In the quiet town of Exeter, Rhode Island, a family’s tragic tale sparked whispers of the undead—and became America’s most chilling true vampire story.
Editor’s note: This article discusses the Mercy Brown vampire incident in historical detail, including practices related to exhumation and folklore surrounding death. Some readers may find these descriptions unsettling. We encourage readers to approach the content with an understanding of its historical context, as these events reflect the fear and misconceptions of a different era.
In 1892, unnatural events began with little explanation in the quiet town of Exeter, Rhode Island. It was murmured that one who passed from this life was not at rest. The dead, some whispered, was not dead at all, undead. It was rising, feeding on the living, and it was up to the good people of Exeter to banish it from their midst.
The Brown family, already marked by tragedy, was at the center of this terror. The horror began in 1883 when George Brown’s wife, Mary, was the first to succumb. Her life snuffed out with a swiftness that left him a widower with five children to raise alone. Then, six months later, his eldest daughter, also named Mary, followed her mother into the grave.
The family endured for almost a decade after, but the dread returned. George’s only son, Edwin, began wasting away, his life pulled out of him by some unseen force. Mercy Lena, known by her middle name, his second daughter, fell victim shortly after, and she, too, was claimed quickly by this mysterious entity. They buried her in the frozen ground of January, hoping the terror had finally left their home.
But the community feared otherwise. Strange tales circulated, growing louder with each passing day. Something unnatural was at work, and it would not stop with Lena. Neighbors whispered of the Undead—family members who, after death, clawed their way from the grave to consume the life force of the living. After all, once is once, twice is a coincidence, but three is supernatural. They convinced George Brown that his family was cursed, that Lena, or perhaps his wife or daughter, had risen and was feeding on Edwin.
There was only one way to know for sure. The graves had to be opened.
One by one, George’s wife and daughter were exhumed, but they showed the signs of decay expected of the dead. When they came to Lena, buried just two months before, the sight chilled them all. Her cheeks were flushed, her skin soft to the touch. Worse still, a faint breath seemed to escape her nose. It was clear to the townspeople that Lena was not resting in peace. She was the cause of Edwin’s suffering. To sustain her own life, she emptied her brother of his.
In desperation, the good people of Exeter cut out her heart and liver according to their beliefs. As they cut her heart, blood flowed, sealing her fate as the Undead. The heart and liver were burned. The ashes were made into tea. Edwin drank from the bitter brew, believing it would break the curse and restore his health.
But Edwin died anyway a few months later because drinking a tea made from the ashes of your sister’s cremated organs doesn’t cure tuberculosis.
Word hadn’t reached them yet that “consumption” was a bacterial disease caused by Mycobacterium Tuberculosis, something surely unseen but not super-natural. They didn’t know that the vampire panics running up and down the New England coast were accompanied by outbreaks of tuberculosis. How could they possibly imagine that it would one day be curable and a vaccine would be available in 50 years? They just didn’t know that they didn’t know. And without knowledge, folklore, myth, and religion become the “science” – a way to reason out and logically connect dots that aren’t related to each other.
The New England Vampire Panic was the reaction to an outbreak of tuberculosis in the 19th century throughout several New England states. Consumption was thought by some to be caused by the deceased consuming the lives of their surviving relatives. These were known as the “undead” since the word vampire had not yet been incorporated colloquially. Bodies were exhumed, and internal organs were inspected. If showing signs of preservation, the organs would be ritually cremated with the smoke inhaled or ashes consumed to cure the afflicted.
Folklorist Michael E. Bell, author of Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England Vampires, has spent twenty years researching stories of vampires in New England and the measures people took to ward them off.
Bell has ferreted out 80 vampire exhumations in New England. He states that the belief in vampires was widespread, and, for some families, lasted well into the twentieth century. So prevalent was tuberculosis, it could well feel like you were under siege from life-draining creatures.
In his book, Bell explains, “While epidemics of consumption have ebbed and flowed for thousands of years, the disease began an alarming increase around 1730. By 1800, one of every 250 people in the Eastern United States was dying of the disease, accounting for almost twenty-five percent of all deaths. It remained the leading cause of death throughout the nineteenth century and well into the next.”
Imagine for a moment, if you will, that you don’t know the existence of bacteria or viruses or germs. Bell paints a vivid picture of the symptoms and how, in the lack of scientific knowledge, they could easily lead you to a sensational conclusion.
The symptoms of consumption progressed from a suspicious cough to the recurring hemorrhages that signalled certain death. The cough, frequent and bothersome in its early stages, became chronic with hollow rattles. An initial ruddiness of the face gave way to a deathlike pallor, which, at the very last stages of the disease, was masked by a glowing feverish flush. The mucus discharge changed color and texture from green to blood-streaked. As hemorrhaging became more frequent, the bloody discharge was measured first by teaspoons, then by cups…In many cases, a person could live a normal life, with little evidence of disease, right up to the final months or even weeks. Observers, alarmed at the apparent swiftness of the disease’s course, failed to realize that it had been working, covertly, slowly and inexorably, to destroy its host over a period of years.
While the vampire panic spread across parts of New England during tuberculosis outbreaks, it was not widely embraced by the general population. Most people understood that consumption, not supernatural forces, was the cause of death and illness. Many viewed the folk practices of exhuming bodies and burning organs with skepticism and criticism, seeing them as desperate and irrational responses rooted in fear rather than reason. Local newspapers and clergy often condemned these rituals, urging communities to abandon such superstitions in favor of more scientific explanations. George Brown did not embrace the thought of his daughter as undead. He was conspicuously but understandably absent from her exhumation.
The people of Exeter, like many others, didn’t understand the process of decomposition. They don’t know that a body interred in a family crypt in January would freeze and be preserved until the weather warmed up a bit, say a couple of months later in March. Or that as the body warmed, the decomposition would produce gases that fill out the flesh and give some color to the skin, or that these gases would escape through the nose or nearest available orifice. And if you cut the corpse, thawed, partially coagulated blood would drain out.
Lena Brown is buried in Chestnut Hill Baptist Church Cemetery with the brother who consumed her ashes and the father who let it happen. Many people still visit her grave, sometimes leaving little gifts or a note. Perhaps even in light of all our scientific discoveries and in spite of all our technological advancements to manipulate all that knowledge, we can’t help but gravitate towards the mysterious and unknown.
Below are select newspaper clippings related to the Mercy Lena Brown incident
8123 Main St Suite 200 Dexter, MI 48130
