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The Infographics Show, USA Vampire Outbreak Problem

USA Vampire Outbreak Problem

People were dropping like flies; the young, the middle-aged and the old.

One day these people were healthy and the next day they came down with something

quite awful. It was as if the devil himself moved through towns like a miasma, filling the mouths of

the innocent and silently killing them, draining them of their blood... of their very lifeforce.

“Vampires!” screamed the townsfolk, “Here they be vampires! Evil has announced itself in this town.”

It seemed a good enough theory to good Christian people who believed

evil was as omnipresent as the air they breathed. During the night the mobs got together, the flames

from their tiki torches blowing in the wind. They went out in search of the maleficent spirits,

the dead that had risen again to plague the town. They would find the vampires, and exorcise them so

they could cause no more pain and death. This happened late 1700s and throughout

the , in the USA, a time of vampires that most of America has now forgotten.

Fast-forward to the year 1990 and some kids are playing on a hillside

in a small town called Griswold in the state of Connecticut. One of those kids finds something,

something that makes his blood run cold. He runs home to his house and says to his

mother, “Hey mom, look what I found.” In his hands are a human skull. The mother

almost drops the dish she's holding, and gets on the phone to the police.

It turned out that this kid had discovered a cemetery that dated back to what archaeologists

thought was the late 1700s or early 1800s. They started digging, and soon discovered a number

of skeletal remains, many of them of children. That wasn't too unusual. Back then life was tough,

people died young, and folks didn't have the money to erect large gravestones.

But what was certainly unusual, was the fact some of those graves contained the bones of people

who'd been accused of being vampires. Let's take you back to the start.

So, when this kid revealed to his mom that skull her first thoughts of course were not,

“Hmm, that could be the remains of a vampire.” What she thought was,

“Oh my God, someone may have been murdered.” That's exactly what the police thought, too, since

a serial killer named Michael Ross had killed eight people in the 1980s and three of the victims

were from Griswold. Maybe there were more victims, and so the cops made the hillside a crime scene.

But then more remains were found, 29 in all. A forensic archaeologist was called to the scene

and he soon explained that there was no way those skeletons were once the living victims of Ross.

They dated back to the colonial era, a time when people in that area buried their loved ones in

uncomplicated wooden coffins. The remains, for the most part, were found in the normal position.

They were laid down with arms folded over the rib cage or down by their side.

But not “Burial Number 4”, this was a special case and it confounded archaeologists.

They had to dig deeper to get to this crypt, and unlike the others it was made of stone.

It was as if this person had been buried in a way so that it could not rise again.

The archaeologists struggled to remove the heavy stones that were guarding the coffin,

a box that strangely had been painted red.

What they found was not the skeletal remains of someone laid to rest intact,

but bones that had been severed. The limbs had been cut up and the head had been chopped off,

and the bones had been rearranged to look something like a pirate's Jolly Roger flag.

Not only had the remains been smashed and taken apart, but the coffin had been partly wrecked.

Someone had dug those remains up and proceeded to tear them apart.

How unusual, thought the team of archaeologists. Those guys and some historians were confused by

what they saw before them. None of the bodies were buried with any valuables so it wasn't a case or

grave-robbing, and it seemed highly unlikely that anyone would have made the effort to dig

down deep, cut apart what was left of a dead body, and then re-bury it, for no good reason.

Then one historian's mind lit up and he believed he knew what had gone down. He

asked his colleagues working on the case if they had ever heard of the Jewett City vampires.

“What,” his colleagues said, “vampires in the USA!?”

“Yep,” said the historian, New England was once plagued by vampires…or

at least that's what people thought. Jewett City was a settlement in the U.S.

that now stands in the town of Griswold. In fact, that hillside cemetery is located in Jewett City.

In 1845, a young and healthy man from the Ray family suddenly became very sick and he died

shortly after. The next to go was the father a few years later, and a couple of years after that,

another child of the family died. A year later and yet another member of the Ray family died,

and people began to think the family was cursed…Perhaps evil

spirits were at work, namely, vampires. Word got around, and soon various parts

of New England thought they were under attack from vampires. People indeed were dropping like flies,

and the townsfolk weren't exactly familiar with medical science.

