Tumgik
#mercy brown
sixminutestoriesblog · 10 months
Text
Mercy Brown: when superstitions go awry
Tumblr media
Tuberculosis is an insidious disease that comes in quietly and sweeps away entire families, rarely content with just one or two before its run its course. This slowly dividing bacteria travels from host to host through aerosol droplets via sneezing, coughing, speaking and other airborne paths. Considering the fact that TB attacks the lungs most often, resulting in, among other things, coughing up bloody phlegm, this means its highly transmissible and yet, luckily, very slow to be caught by the average passer-by. The longer someone spends with the sick person, and the less well ventilated an area is, the more likely the disease is to pass on to the next victim. Most people that came down with TB caught it from sick family members. These days we have a vaccine against it but TB has been around for most of humanities' recorded history, with even Egyptian mummies having been found with physical evidence of it. In Victorian (and later) times the disease was referred to as 'consumption' with little understanding of its source or its cause, an unknown horror that seemed to come from nowhere, prey on an entire family or community and than vanish again just as mysteriously.
In 1883 (or 1884 or 1888 -the dates are all over the place), a woman in Exeter, Rhode Island by the name of Mary Eliza died of 'consumption'. Six months later, her oldest daughter, Mary Olive, joined her in the graveyard. The distraught husband, George, waited, one can only imagine, with terror for the rest of their children to be swept away as well but for the next several years, all was well in the family. Then, in the cold months at the end of 1891, his daughter Mercy Lena came down with consumption.
From our place, safely in the future, we can look at the case and wonder if she was exposed to a new strain that finally found a weak spot the previous one hadn't and laid claim to her. It's entirely possible however that the same bacteria that killed her mother was now killing Mercy as well. Mercy might have contracted what's known as latent TB from her mother, a case where the bacteria lies dormant in the system, the victim a benign carrier who can't infect others until something, usually an event that suppresses the immune system, triggers it into a full blow, active bought. Whatever the case, whether it was a new infection or the haunting family ghost of her mother's older one, Mercy, and her younger brother Edwin, both came down with active TB in 1891. Edwin, a teenager at the time, was sent to Colorado in the hopes it would heal him - but Mercy died in the first month of the new year, going the way of her mother and older sister before her to the grave. She was only 19.
The story should have stopped there.
I wouldn't be writing about this if it had.
Edwin returned from Colorado and his health continued to decline. Soon, if nothing changed, he would follow the majority of his family into the grave. The neighbors had a plan though. They just needed his father's permission.
What they proposed was that an evil entity was draining the life of the Brown family, picking them off one at a time and returning for each new victim. The evil that was killing the family - was a member of the family.
Here's where we get into the superstition part of things. If you read articles online about Mercy Brown you'll find the word 'vampire' thrown around a lot. It was the word used in the newspapers of the time, that caught wind of what the neighbors planned, and its also modern culture, thanks in large part to Bram Stroker's Dracula (there is speculation that his character of Lucy might have had its roots in stories he'd read about Mercy in the newspapers of his time. Dracula, remember, was published in 1897). A dark force, rising from the grave to suck the life out of its victims. Well, yes - and no. Modern vampires, the way we collectively view them now, with fangs and a hunger for blood, creeping around through windows and walking among us on our crowded nighttime streets is a new reskinning. During Mercy's time, and much much further back than that, the 'vampire' associated with disease like TB was much more nebulous. For many cultures, what was rising out of the grave to drain the life from its own family had more resemblance to an angry or hungry ghost, than a walking, talking monster. A distinction that, realistically, has no bearing on the end result but, metaphysically, the story changes. It becomes something personal, to the victim and the neighbors around the family, someone they knew in life, someone they watched die. It's the sorrow and the potential rage and absolutely the confusion of why it happened in the first place, rising like fog from the grave to whisper across the landscape, trying to take what it once had back to the cold of its tomb with it. It's the familiar knock of a friend at the door when the friend isn't there anymore. It's the smile you knew all the nineteen years of its life on the other side of the window on a moonless night. When the neighbors wanted to dig up Eliza, Olive and Mercy, there was the quiet whisper that traced back through a thousand ancestors into the far past of humanity that murmured that love doesn't die when the body does - and that that's terrifying, not comforting.
