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Massachusetts is known for the Salem Witch Trials, but Rhode Island is known for...vampires.
Yessir.
Vampires.
Rhode Island
Rhode Island, the smallest state in the Union and one of the original 13 Colonies, also had the
longest name--until 2020.
In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations became, simply, the State
of Rhode Island. The words "Providence Plantations" carried a reminder of an economy that flourished on slave labor. While
Rhode Island had locations believed to have been stops on the Underground Railroad, it also has in its history an uncomfortable
involvement in the slave trade.
James DeWolf and the Rhode Island Slave Trade (American Heritage) by Cynthia Mestad Johnson
For a state that had had the same name for centuries to make such a dramatic change is huge.
The only words I can come up with are that I applaud Rhode Island for making this change, especially for the reason why.
With only five counties, I have a tendency to call Rhode Island "my little postage stamp" (I say it with love!) when I am
doing my own genealogical research.
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Rhode Island Roots
When I first read The Legend of Diadamia, I kept wondering some
things sounded so familiar to me, like "Burdickville", and what about textile mills also sounded a bit familiar.
Oh.
Sprague. Burdick.
Those definitely aren't the only ones, but they're two examples.
Even though The Legend of Diadamia is a ghost story rather than being about vampires, its author, C.J. Fisher, stated
in a short video that one of the inspirations for his story was the infamous tale of Mercy Brown.
I don't recall when I first heard of Mercy Brown, but it was inevitable
that I would eventually if my genealogical research had come first. My Rhode Island ancestors were many, and generally trace
back to the beginning when a group of religious outcasts were banished from the Massachusetts colony for disagreeing with
prevailing Puritan beliefs at the time (1636).
Like the Mayfairs and the Mayflower, if your ancestry traces back to one, it traces back to several others as well. Tracing
these lines in my family history had so many dips and turns that I felt like the kid in "Grownups 2" that howled, "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!"
when he was splashed with a pitcher of cola.
Rhode Island isn't just the part of Newport where Gilded Age mansions were built by wealthy vacationers
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I could make a similar comparison to Oregon, which is not limited to Portland.
The Ocean State does have in its history amusement parks, farming and textile mills around which smaller mill villages grew.
Like many places until antibiotics, Rhode Island also had something else: tuberculosis.
From the 18th century until 1892, tuberculosis, which was often called "consumption", could wipe out entire families. But
a superstition arose around these deaths when dying people began to report dreams of relatives who had died of tuberculosis.
Things such as sitting on their chests (tuberculosis is a respiratory disease), and possibly sucking the blood (the life)
out of them.
The superstition led to the exhumations of these relatives, whose bodies would then be what we would today call "mutilated".
But, this was done in a very specific way. It was a way that would enable forensic anthropologists to identify remains that
had been believed to have belonged to a vampire.
Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England Vampires by Michael E. Bell
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Mercy Brown
By 1892, more was known about this wasting disease, tuberculosis. Sanatoriums had been established
in high altitude regions to treat the disease. It was believed that because blood moves more sluggishly through the body
at higher altitudes, it would slow the spread of the tuberculosis through the patient's body, giving them a better chance
of survival.
One such place was Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Colorado Springs was also the place of death for Emory Clapp, the second owner of 1239 First Street in New Orleans. I have
not been able to find his cause of death yet. Since Clapp is recorded to have died in Colorado Springs, it leads me to wonder
if he did, in fact, die of tuberculosis.
One individual who stayed in Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis for a time was a young man named Edwin Brown. However,
he either believed he had sufficiently recovered or it was determined there was nothing more that could be done for him.
Edwin Brown returned to Rhode Island where he and his wife stayed with his in-laws, his wife's family.
At the time, the third member of his immediate family had died of tuberculosis. His sister, Mercy.
Mercy, who in life went by her middle name, Lena, had died of "galloping consumption", which, if I understand correctly, was
a strain of tuberculosis that moved very quickly through the patient's body. The patient died very quickly.
Approximately ten years before the death of Mercy, her mother, Mary, and sister, Mary Olive, both died of the disease. Mercy
died in January 1892. Because earth moving equipment such as backhoes did not exist then and graves were dug with shovels,
cold Rhode Island winters meant the ground was frozen. Deceased individuals would be temporarily entombed in receiving vaults
in cemeteries until the ground thawed enough to open and close graves.
Mercy Brown's body was placed in the vault at the cemetery while Edwin went further downhill. Like others dying of tuberculosis
in families where others had also died of it, he began to dream of his sister.
Understand that while much more had become known about tuberculosis by 1892, this was still a world where small farming communities
that were rural and isolated did not often receive word of advances in anything very quickly. Like any other small, rural
community, this little Rhode Island community did not let go of superstition and long standing beliefs easily.