The dead were rising again and taking others down with them,

so someone had the bright idea of tearing out the heart, or lungs, or head, of the deceased

and burning them. This, they thought, would keep the dead down and no one else would die.

But more people kept dying, despite the ad hoc surgery and the burning of the vital organs.

More drastic measures had to be taken, and that meant exhuming more bodies and cutting the remains

apart. The rationale was that the dead couldn't rise if they were legless, heartless and headless.

This wasn't only happening in Griswold. In New Hampshire in the mid-19th century there

were many small towns where people believed they were under attack from the evilest of spirits.

A newspaper clipping from 1840 explains how vampire panic was moving through other towns in

New Hampshire. This is what was written about what people did to the corpse of one alleged vampire:

“This was disinterring a human body, which belonged to a family all strongly predisposed

to consumption, for the purpose of removing the heart, which was burned, the ashes of

which were considered a sovereign remedy to those of the family who were still living,

and might be afflicted with the same disease.” The practice didn't only happen in New England,

and historians now think that if bodies all over certain parts of the USA were exhumed

it would be found that ribs had been cracked open and heads had been chopped off.

Sometimes this happened right after the death, but at other times the bodies were

dug up and the dismantling and burning began. There were reported cases in Massachusetts,

Ohio, and Vermont, and each involved many members of families suddenly getting very ill and dying.

In each case, in each state, to save anyone else from an early death, either the head,

or the heart, or the lungs, or all three, were removed from the deceased and burned.

They watched the burning of the heart, each clinging to the belief that now

they were safe from this man turning into a vampire and taking their family members out.

Newspapers across the U.S. gained knowledge of this strange practice pervading small towns in

the North East., with some of them calling the townsfolk superstitious and ill-educated, writing

that entire communities believed they had been stricken by evil spirits rising from the grave.

Some newspapers called it “vicious” and “barbaric” and said in this day and age

people should not believe in vampirism. As for the townsfolk, they thought they knew better,

and as you'll soon see, it wasn't only the uneducated rabble that believed in vampires.

Why were they doing this? Where did the belief come from?

Well, vampirism in the USA goes back a long way. In 1793, in New England a dead man's heart was

burned at a Blacksmith's forge and this is what was written about that at the time:

“Timothy Mead officiated at the altar in the sacrifice to the Demon Vampire who it

was believed was still sucking the blood of the then living wife of Captain Burton.

It was the month of February and a good slaying.” A good slaying! And this happened during a period

called, “The Age of Reason.” The age of un-reason more like.

In Woodstock, Vermont, in the early 1800s a 20-year old man named Frederick Ransom suddenly

fell ill and died. He was buried, but then his father decided to have the body of his son exhumed

and his heart burned on a blacksmith's forge. Was he under pressure from the townsfolk to

do this or did he do it to save the rest of his family? We ask that because hundreds of

local people turned up to watch the burning of this recently deceased dead man's heart.

The whole town was possessed by the belief that vampires were killing their young.

Now we can fast-forward to the year 1892 and look at the death of a 19-year old girl

named Mercy Brown. Her death and subsequent accusation of being a vampire is perhaps the

case that was most reported in the media. She died in Exeter, New Hampshire,

but not before her mother and elder sister died. Mercy and her elder brother then got sick,

and soon people living within the vicinity became very scared, believing that this family would rise

again and infect them with the illness. More members of the Brown family died

and one of last surviving members under pressure from the townsfolk

granted the town permission to exhume the bodies. The mob got their shovels ready and headed over to

the place where the dead were buried. Most of the corpses were horribly decomposed, but not

Mercy…Mercy looked almost as sweet as she had been when she was alive and it was said

blood was still in her heart. An actual newspaper report from

back then said, “The heart and liver were removed, and in cutting open the heart,

clotted and decomposed blood was found.” The people didn't understand that Mercy

had been stored in a cold crypt during the winter, and so her body was preserved. Nope, they believed

that the girl was undead and she was to blame for numerous other Browns' deaths. Her brother

at the time of her death was now very ill, and the people thought that maybe he could be saved.

At the time the “Providence Journal” wrote that Mercy had likely been surviving in the

afterlife by consuming the “living tissue and blood” of her brother. The journal mentions the

word “vampire” but it's unlikely that this word was used by locals. That's debatable at least.

