which is why it could sweep through entire families. Near the end, the patient would be persistently hacking up of a thick, bloody phlegm. There was no treatment or cure for tuberculosis at the time. It wasn’t widely known what caused the disease or how it spread. All physicians could recommend was “rest, eating well, and outdoor exercise.” In 1892, patients had only a 20% chance of survival.
The fear surrounding such a ghastly disease helps explain the terror that swept through Exeter, Rhode Island. The villagers were aware that the Browns, a farming family had a deadly problem. First, George Brown’s wife, Mary, succumbed to the illness. Six months later, his 20-year-old daughter, Mary Olive, also fell sick and died. Within the next several years, his 19-year-old daughter, Mercy Brown, was also dead.
George’s teenage son Edwin, known as Eddie, had been a healthy lad who worked as a store clerk at the Farmer’s Exchange & General Variety Store. Exeter was shocked when he too became suddenly sick and frail. The county doctor told George Brown that consumption was taking his family, one by one. But the country folk of Exeter had another more sinister suspicion. Residents began to fear that one of the ‘undead’ was causing the Brown deaths.
This undead “vampire” was believed to none other than the deceased Mercy Brown.
Mercy Lena Brown was born in Exeter in 1872. Her family, friends and neighbors all called her Lena. In 1882, her mother, Mary Eliza was the first to succumb to the disease. Mary was a strong woman, used to hard work on the farm with her husband. Despite her stamina, consumption took her in December, 1883. As was the custom, the whole town turned out for the funeral.
By spring of next year, their oldest daughter, Mary Olive, a 20-year-old dressmaker, began to cough and fade as well. She complained of a crushing weight on her chest, which seemed to be drawing the life out of her as she slept. She grew pale and gaunt, then too passed away in June, 1884. Tuberculosis commonly consumed entire families, and occasionally even small towns. No one understood that tuberculosis was a communicable disease caused by a deadly bacteria.
Several years passed until 1889, when Edwin, George & Mary’s only son, began to cough up phlegm tainted with blood. He had terrible dreams of suffocation and drowning. In the mornings, he said he felt as though the very blood had been drained from his body while he slept . Again, the county doctor had no remedy for what was turning Edwin from a hearty young boy into a pale, frail man.
For the better part of two years, he grew increasingly thin and weak. Friends advised him to travel to Colorado Springs, where a well-known spa-sanitarium would help him regain his vitality. Edwin took the advice, and headed west with his new wife. It seemed to work a bit as the western climate at least slowed the disease’s progression.
Mercy Brown, who was just a child when her mother and sister died. She didn’t fall ill until 1891, nearly a decade after they were buried. After a year of suffering, she too died, still unmarried, on January 17, 1892 at only 19. Edwin came back to Rhode Island when he learned his sister Mercy was dying. On his return to Exeter, Edwin’s health again began to deteriorate rapidly.
Any progress made while out west quickly disappeared. During feverish dreams he would cry out that “She was here!” or “She haunts me!” George Brown and Edwin’s wife were distraught. He’d lost three of his family and it looked like it would soon be four. Dr. Harold Metcalf of Wickford likely took him aside and was quite blunt. ‘There is nothing I or any other doctor can do about consumption.’
“He is in the Lord’s hands now.“
Rumors quickly spread through the town of what Edwin said and superstitions took over. There were some who thought they knew the cause. Several townsfolk kept telling George Brown about an old New England folk tale. The superstition claims that “in some part of a deceased relative’s body, live flesh and blood might be found. This was supposed to feed on the living relatives who are in feeble health.” Basically, the myth claims that when members of a family wasted away, it was because one of the undead deceased was draining their life force.
They’d come to the conclusion that one of the three deceased Brown’s was leaving their grave at night to drain the life out of its family relatives. Caught between heaven and hell, they were sucking the life out of Edwin from beyond the grave. Only by identifying and ‘killing’ the undead, could young Edwin be saved.
At first, George Brown did not put much credence in the old-time superstition. That is, until he grew desperate over Edwin’s rapid deterioration. Citizens of Exeter, urged George for permission to dig up the bodies. Then they could figure out which one was to blame, and rid Edwin of the evil spirit stealing his life. Out of pure desperation, he reluctantly allowed the bodies of the wife and two daughters to be exhumed. An examination would be performed by a reluctant Dr. Metcalf.
