Vampires originated during the Medieval Period and have been part of folklore since the late 17th and 18th centuries in Eastern Europe, while becoming very popular in Germany and Great Britain.
Americans became aware during the period as the belief in vampires became widespread in parts of New England, particularly in Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut. During the 19th century vampires were blamed for many deaths in New England. This was known as the NEW ENGLAND VAMPIRE PANIC.
It was a reaction to a major outbreak of Tuberculosis (called Consumption) in the 19th century throughout Rhode Island, eastern Connecticut, southern Massachusetts, Vermont, and even New York State. It was thought to be caused by nightly visitations on the part of a dead family member who had died of consumption and returned spreading it to family members.
The disease was the leading cause of mortality throughout the Northeast, responsible for almost a quarter of all deaths.
Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula didn’t help. Even telegraph man Samuel Morse and his undertaker friend in Cherry Valley, NY, tried to bring back the dead using electricity after reading it!
There are numerous documented cases of families disinterring loved ones then removing their hearts and burning them, then drinking the ashes, in the belief that the deceased was a vampire who was responsible for sickness and death in the family. By drinking the ashes one supposedly would not become a vampire or catch the disease! No evidence of it working of course!
The most famous case was about nineteen-year-old Mercy Brown, who died in Exeter, Rhode Island in 1892. Her father, assisted by the family physician, removed her from her tomb two months after her death, cut out her heart, and burned it to ashes.
There are several instances in NYS where the tradition occurred. The earliest was in Ballston (Saratoga County, 1790), Glens Falls/West Glens Falls (Warren County, 1858, 1859), and Chazy (Clinton, 1818). Rensselaer County didn’t escape either!
The following is from the Troy Daily Whig (January 16, 1867):
SUPERSTITION IN THIS COUNTY — A correspondent of a New York paper, writing from this county, gives the following account of a strange transaction which recently occurred in the town of Grafton. The writer says:
I acquaint you with the particulars of an affair, which occurred on the mountains of Grafton, a town in this county, a few days since. There is an old superstition, (which dates back even beyond the witchcraft of our own New England) that when any member of a family falls a victim to consumption, the decaying vitals of that body are continually emitting the elements of that disease, which the surviving relatives will receive, and thereby generation after generation will be followed by that dreadful scourge, prevails. According to the superstition, there is but one means of eradicating this tubercular diathesis [i.e., tendency] from the family. That is to remove the vitals from the corpse and burn them. Accordingly, a family which has lost three of its members from that disease — one a year since, the other two within a few days — adopted the barbarous remedy. The bodies were disinterred, and from those which were in a sufficient state of preservation, the heart and lungs were removed and burned, after which the ashes with the bodies were returned to their graves and buried. A large number of the relatives and friends of the deceased, who returned to their homes conscious of having done a good work, witnessed the scene.
Grafton has always been a source of annoyance to our county politicians, especially to those running for office, and the proverbial looseness of its political morals can only be accounted for on the theory, so well illustrated in the above transaction, that “where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.”
Variants of this story appeared in at least nine different newspapers in 1867. According to Michael Bell, an authority: “These rituals were not clandestine. Frequently, many relatives and friends attended. This narrative’s author was identified in several newspapers as “a correspondent of the Litchfield Sentinel, writing from Eagle Mills, Rensselaer county [sic], N.Y.”
In 1980, Sociologist Dr. Stephen Kaplan, of the Vampire Research Center in Queens, conducted a census of current vampires. He found 22 vampires living in North America with Wisconsin the leading contributor!
In 1981, in Greenfield Massachusetts, 24-year old Bostonian James P. Riva, who believed he was a vampire admitted he killed his grandmother with a gold-tipped bullet and tried to drink her blood.
Certainly the slew of TV shows (Dark Shadows plus 70 more since 1966) and movies (over 150 since 1922) keeps the legend alive.
Keep your neck covered — Just in case.
Got History? Don is the author of a dozen books about his hometown. You can reach him at drittner@aol.com
RITTNER: The Rensselaer Vampire
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09.12.2023
Vampires originated during the Medieval Period and have been part of folklore since the late 17th and 18th centuries in Eastern Europe, while becoming very popular in Germany and Great Britain.
Americans became aware during the period as the belief in vampires became widespread in parts of New England, particularly in Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut. During the 19th century vampires were blamed for many deaths in New England. This was known as the NEW ENGLAND VAMPIRE PANIC.
It was a reaction to a major outbreak of Tuberculosis (called Consumption) in the 19th century throughout Rhode Island, eastern Connecticut, southern Massachusetts, Vermont, and even New York State. It was thought to be caused by nightly visitations on the part of a dead family member who had died of consumption and returned spreading it to family members.
The disease was the leading cause of mortality throughout the Northeast, responsible for almost a quarter of all deaths.
Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula didn’t help. Even telegraph man Samuel Morse and his undertaker friend in Cherry Valley, NY, tried to bring back the dead using electricity after reading it!
There are numerous documented cases of families disinterring........
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