The locals burned Mercy's heart and lungs and turned them into ashes. They then mixed those

ashes with a tonic and gave the drink to Mercy's brother, since he was now knocking

on death's door. Did the drink save him? The answer is no. The boy died two months later.

Still, that didn't stop local communities in various states digging up more of the dead.

Historians and folklorists now say this vampire panic swept through many towns and communities

in the region and there are newspaper clippings and other historical data that shows it. Even

the great American philosopher Henry David Thoreau wrote about the vampire superstition.

In 1959, he wrote, “The savage in man is never quite eradicated. I have just read of a family

in Vermont—who, several of its members having died of consumption, just burned the lungs and

heart and liver of the last deceased, in order to prevent any more from having it.”

There is evidence that it wasn't only the ignorant locals that got down with burning

parts of corpses, sometimes local doctors and even members of the church gave their

blessing or even took part in the ceremonies. The people were not possessed by any kind of

evil spirit, and we think that we don't need to point that out to you. What they were dying of was

tuberculosis, which was then called consumption. In towns throughout the North East of the U.S,

many of them blighted with abject poverty, this disease was killing

about a quarter of the people in the 1800s. The problem back then was that there was no

cure for this disease and it wasn't understood very well, so the townsfolk were pretty much

constantly worried out of their minds. Organ burning was their only hope…albeit one that

was macabre, unholy, and just plain wrong. But then what could they do? People would

watch in terror as their once healthy family members became horribly feverish

and later started coughing up blood. This is how it was described by one writer back then:

“The emaciated figure strikes one with terror. The forehead covered with drops of sweat; the cheeks

painted with a livid crimson, the eyes sunk.” They'd then start coughing up blood and it

seemed to onlookers that blood was being drained from them.

What kind of evil thing would do such a thing? A vampire of course. These people,

isolated as they were from most of the world, did in fact believe in evil spirits.

They hung things in their houses to ward off the devil…some of them even thought that dead

people bled when in the presence of the person that killed them. How's that for police work…

It wasn't always the family that wanted to exhume the bodies to save the rest of the members,

but pressure came from the people of the town. They didn't want those

undead to enter their houses. It was simply a case of mass hysteria in a time when many

seemingly healthy people were dying. It was the historical equivalent of hoarding toilet paper.

To be fair to the townsfolk, there was nothing they could have done to save the victims. There

was no cure until the 1940s, and until then, people died a horrible death, and indeed,

it seemed that something sinister was draining the blood and lifeforce from entire families.

They prayed and prayed and said things like, “I blow the wind of God on you. You

are destroyed forever, and you'll never be back.” Unfortunately, their prayers were never answered,

so they went after the devil by themselves. Are people still superstitious in those parts?

Well, there are rumors right now that when the spirit of Mercy hangs around,

a person's olfactory sense notices the sweet smell of roses. In the cemetery where she's buried,

some people believe her voice can still be heard. As for the devil...he's still doing his dastardly

business for a lot of people in those parts. Now you really have to watch, US Soldiers

Use Vampires To Terrify Enemies. Or, watch this one instead… if you dare.

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USA Vampire Outbreak Problem États-Unis||| USA Problem des Vampirausbruchs ΗΠΑ Βρικόλακας πρόβλημα ξεσπάσματος Problema del brote de vampiros en EE.UU. Problème de l'épidémie de vampires aux États-Unis Problema dell'epidemia di vampiri negli USA アメリカの吸血鬼発生問題 미국 뱀파이어 발생 문제 JAV vampyrų protrūkio problema Problem epidemii wampirów w USA Problema do surto de vampiros nos EUA Проблема вспышки вампиризма в США ABD Vampir Salgını Sorunu Проблема спалаху вампіризму в США 美国吸血鬼爆发问题 美國吸血鬼爆發問題

People were dropping like flies; the  young, the middle-aged and the old. Mensen lieten zich vallen als vliegen; de jongeren, de middelbare leeftijd en de ouderen.