On a chilly morning on March 17, 1892, a group of Exeter men marched into Chestnut Hill Cemetery behind the Baptist Church with shovels over their shoulders. They dug down into the cold earth and exhumed the bodies of each family member, one at a time. Neither George Brown, who could not bear to witness it, nor Eddie, who was too ill, was present. In the grave of Brown’s wife Mary, they found a rotting skeleton. In the grave of Brown’s eldest daughter Mary Olive, they found a rotting corpse as well.
However, upon opening the wooden casket of Mercy Brown, they all stepped back in horror. The nine-week-old remains of looked startlingly normal and un-decayed. Mercy appeared supernaturally well preserved. Her face appeared flush. It even seemed that her hair and nails had grown. And when one of the men cautiously prodded the corpse’s chest with a spade, he found liquid blood. This seemed to confirm the local’s fears.
Mercy Brown must be some kind of undead vampire!
Dr. Metcalf knew why she had died and understood what they saw. ‘She was buried in the coldest months of winter, her remains were frozen when they entered the grave and would not begin to rot until the spring thaw.’ The townsfolk of Exeter were not convinced. The undead must be killed by having its heart removed and burned to ashes.
They returned to George Brown and asked permission to do so. You can only imagine the state the poor, desperate father was in. In a weak voice, he gave his consent. The townsfolk returned to the cemetery. Mercy Brown’s dress was torn open and her heart and liver were cut out. The men gathered firewood and kindled a bonfire on a nearby outcropping of bedrock. They burned the two organs to ashes.
The story goes that they next decided that to complete the cure, they must feed the ashes of Mercy’s heart & liver to Edwin! Because her heart and liver had blood still in them, locals believed that only by performing this bizarre ritual could Eddie’s life be ultimately saved.
They returned to Edwin Brown’s house with the ashes of his dead sister’s heart. Doc Metcalf likely counseled George Brown that this was ridiculous superstition and not going to do any good. As he had said, the fate of Eddie was in the Lord’s hands now. None of that likely mattered to George Brown. He would do anything to save his son. George gave his blessing. They mixed the ashes with water and Edwin’s wife helped him drink down the horrific concoction.
After digging up and tearing up Mercy Brown, the townspeople reburied her heartless body into the grave at Chestnut Hill Cemetery. Under a weathered tombstone, she now rests in peace. As expected, the consumption continued to consume young Edwin. He died just two months later on May 2, 1892.
The bizarre story does not end there.
Consumption continued to take George Brown’s remaining children until there was only one left. Annie Brown died in August 1895 at the age of 25. Jennie Brown died in October, 1895 at just 18 years old. Myra Brown died a year later in 1899, also at 18 years old. Only Hattie May Brown, George & Mary’s fifth child survived. She married and had three daughters of her own.
Ironically, German scientist Robert Koch had discovered the bacteria that caused tuberculosis in 1882. However, the new “Germ Theory” of disease only began to take hold in the U.S. a decade late. Too late to save the poor Brown family. Tuberculosis, while rarer today, is still a danger. Just watch any pharmaceutical TV advertisement and listen for the spokesperson whispering about the ‘risk of tuberculosis.’
This was not the first time such a macabre folk remedy had been tried in Rhode Island. There were 18 other documented instances of the exhumation of family members in suspected ‘vampire’ cases throughout New England in the 18th and 19th centuries. Mercy Brown would be the last however.
But that did not keep Rhode Island from quickly becoming the “Vampire Capital of America.” The county’s isolated villages became a hotbed of vampire-like rumors for the next 30 years. An 1896 Boston Daily Globe article describes how oddly prevalent the fears about undead vampires had suddenly become in Rhode Island.
Mercy Brown is further rumored to be the inspiration for Lucy Westerna in Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula novel. When the author died, newspaper clippings of the “vampire” Mercy Brown were found in his files.
While Mercy Lena Brown had a very short life, her legacy as the “Last New England Vampire” will live on forever. Today, her Exeter gravesite is popular with curious sightseers and more serious believers, who often leave gifts behind such as red roses, jewelry, and of course, plastic vampire teeth.
Hey, I just wanted to let you know that the photo you describe as “Alleged vampire Mercy Brown at age 18 in 1891” is actually a photo from 1856 of an unrelated young woman, Charlotte Bronson, who died 16 years before Brown was born.
A blog post from 2012 used that photo to show how a young woman suffering from TB would have looked, not to depict Mercy Brown herself.