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Strange Woods Podcast > Episode > Minisode 07 – Guess What I Heard: Vampire Mercy Brown

Episode

Minisode 07 – Guess What I Heard: Vampire Mercy Brown

Howdy and welcome to our latest GWIH minisode all about Vampire Mercy Brown! This Victorian-era vampire panic tale is quirky and weird and all the things we love! Settle in and fill them ear holes! Also keep your stakes sharp and garlic on hand. If you stay ready, you ain't got to get ready.

                                              STOP! INSIDE JOKES AHEAD!  

If you haven’t gotten to listen to the episode yet, spoiler alert! This post contains lots of stuff that will make waaay more sense if you listen to the episode before or while reading. So if you haven’t already, pump the brakes and listen to the episode or just click above to play so that you can be in on all the shenanigans to follow! 

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Produced by Peter Woodward

IN THE LATE 19TH CENTURY NEW ENGLAND...

A little bit of vampire panic setting in...

About 200 years after the infamous Salem witch trials, New England seemed to have an obsession with vampires. Public hysteria began to spread throughout the region regarding a link between multiple illnesses in one family somehow being attributed to the undead. 

Around 1810, outbreaks of a deadly disease referred to as “consumption” begin spreading through the area. This illness is what we now know to be tuberculosis, an extremely contagious infection in the lungs caused by bacteria. Symptoms included coughing, extreme and progressive fatigue, night sweats, and weight loss. As it progresses, suffers begin to cough up blood as well. Entire families were destroyed in weeks while doctors were left clueless about how treat this illness. 
 
It was an indiscriminate disease: young, old, healthy–everyone was getting sick. Doctors were clear that it was just a disease spreading quickly through the population, but the local public suspected something more sinister…a more spooky explanation…the vampire.

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Very superstitious...

Eventually theories developed that it must be some sort of vampire attack.
Local newspapers took it upon themselves to publish stories of vampire attacks and details about rituals from around the world for combating the vampires, feeding the paranoia.
 
Actions were taken by the townspeople to investigate and cease these suspected attacks. It became practice that the bodies of suspected vampires would be exhumed, looking for clues pointing to the presence of the undead.
 
It was thought that the most common sign that an exhumed body belonged to a vampire was a lack of decomposition. Another sign was the heart might still contain a lot of blood.
 
Initially, neighbors and family members decided who and when to dig up, but it eventually became so commonplace that town clergymen started to vote on which corpses would be investigated.

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Enter the Brown family of Exeter, Rhode Island

George and Mary Eliza Brown lived in Exeter, Rhode Island with their daughters Mary Olive and Mercy Lena and their son, Edwin. 
 
In 1892, both the mother and elder sister contracted consumption. Mary Eliza died, followed soon after by Mary Olive. The remaining daughter, Mercy, also then contracted the disease. She passed at the age of 19.
 
True to the times, the locals began to wonder if maybe a vampire in the family was to blame. Later, when his son Edwin became ill with all the same symptoms, George Brown gathered some of his neighbors to exhume the bodies of his wife and elder daughter to see if they were secretly vampires preying on the living members of the family.
 
When it was found that both Marys were in the expected condition and no “evidence” of their being undead was noted, they decided to exhume Mercy as well.
Mercy Lena Brown 1872-1892

Undead?

Upon exhuming her body, her remains were very well-preserved. Suspiciously so. Apparently, her corpse exhibited almost no decomposition, and her heart was full of blood. As such, despite the real world explanation, the people were convinced that Mercy was a vampire and had been behind all of the deaths.

In all likelihood, the condition of Mercy’s body would have been due to 

1) She died more recently than her mother and sister, and 

2) She died during the winter when the ground is frozen. This means her body would have been stored in an above ground crypt and kept preserved by the freezing temperatures.

Crypt where Mercy's body was kept

Regardless, the people of Exeter, including George Brown, decided that Mercy was indeed part of the legion of the undead and needed to be stopped. 

They removed her heart and liver and burned them. They combined the ashes with water and gave it to Edwin. This “elixir” was intended as a “cure” for his undead-induced illness. 

Edwin died two months later.

Despite this turn of events, no other family members or neighbors fell ill after these measures were taken. As such, the family and town ultimately deemed this a successful treatment. 

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Today...

Mercy’s remains were reburied in Chestnut Hill Cemetery near the rest of her family. Her headstone remains to this day beneath an evergreen tree. The site is visited very frequently, and people often leave gifts for her. 

She is even considered Rhode Island’s Most Famous Mythical Creature. 

OTHER STUFF WE DISCUSSED...

In the news...

The newspaper article Peter read comes from the St. Charles Herald and is dated September 6, 1884. We found it interesting because, hey, it’s from our neck of the strange woods. 

The article basically talks about the writer’s disbelief about how in that day and age, vampirism was still believed in by seemingly intelligent people. 

So was burning the heart and organs of a suspected vampire some sort of standard? Where did that come from?

Apparently, in Romania, the common practice to dispose of a vampire or strigoi was the removal and burning of the heart as well as the burning of the entire body. It also included fun things like removing the head and reburying the corpse with the head resting at its feet and, of course, a stake through the heart. 

An article about a well-documented execution of a strigoi in 1920 details the very same recipe and methods utilized with Mercy Brown: ashes of the heart and liver mixed with water and given to those who had become recently ill. Wow.

 

And that leads us into the mixology portion of our day!! Woot!

MERCY BROWN MARTINI or A BLOODY MERCY

Ingredients:

  • Frozen, blood-filled heart of recently deceased undead girl
  • Frozen liver of recently deceased undead girl
  • Water (flat or sparkling depending on preference)

Directions:

Step 1: Remove frozen heart and liver from corpse.

Step 2: Preheat fire to blazing and incinerate heart and liver until reduced to ash. 

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Step 3: Once reduced to ash, collect ash mixture and place into vessel of choice. 

Step 4: Add water and mix thoroughly. Can be shaken or stirred, of course.

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Step 5: Garnish with garlic, medicinal herbs, etc. 

Step 6: Drink as needed to cure all maladies brought on by prolonged contact with the undead! Enjoy!

Delicious! And effective!

Follow me for more recipes. 😉

We also found out that Jeremy may have aspirations of being a vampire doctor. He will invent diseases that allow him to prey on the unsuspecting and generally be up to no good. Sounds like a plan. Good luck, sir. 

Sweet! Another one in the vault! Thanks for stopping by! We hope you are continuing to enjoy the minisodes and episodes as much as we are.

 Please let us know what you think and what you want us to talk about. As you’ve probably figured out if you’ve come this far with us, we LOVE to talk!

Takeaways for today: Don’t be like the New Englanders. Keep calm and carry on. Try to not panic. Most especially, try not to vampire panic. So look…

 

If you see this…

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Use this.

If you see one of these…

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Hang up some of this.

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You can keep a good supply of garlic and a nicely organized vampire kill kit nearby: we’re reasonable. But make sure you don’t panic. Then you’ll just end up digging up dead bodies and making burnt organ smoothies. And who wants that? Nobody. 

Calmly manage undead and remember to STAY STRANGE!

Some articles and sources:

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