One day these people were healthy and the  next day they came down with something Un giorno queste persone erano in buona salute e il giorno dopo si sono ammalate di qualcosa che le ha colpite.

quite awful. It was as if the devil himself moved  through towns like a miasma, filling the mouths of ||||||||||||||noxious atmosphere||||

the innocent and silently killing them, draining  them of their blood... of their very lifeforce. ||||||||||||||force vitale

“Vampires!” screamed the townsfolk, “Here they be  vampires! Evil has announced itself in this town.” |||habitants du village||||||||||| |||Stadtbewohner||||||||||| |||local residents|||||||||||

It seemed a good enough theory to  good Christian people who believed

evil was as omnipresent as the air they breathed. During the night the mobs got together, the flames |||||||||||||foules hostiles|||| |||allgegenwärtig|||||||||||||| |||ever-present|||||inhaled|||||||||

from their tiki torches blowing in the wind. They  went out in search of the maleficent spirits, ||torches tiki|||||||||||||maléfiques| |||Fackeln||||||||||||bösartigen Geister| |||||||||||||||evil or harmful| от их тики-факелов, раздуваемых ветром. Они отправились на поиски злых духов,

the dead that had risen again to plague the town.  They would find the vampires, and exorcise them so ||||come back to life|||||||||||||| de doden die weer waren opgestaan om de stad te plagen. Ze zouden de vampiers vinden en ze zo uitdrijven

they could cause no more pain and death. This happened late 1700s and throughout |||||||||||||tout au long

the , in the USA, a time of vampires  that most of America has now forgotten. |||États-Unis|||||||||||

Fast-forward to the year 1990 and  some kids are playing on a hillside ||||||||||||coteau

in a small town called Griswold in the state of  Connecticut. One of those kids finds something, |||||Griswold|||||||||||

something that makes his blood run cold. He runs home to his house and says to his

mother, “Hey mom, look what I found.” In  his hands are a human skull. The mother |||||||||||||Schädel||

almost drops the dish she's holding,  and gets on the phone to the police. |||plate||||||||||

It turned out that this kid had discovered a  cemetery that dated back to what archaeologists |||||||||Friedhof||||||

thought was the late 1700s or early 1800s. They  started digging, and soon discovered a number

of skeletal remains, many of them of children. That wasn't too unusual. Back then life was tough, |ossements squelettiques||||||||||||||| 骨骼遗骸,其中许多是儿童。这并不算太不寻常。那时生活艰苦,

people died young, and folks didn't have  the money to erect large gravestones. ||||gens||||||ériger||pierres tombales ||||||||||errichten|| mensen stierven jong, en mensen hadden niet het geld om grote grafstenen te bouwen. 人们英年早逝,人们没有钱竖立大墓碑。

But what was certainly unusual, was the fact some  of those graves contained the bones of people

who'd been accused of being vampires. Let's take you back to the start. ||beschuldigt worden||||||||||

So, when this kid revealed to his mom that  skull her first thoughts of course were not,

“Hmm, that could be the remains of  a vampire.” What she thought was,

“Oh my God, someone may have been murdered.” That's exactly what the police thought, too, since

a serial killer named Michael Ross had killed  eight people in the 1980s and three of the victims |||||Ross||||||||||||

were from Griswold. Maybe there were more victims,  and so the cops made the hillside a crime scene.

But then more remains were found, 29 in all. A  forensic archaeologist was called to the scene |||||||||médico-légal|||||| |||||||||forensisch||||||

and he soon explained that there was no way those  skeletons were once the living victims of Ross.

They dated back to the colonial era, a time when  people in that area buried their loved ones in ||||||époque coloniale||||||||||||

uncomplicated wooden coffins. The remains, for  the most part, were found in the normal position. |en bois||||||||||||normale|position normale einfach||||||||||||||

They were laid down with arms folded  over the rib cage or down by their side. ||posés||||croisés|||cage thoracique||||||

But not “Burial Number 4”, this was a special  case and it confounded archaeologists. ||Sépulture|||||||||déconcerté| |||||||||||verwirrte| |||||||||||puzzled|

They had to dig deeper to get to this crypt,  and unlike the others it was made of stone.

It was as if this person had been buried  in a way so that it could not rise again. ||||||||laid to rest||||||||||

The archaeologists struggled to remove the  heavy stones that were guarding the coffin,

a box that strangely had been painted red.