When we look at this in the context of the time period, it becomes easier to understand why a group of villagers urged patriarch
George Brown to allow an exhumation of Mercy's remains in order to check for vampirism. In addition, they wanted him to allow
the exhumations of both his wife and his daughter, Mary Olive. Brown finally consented, but by all accounts, he did not attend
the exhumations of half his family.
I watched Bill Maher last week, so I won't say "trigger warning". So I will say this: it might get a bit graphic in this
part.
The bodies of Mary and Mary Olive Brown were basically skeletonized, consistent with having been deceased for a decade. But
Mercy's body was still intact, her blood still in her body. Except to the casual observer, her hair and fingernails appeared
to have grown a bit. Then there was that bit of blood...
These things seemed to convince the group of people who had exhumed Mercy that they were proof of Mercy having become a vampire.
So, Mercy's heart was cut from her body, burned on a large rock in the cemetery, and its ashes mixed into a drink for Edwin.
Edwin Brown died two months later.
As I understand it, the original mortician who buried Mercy heavily objected to the exhumation. He also tried to explain
postmortem change. Hair and nails might appear to be growing after death, but they are not. The skin, even in the cold,
begins to dessicate (dry out). The hair shafts and cuticles of the nails pull back a bit, revealing more of the hair and
nails.
Fluids, including blood (which also decomposes), often expel from the orifices of the body in a process referred to as "postmortem
purge". Bodies can turn in the coffin or casket as well, looking as Mercy did, like they turned on their sides in their sleep.
Two of Mercy Brown's sisters would die of tuberculosis in the few years following her death. There would be tuberculosis
deaths in the Brown family, the last being a niece of Mercy who died in the 1940's. But Mercy herself is known to this day
as the last of the New England Vampires.
Vampires in Exeter? The Gruesome Tale of Mercy L. and Edwin A. Brown
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From Exeter, Rhode Island to Exeter, England:
Bram Stoker's Dracula
When Bram Stoker died in 1912, found in his office were several newspaper
articles about Mercy Brown. It is believed this event partially inspired Stoker's most famous work, Dracula.
Stories of Mercy Brown's ghost haunting her grave and the cemetery it's in have surfaced over
the generations. In part, this story also partially inspired The Legend of Diadamia. And vampire fiction is one of the most
popular genres in literary history.
Some series books are well known, such as Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse
series and the Twilight series. But others might not be so well known.
Jennifer Geoghan also traces her ancestors back to Rhode Island. She maintains a blog called Wells Family Genealogy, in which she shares her research into her ancestors who lived in a tiny mill village in Hopkinton, Rhode Island called Ashaway.
This is the same mill village The Legend of Diadamia is mainly set within. Rhode Island has a unique system of place
names I don't think I've seen anywhere else. Hopkinton is a town in Washington County (locals usually refer to it as "South
County"), and within Hopkinton are smaller villages. And within those villages are even smaller villages. That's about the
only way I can think of to explain this.
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Falling For the Purity of Blood
The Purity of Blood Series
 The Purity of Blood
 Purity Lost
 The Blood that Binds
 Purity's Progeny
 Blood's Solemn Vow
Jennifer Geoghan has also written a fiction series about a vampire family in Ashaway, Rhode Island.
Like the Mayfair Witches, the series uses an actual house which belonged to Geoghan's direct ancestors, Randall Wells and
his wife, Lois Maxson Wells.
For several years, Geoghan has also maintained a blog documenting her research into her family tree, with her focus being
her ancestors in Ashaway. You can see her blog here:
Wells Family Genealogy
The name of the Purity of Blood series is now the Fallen series, and each book has had a change
of title. To find out more, you can click each book, and it will take you to that specific book on Amazon.
The Fallen Series
 Falling For Death
 Falling For Stars
 Falling For A Kiss
 Falling Head Over Heart
 Falling Ever After
Jennifer Geoghan on Amazon.com
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Special Report: Hopkinton, Rhode Island (PDF)
Click the folder to read a 1976 Special Report of Hopkinton, Rhode Island by the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and
Heritage Commission:
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I Am Providence: Rhode Island and
Horror Fiction
Grownups 2 (2013)
The Parlor forgot to mention more of Rhode Island's legacy in horror fiction?!
Many fans of classic horror fiction will no doubt have heard of author
H.P. Lovecraft, whose headstone epitaph actually does read, "I am Providence". Providence, Rhode Island, that is.
And of course, even more of you will recognize the name Edgar Allan
Poe.
I plan to go a bit more in depth into Poe's Rhode Island connections, hopefully soon. There is one connection of his to Rhode
Island that is pretty well known, which was a woman named Sarah Helen Whitman. The two were briefly engaged, and she is said
to have inspired some of Poe's work.
The website below explores this connection far more in depth and also provides tours of locations in Providence, Rhode Island
that are associated with Poe and Whitman. It includes a trip to Sarah Helen Whitman's grave in the North Burial Ground in
Providence.
More to come...
Edgar Allan Poe: Rhode Island
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