The Scaredy Cat's Guide To This Spooky Rhode Island Spot

Wanna hear something scary? I'm a teeth grinder. Have been on and off since elementary. And the other morning, as the drill (an integral part of the early am repair job being done on one of my front canines) was whirring away, I was thinking about what exactly I should say about the low key, diy ghost tour we had embarked on recently. 

Of course, it included Chestnut Hill Cemetery in Exeter and the grave site of the infamous Mercy L. Brown, who’s usually billed as "New England's last vampire.”

Only she wasn't.

And that's what was (is) bugging me.

I mean, based on what I've read about what happened back in 1892, she wasn't a vampire at all.

And Arthur Miller didn't write a play about it or anything, but the way things unfolded back then is definitely reminiscent of the Salem Witch histeria of 1692 to 1693.

Okay, in case you’re unaware, here's the deal (the abbrevaited, Cliff’s Notes version anyway) about MB…

After dying at 19 from TB, which also killed her sister and mom (and a little later, her brother), Mercy's body was exhumed (a fancy way of essentially saying dug up).

This happened mostly because the locals, including HER OWN FATHER, were swept up in a weird wave of vampire mania during the Tuberculosis epidemic. So, they explained all the deaths from the spread of the disease by blaming them on the undead. (Are you at all surprised to hear then that during that time, Rhode Island came to be known in certain circles as “The Transylvania of North America”?)

This I guess is how they justified taking her heart (her heart being in such good condition postmortem was interpreted as additional proof of her being a vampire…no formal training as a coroner here, but since she died during winter, and her body was believed to have been stored above ground in a crypt until the thaw, the extreme cold probably helped preserve her remains) out of her body and crushing it into a powder for her brother to eat to help him fight the TB.

He still died, tho.

Yeahhh, what THEY did sounds pretty vampire-ish, amirite?

So, not buying into the macabre folk tales about Mercy. That doesn't mean I'd ever visit that grave at night. I mean, have we learned nothing from Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story? Or the Treehouse of Horror episodes courtesy of The Simpsons? I read something else about how her coffin is now protected by special steel bars to prevent anyone from trying to snatch the body. Now, if that's NOT something out of a treatment for a future season of AHS, I don't know what the heck is.

Me personally, I'd much rather sit home and binge on the surplus stock of classic Halloween candy (Kit Kats, Reese's, and Hershey's Milk Choolate, without almonds) while catching up on new episodes of Lights Out With David Spade on Comedy Central.

*Additional information regarding Mercy L. Brown (specifically RI being nicknamed 'The Transylvania of No America') was uncovered via findagrave.com.

**Photo Credits: Photos above courtesy of PattyJ.com

***This post has been updated and revised from one that appeared on the blog previously.