What they found was not the skeletal  remains of someone laid to rest intact,

but bones that had been severed. The limbs had  been cut up and the head had been chopped off, |||||||membres||||||||||tranchée| |||||abgetrennt||Gliedmaßen||||||||||| |||||cut off|||||||||||||

and the bones had been rearranged to look  something like a pirate's Jolly Roger flag. |||||umgeordnet|||||||||

Not only had the remains been smashed and taken  apart, but the coffin had been partly wrecked. ||||||||||||||||endommagé ||||||||||||Sarg||||beschädigt

Someone had dug those remains up  and proceeded to tear them apart. Кто-то выкопал эти останки и принялся разрывать их на части.

How unusual, thought the team of archaeologists. Those guys and some historians were confused by

what they saw before them. None of the bodies were  buried with any valuables so it wasn't a case or |||||||||||||objets de valeur|||||| |||||||||||||precious items||||||

grave-robbing, and it seemed highly unlikely  that anyone would have made the effort to dig

down deep, cut apart what was left of a dead  body, and then re-bury it, for no good reason.

Then one historian's mind lit up and he  believed he knew what had gone down. He

asked his colleagues working on the case if  they had ever heard of the Jewett City vampires. ||||||||||||||vampires de Jewett|| vroeg zijn collega's die aan de zaak werkten of ze ooit hadden gehoord van de vampiers van Jewett City.

“What,” his colleagues said,  “vampires in the USA!?”

“Yep,” said the historian, New England  was once plagued by vampires…or ||||||||heimgesucht von|||

at least that's what people thought. Jewett City was a settlement in the U.S. |minimum|||||||||||||

that now stands in the town of Griswold. In fact,  that hillside cemetery is located in Jewett City. которое сейчас находится в городе Грисволд. На самом деле кладбище на холме находится в Джуэтт-Сити.

In 1845, a young and healthy man from the Ray  family suddenly became very sick and he died ||||||||Rayon||||||||

shortly after. The next to go was the father a  few years later, and a couple of years after that,

another child of the family died. A year later  and yet another member of the Ray family died,

and people began to think the  family was cursed…Perhaps evil

spirits were at work, namely, vampires. Word got around, and soon various parts

of New England thought they were under attack from  vampires. People indeed were dropping like flies, |||||||||||tatsächlich|||| Жители Новой Англии думали, что на них напали вампиры. Люди действительно падали как мухи,

and the townsfolk weren't exactly  familiar with medical science.

The dead were rising again and  taking others down with them, Мертвые воскресали и уносили с собой других,

so someone had the bright idea of tearing out  the heart, or lungs, or head, of the deceased ||||||||||||poumons||||| |||||||ripping out|||||||||| |||||||||||||||||Verstorbenen

and burning them. This, they thought, would  keep the dead down and no one else would die.

But more people kept dying, despite the ad hoc  surgery and the burning of the vital organs. |||||||publicité improvisée|ad hoc|||||||| ||||||||ad hoc||||||||

More drastic measures had to be taken, and that  meant exhuming more bodies and cutting the remains ||Maßnahmen||||||||"ausgraben"|||||| ||||||||||digging up|||||| Пришлось прибегнуть к более радикальным мерам, а это означало эксгумацию новых тел и разрезание останков.

apart. The rationale was that the dead couldn't  rise if they were legless, heartless and headless. ||reasoning|||||||||||||

This wasn't only happening in Griswold. In  New Hampshire in the mid-19th century there ||||||||New Hampshire||||||

were many small towns where people believed they  were under attack from the evilest of spirits. |||||||||||||les plus maléfiques|| |||||||||||||most malevolent||

A newspaper clipping from 1840 explains how  vampire panic was moving through other towns in ||coupure de presse||||||||||| ||Zeitungsausschnitt||||||||||| ||newspaper excerpt|||||||||||

New Hampshire. This is what was written about what  people did to the corpse of one alleged vampire: |||||||||||||Leiche|||angeblich| |New Hampshire|||||||||||||||supposed| ||||||||||||||||présumé|