George, with his son dying, agreed to let the neighbors go digging up his family. Maybe he believed them, some accounts say he didn't, but whatever the case, he let them pull up the bodies of his dead loved ones out of their cold graves in the late winter and lay them out right there for testing. Mary Eliza and Mary Olive were safe. They were too rotted to be the hungry ghost that was trying to take young Edwin with it. Mercy however - Mercy, according to the reporter that was onsite to record all of this, looked far too fresh to be a two month old corpse. Her hair and nails had grown, her body looked unblemished, reports said her body had shifted since it had been laid out and, most damning of all, when her chest was cut open by the local doctor, her organs were found to still have blood in them. It wasn't important that Mercy's body had been in the ground during some of the coldest, and therefor most preserving, months of the year. They certainly didn't know about the buildup of gas in a body that can make it move or the way the skin shrinks and pulls back from nails and hair, making them seem to grow. No. What they saw was that Mercy wasn't content to travel into death alone. She wanted her baby brother to go with her.
So they burned her heart on a stone in the graveyard, put the ashes in a drink and had Edwin chug it down. In a move that dates back to, at least, Achilles desecrating Hector's body in the Iliad, you rob a ghost of its power by mangling the body that ties it to both this world, and its recognizable identity.
It didn't work. Within two months, Edwin was dead as well. The story however, lived on. Perhaps in Stoker's Dracula and certainly in the papers of the day. Mercy was, perhaps, the last body dug up in New England and given the 'vampire' treatment. She wasn't the only one however. There are at least six other recorded, and possibly other unmarked, instances during what came to be known as the New England Vampire Panic that swept the upper US during the 1800s. Mercy, at this point, seems to be the last, coming in on the tail end of the old century and the beginning of the new. A last flicker of the old superstitions dying out in the face of rising science.
Tumblr media
296 notes · View notes
big-edies-sun-hat · 2 years
Text
Reading Dracula Daily got me interested in the actual vampire folklore as it's documented through "real" incidents. I knew about, say, the New England vampire panic, but reading about the Old World cases of the 18th and 19th century is pretty melancholy. There's nothing elite about these vampires (if the word is even used), nothing sensual. These were ordinary people who died of TB, wasting away in bed and consuming the emotional and material resources of families without the affluence or literacy to consider it transcendent. Since that is how TB spreads, the family members who had nursed or shared quarters with the dead person would find themselves turning white and dying just as they had, as if the dead were not finished draining the household, draining their lives. Apparently tuberculosis is as old as the human race or even older. It's possible, then, that this happened in Neolithic or even Paleolithic families, and that the idea of the undead, the walking corpse, is tied up in our experience of disease.
103 notes · View notes
lobotomized-housewife · 7 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
visited the grave of supposed vampire, mercy brown today. i don’t even believe in the supernatural yet this was still an absolutely chilling experience
today the larger grave is just a headstone, but mercy was initially buried there after her death in 1892 at 19 years old due to tuberculosis. her whole family had fallen ill and it was suspected to be due to supernatural causes.
mercy’s body was subsequently exhumed and upon exhumation it was found her body lacked decomposition, so much to the point where her heart still contained blood. at the time this was taken as a sign that she was undead, and therefore the cause of her family’s illness.
thus, her heart and liver were burned and the ashes mixed with water were given to her brother, who was still alive but sick with tuberculosis in order to cure him of his ailment.
after her exhumation mercy was reburied under the smaller headstone simply marked “M B”
15 notes · View notes
death-of-seasons · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
Now that I’m a Rhode Island resident it was high time that I paid Mercy Brown, the “last New England vampire” a visit.
Mercy was the last known instance in Rhode Island of a corpse being exhumed to perform rituals to banish an undead manifestation, as she was believed to be a vampire. Mercy succumbed to tuberculosis in 1892, following her mother, Mary, and older sister, Mary Olive, who also suffered from the wasting disease. Friends and neighbors of the family believed that one of the deceased family members were a vampire, and had caused Edwin, Mercy’s younger brother, to fall ill with tuberculosis as well.
George Brown, Mercy’s father, was persuaded to exhume the bodies of his family members. Mary and Mary Olive exhibited rates of decomposition, however, Mercy, exhibited nearly none and blood was found still in her heart. These observations were taken as evidence that Mercy was undead and the agent of Edwin's illness. (Her lack of decomposition was more likely due to her body being stored in freezer-like conditions in an above ground crypt during the two months following her death in January).
As superstition for banishing the undead dictated, Mercy’s heart and liver were burned, and the ashes mixed with water to create a tonic—this was then given to Edwin to drink. Unsurprisingly, this did not cure his consumption and he passed two months later. What remains of Mercy’s body is buried here in Exeter RI, in between Mary Olive and Mary.