“This was disinterring a human body, which  belonged to a family all strongly predisposed ||exhumation de corps||||||||||| ||"ausgraben"|||||||||||veranlagt ||Exhuming|||||||||||Inclined toward something

to consumption, for the purpose of removing  the heart, which was burned, the ashes of |consommation|||||enlevant|||||||| |Verzehr|||zum Zweck|||||||||Asche von| |To consume|||||||||||||

which were considered a sovereign remedy to  those of the family who were still living, ||||remède souverain|remède souverain||||||||| ||als angesehen|||Heilmittel||||||||| ||||ultimate cure|||||||||| которые считались суверенным средством для тех членов семьи, которые еще были живы,

and might be afflicted with the same disease.” The practice didn't only happen in New England, |||affecté|||||||||||| |||"befallen"|||||||||||| |||suffering from||||||||||||

and historians now think that if bodies all  over certain parts of the USA were exhumed |||||||||||||||ausgegraben würden

it would be found that ribs had been  cracked open and heads had been chopped off. |||||côtes|||fêlées|||||||

Sometimes this happened right after the  death, but at other times the bodies were ||||||||||fois|||

dug up and the dismantling and burning began. There were reported cases in Massachusetts, ||||Abbau|||||||||

Ohio, and Vermont, and each involved many members  of families suddenly getting very ill and dying. |||||||||||||très malades||

In each case, in each state, to save anyone  else from an early death, either the head,

or the heart, or the lungs, or all three,  were removed from the deceased and burned.

They watched the burning of the heart,  each clinging to the belief that now ||||||||s'accrochant à||||| ||||||||sich klammernd|||||

they were safe from this man turning into a  vampire and taking their family members out.

Newspapers across the U.S. gained knowledge of  this strange practice pervading small towns in |||||acquis||||||se répandant dans||| |||||erlangten||||||durchdringend||| |||||||||||spreading throughout|||

the North East., with some of them calling the  townsfolk superstitious and ill-educated, writing ||||||||||superstitieux|||| ||||||||||abergläubisch||||

that entire communities believed they had been  stricken by evil spirits rising from the grave. |||||||frappées par||||||| |||||||heimgesucht worden||||||| |||||||afflicted by|||||||

Some newspapers called it “vicious” and  “barbaric” and said in this day and age

people should not believe in vampirism. As for  the townsfolk, they thought they knew better, |||||belief in vampires|||||||||

and as you'll soon see, it wasn't only the  uneducated rabble that believed in vampires. |||||||||non éduqués|populace ignorante|||| ||||||||||Pöbel||||

Why were they doing this?  Where did the belief come from?

Well, vampirism in the USA goes back a long way. In 1793, in New England a dead man's heart was Вампиризм в США имеет давние корни. В 1793 году в Новой Англии сердце мертвеца было

burned at a Blacksmith's forge and this is  what was written about that at the time: |||forge du forgeron|||||||||||| ||||Schmiede|||||||||||

“Timothy Mead officiated at the altar in  the sacrifice to the Demon Vampire who it Timothy Mead|Timothy Mead|a officié|||autel||||||||| ||amtierte||||||Opferung|||||| "Тимоти Мид служил у алтаря во время жертвоприношения демону-вампиру, который

was believed was still sucking the blood  of the then living wife of Captain Burton. ||||sucer||||||||||Capitaine Burton ||||saugte||||||||||

It was the month of February and a good slaying.” A good slaying! And this happened during a period |||||||||"meurtre réussi"|||||||||période |||||||||gutes Töten||||||||| ||||||||||||successful kill|||||| Это был месяц февраль и хорошее убийство". Хорошее убийство! И это произошло в период

called, “The Age of Reason.”  The age of un-reason more like. под названием "Век Разума". Скорее, век неразумия.

In Woodstock, Vermont, in the early 1800s a  20-year old man named Frederick Ransom suddenly |À Woodstock|||||||||||Frédéric Ransom|rançon|

fell ill and died. He was buried, but then his  father decided to have the body of his son exhumed

and his heart burned on a blacksmith's forge. Was he under pressure from the townsfolk to

do this or did he do it to save the rest of  his family? We ask that because hundreds of

local people turned up to watch the burning  of this recently deceased dead man's heart.

The whole town was possessed by the belief  that vampires were killing their young. ||||possédée par||||||||| ||||besessen von der||||||||| ||||gripped by|||||||||

Now we can fast-forward to the year 1892  and look at the death of a 19-year old girl

named Mercy Brown. Her death and subsequent  accusation of being a vampire is perhaps the |||||||accusation d'être||||||| |||||||Anschuldigung||||||| |||||||being a vampire|||||||

case that was most reported in the media. She died in Exeter, New Hampshire, |||||||||||Exeter, New Hampshire||

but not before her mother and elder sister  died. Mercy and her elder brother then got sick, Но не раньше, чем умерли ее мать и старшая сестра. Затем Мерси и ее старший брат заболели,

and soon people living within the vicinity became  very scared, believing that this family would rise ||||||voisinage||||||||| ||||||nearby area|||||||||

again and infect them with the illness. More members of the Brown family died

and one of last surviving members  under pressure from the townsfolk

granted the town permission to exhume the bodies. The mob got their shovels ready and headed over to |||||||||foule|||pelles|||se dirigea vers|| |||||ausgraben||||Menschenmenge||||||||

the place where the dead were buried. Most of  the corpses were horribly decomposed, but not |||||||||||||verwest||

Mercy…Mercy looked almost as sweet as she  had been when she was alive and it was said |||||douce||||||||||||

blood was still in her heart. An actual newspaper report from |||||||réel||| |||||||||news article|

back then said, “The heart and liver were  removed, and in cutting open the heart, ||||||foie|||||||| Затем он сказал: "Сердце и печень были удалены, и, вскрывая сердце,

clotted and decomposed blood was found.” The people didn't understand that Mercy coagulé||||||||||| geronnen||geronnen und zersetzt|||||||||

had been stored in a cold crypt during the winter,  and so her body was preserved. Nope, they believed ||gelagert worden||||Gruft|||||||||konserviert|||

that the girl was undead and she was to blame  for numerous other Browns' deaths. Her brother |||||||||||nombreux||morts mystérieuses||| |||||||||||many|||||

at the time of her death was now very ill, and  the people thought that maybe he could be saved.

At the time the “Providence Journal” wrote  that Mercy had likely been surviving in the

afterlife by consuming the “living tissue and  blood” of her brother. The journal mentions the |||||||||||||mentionne le| Jenseits||||||||||||||

word “vampire” but it's unlikely that this word  was used by locals. That's debatable at least. |||||||||||||discutable au moins|| |||||||||||||umstritten||

The locals burned Mercy's heart and lungs and  turned them into ashes. They then mixed those ||||||||||||||mélangèrent ceux-ci|

ashes with a tonic and gave the drink to  Mercy's brother, since he was now knocking |||tonique||||||||||||frappant à la porte |||Tonikum|||||||||||| пепел с тоником и дал выпить брату Мерси, так как он теперь стучал

on death's door. Did the drink save him? The  answer is no. The boy died two months later.

Still, that didn't stop local communities in  various states digging up more of the dead. |||empêcher|||||||||||

Historians and folklorists now say this vampire  panic swept through many towns and communities ||folkloristes||||||s'est propagée||||| ||Folkloristen||||||||||| ||folklore experts||||||spread rapidly through|||||

in the region and there are newspaper clippings  and other historical data that shows it. Even |||||||coupures de journaux||||||montre||Même |||||||Zeitungsausschnitte||||||||

the great American philosopher Henry David  Thoreau wrote about the vampire superstition. |||philosophe américain|||Thoreau||||| |||||||||||Aberglaube

In 1959, he wrote, “The savage in man is never  quite eradicated. I have just read of a family ||||||||||éradiqué||||||| ||||Wilde||||||ausgerottet||||||| ||||primal nature||||||||||||| В 1959 году он написал: "Дикарь в человеке никогда не искореняется полностью. Я только что прочитал о семье

in Vermont—who, several of its members having  died of consumption, just burned the lungs and ||||||||||tuberculosis|||||

heart and liver of the last deceased, in  order to prevent any more from having it.”