Mercy’s tragic story is what’s believed to be the end of the vampire panic in New England, of which Rhode Island was the epicenter, known as the “Vampire Capital of America”. Vampire rumors circulated the tiny state between 1870–1900, and suspected vampires Nelly L. Vaughn of West Greenwich and Sarah Tillinghast, also of Exeter, lie in repose nearby. When Bram Stoker died, newspaper accounts of vampire Mercy Brown were found in his files. As shown, many come to visit Mercy to pay their respects and leave offerings to this day.
47 notes · View notes
michi-tala · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
On the Victorian Science and Prejudices Behind Bram Stoker’s Dracula ‹ Literary Hub
Mercy Brown of United States died in 1892
10 notes · View notes
capesandshapes · 9 months
Text
At one point when I was like 22, I saw this show about America's first vampire which is this girl who died from tuberculosis and everyone thought that she was coming back to turn everyone into a vampire but really her whole family was catching tuberculosis because they didn't fucking clean anything.
But none of that mattered, common sense didn't exist for me
For six weeks I lived in absolute terror of the idea that this wheezing tuberculosis having ass bitch was going to rise from the dead, find me in the middle of the night, and fucking cough on me to infect me with her fermented TB and use that vintage wine looking bacteria to murder me at an accelerated rate
6 notes · View notes
fourtccn · 2 years
Text
so, since dracula is getting popular again, i’d like to tell y’all one of the most interesting (and gruesome) real events that occurred in history. this is one of the stories said to actually have inspired bram stoker into writing dracula, as he supposedly kept a newspaper clipping of it. this gruesome story is the story of mercy brown, also known as the last american vampire.
so in the late 1800s, little was known about tuberculosis, despite it having been around for thousands of years. at the time, the disease was referred to as “consumption” because of the way it consumes the body. according to the cdc, from the 1600-1800s, tuberculosis caused 25% of all deaths in europe and america. this is important to the story.
in 1884 in exeter, rhode island, mercy brown’s mother passes away due to consumption. soon to follow is her 20-year-old sister, mary olive. mercy would have been 11 at the time. some records claim that the passing of her mother and older sister made mercy the eldest daughter, forcing her to become the woman of the household at a young age.
unfortunately, in 1891, both mercy and her brother edwin come down with consumption themselves. in 1892, at 19 years old, mercy dies. edwin, however, is sent off into the world by his father, hoping to be cured simply by getting some fresh air (this was common practice, as you will notice in the dracula novel itself). a few months later, edwin returns home, even sicker than before despite him showing some progress while out in the world.
this is when several family friends start suggesting that one of their family members that had died was actually a vampire. you see, common folklore at the time often suggested that multiple deaths in a single family was linked to “undead activity.” so what exactly does that entail? well, they believed that one of the three dead family members was preying on edwin, feeding off his energy so they could stay alive themselves and therefore making him ill.
with permission from the father of the brown household, the townsfolk decide to exhume the three bodies—the mother, mary olive, and mercy. the mother and mary olive, having been dead for almost a decade, displayed the normal amount of decomposition. however, mercy, who had been dead for two months, had not decomposed at all, and even had blood still pumping in her heart and a flush on her face.
this is where the accounts of the story get the most blurry. many claim that the reason mercy was in perfect condition is because she was stored in a crypt until she could be officially buried, as she died in the winter when they couldn’t dig up the ground for a proper burial. with the conditions of the crypt and the frozen weather, her body was most likely frozen for those two months. other stories don’t mention this (pretty huge) aspect at all, instead just mentioning that the town doctor said her stage of decomposition was normal for how short a period she had been dead, but he was ignored.
here comes the very gruesome part! after this happened, many accounts claim edwin started reporting visions of his sister mercy sitting on his chest at night and strangling him. so, as was tradition in these cases, the townsfolk took mercy’s body, took out her heart and her liver, and burned them. the ashes were mixed with water to create a tonic for edwin to drink. this was expected to be the cure for his sickness, as mercy could no longer haunt him due to officially being dead. as you probably expected, though, edwin died soon after from consumption.
mercy’s remains have since been buried and properly marked.
9 notes · View notes
necroromancer · 2 years
Text
Tumblr media
2 notes · View notes
stodgysine145 · 2 years
Text
So fun fact now that Dracula is trending. Despite every thing we think Dracula was not mostly based on European Folklore at the time of its writing. It was written after the New England Vampire Panic, and more specifically Rhode Island. It was written after the story of suspected "vampire" Mercy Brown had been exhumed from her grave and had her heart removed and burned. This was one of if not the last instance of the New England Vampire Panic after it made international headlines framed as "New England Hicks Descarte Poor Mercy".