There is evidence that it wasn't only the  ignorant locals that got down with burning

parts of corpses, sometimes local doctors  and even members of the church gave their

blessing or even took part in the ceremonies. The people were not possessed by any kind of Segen||||||||||||||||

evil spirit, and we think that we don't need to  point that out to you. What they were dying of was |esprit maléfique|||||||||||||||||||

tuberculosis, which was then called consumption.  In towns throughout the North East of the U.S, tuberculose, alors appelée||||||||||||||| |||||Schwindsucht||||||||||

many of them blighted with abject  poverty, this disease was killing |||ravagés par|||pauvreté abjecte|||| |||verheert||erbärmlich|Armut||||

about a quarter of the people in the 1800s. The problem back then was that there was no ||un quart|||||||||||||||

cure for this disease and it wasn't understood  very well, so the townsfolk were pretty much |||||||compris|||||||| Heilmittel|||||||||||||||

constantly worried out of their minds. Organ  burning was their only hope…albeit one that |constamment inquiet||||esprits|||||||bien que|| ||||||||||||wenn auch|| ||||||||||||although it was||

was macabre, unholy, and just plain wrong. But then what could they do? People would |macabre|impie|||tout simplement||||||||| |makaber, unheilig|unheilig||||||||||||

watch in terror as their once healthy  family members became horribly feverish ||terreur|||||||||fiévreux |||||||||||fiebrig |||||||||||burning with fever

and later started coughing up blood. This is  how it was described by one writer back then: |||Husten von Blut|||||||||||||

“The emaciated figure strikes one with terror. The  forehead covered with drops of sweat; the cheeks |La figure émaciée|silhouette émaciée|frappe avec terreur|||||front couvert de|||||sueur||joues |abgemagerte||||||||||||||Wangen |severely underweight|||||||||||||| "Истощенная фигура поражает ужасом. Лоб покрыт каплями пота, щеки

painted with a livid crimson, the eyes sunk.” They'd then start coughing up blood and it |||cramoisi livide|cramoisi vif|||enfoncés|ils avaient||||||| |||"leuchtend"|blutrot||||||||||| geschilderd met een razend karmozijnrood, de ogen verzonken. " Ze zouden dan bloed gaan ophoesten en zo окрасились в пунцовый цвет, глаза запали". Затем они начинают кашлять кровью, и это

seemed to onlookers that blood  was being drained from them. ||spectateurs|||||vidé|| |||||||ausgesaugt|| toeschouwers leken dat er bloed uit hen werd afgevoerd.

What kind of evil thing would do such a  thing? A vampire of course. These people,

isolated as they were from most of the  world, did in fact believe in evil spirits.

They hung things in their houses to ward off  the devil…some of them even thought that dead |accrochaient||||||éloigner||||||||||

people bled when in the presence of the person  that killed them. How's that for police work… |saignaient||||présence||||||||||| |bluteten||||||||||||||| люди истекали кровью в присутствии человека, который их убил. Как вам такая работа полиции...

It wasn't always the family that wanted to exhume  the bodies to save the rest of the members,

but pressure came from the people  of the town. They didn't want those

undead to enter their houses. It was simply  a case of mass hysteria in a time when many |||||||||||hystérie collective|||||| ||||||||||||Massenhysterie|||||

seemingly healthy people were dying. It was the  historical equivalent of hoarding toilet paper. apparemment|||||||||||stockage excessif|| |||||||||||Hamstern||

To be fair to the townsfolk, there was nothing  they could have done to save the victims. There ||||||||||||fait|||||

was no cure until the 1940s, and until then,  people died a horrible death, and indeed, ||Heilmittel|||||||||||||

it seemed that something sinister was draining  the blood and lifeforce from entire families. ||||sinistre||||||||| ||||unheimlich|||||||||

They prayed and prayed and said things  like, “I blow the wind of God on you. You |ont prié||||||||||||||| Они молились, молились и говорили что-то вроде: "Я дую на тебя Божий ветер. Ты

are destroyed forever, and you'll never be back.”  Unfortunately, their prayers were never answered,

so they went after the devil by themselves. Are people still superstitious in those parts? поэтому они отправились за дьяволом в одиночку. Неужели в тех краях люди все еще суеверны?

Well, there are rumors right now that  when the spirit of Mercy hangs around, ||||||||||||traîne|

a person's olfactory sense notices the sweet smell  of roses. In the cemetery where she's buried, ||olfactif||||||||||||| ||olfaktorisch|||||||||||||

some people believe her voice can still be heard.  As for the devil...he's still doing his dastardly |||||||||||||||||infâme |||||||||||||||||niederträchtig handeln

business for a lot of people in those parts. Now you really have to watch, US Soldiers

Use Vampires To Terrify Enemies. Or,  watch this one instead… if you dare.