Here are some rough receipts.
Mercy Brown Incident 18892
Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in 1897.
2 notes · View notes
Text
Cursed Families, Vol. 2: The Brown Family
The Brown family of Rhode Island may be one of the most cursed families I’ve ever heard of – their story is truly horrific, both for the deaths, but also the vile way the corpses were handled posthumously (don’t worry – not major gory stuff here!). But were the Browns also the inspiration for one of the most famous books of all time? George Brown was a farmer in the sparsely populated Exeter,…
View On WordPress
0 notes
extenebrisonline · 2 years
Photo
Tumblr media
𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗖𝗬 𝗕𝗥𝗢𝗪𝗡: 𝗜𝗟 𝗣𝗥𝗜𝗠𝗢 𝗩𝗔𝗠𝗣𝗜𝗥𝗢 𝗔𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗡𝗢 
Chissà che cosa passò nella mente degli uomini che il 17/03/1892 varcarono la soglia del cimitero di Exeter, Rhode Island, con l'obiettivo di esumare i corpi di Olive, Elize e Mercy Brown. Immagino che fossero terrorizzati, seppur motivati dalla fede cristiana che li aveva spinti fin lì; in fondo, dal loro punto di vista, l' abominevole azione che erano in procinto di compiere serviva a salvare una vita: quella di Edwin, figlio di Olive e fratello di Elize e Mercy. 
Egli era da tempo malato di tisi, la stessa patologia che, nel giro di una manciata di anni, si era portata via entrambe le sorelle e la madre. La coincidenza non era passata inosservata ai membri della piccola comunità di Exeter, che in essa avevano scorto lo zampino del Male. La convinzione che una delle tre defunte, sotto forma di vampiro, si fosse presa la briga di spargere il morbo all'interno dell'onesta famiglia dei Brown, era finita col diventare una tetra certezza. Così, dopo non poche pressioni, George Brown, padre di Edwin, aveva autorizzato l'esumazione delle defunte. 
La macabra operazione era avvenuta sotto gli occhi degli abitanti e del medico del paese. I corpi di Olive e di Elize presentavano tutti i segni tipici della decomposizione: furono così rapidamente riposti nel luogo da cui erano stati strappati. Quello di Mercy, però, appariva fin troppo ben conservato; le unghie e i capelli erano cresciuti e, particolare agghiacciante, l'area intorno alla bocca presentava evidenti tracce di sangue. 
Oggi la scienza può spiegare tutti questi fenomeni senza necessariamente associarli al paranormale ma, agli occhi degli abitanti di Exeter, la salma di Mercy dovette rappresentare un'inequivocabile conferma di ciò che già sospettavano. Procedettero quindi a ficcarle un paletto nel petto, le asportarono il cuore ed il fegato e, dopo averli ridotti in cenere, li mescolarono a un tonico che avrebbe dovuto guarire il povero Edwin. 
Il tonico naturalmente non funzionò: Edwin si spense a distanza di poche settimane. Ma il mito di Mercy Brown, primo vampiro d'America, permane fino ai giorni nostri. 
Art by Carlyn Beccia
𝗦𝗲 𝘃𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶 𝗮𝗺𝗯𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗹𝗹’𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮 𝗱𝗶 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗢𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗼, 𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘁𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗹 𝗹𝗶𝗯𝗿𝗼 𝗜 𝗠𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶 𝗱𝗲𝗹 𝗙𝗮𝗿 𝗪𝗲𝘀𝘁, 𝗰𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸: https://amzn.to/3Qd9yFr
0 notes
the-chill-remains · 2 years
Text
The Last American Vampire - HISTORY
1 note · View note
creators-island · 7 months
Text
Tumblr media
Someone ask me to draw venom Hobie sooooo
870 notes · View notes
dimeadozencows · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media
I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before
I put my lips to the hands of the man who killed my son
354 notes · View notes
teddytheartist · 2 months
Text
Tumblr media
Asffsdghskjsllksj Brown Harry
I did more than just this one drawing but it’s sketches and I’m tired so have this, I’ll post more tmrw hehe
203 notes · View notes
eye-of-the-hawk · 1 month
Text
Tumblr media
Moicy baby au? In our lord 2k24? More likely than you think.
Hcs surrounding this au below the cut (screenshoted from my xitter bc I’m lazy)
Tumblr media
145 notes · View notes