This is a work of fiction, but is based on historic events that took place in other parts of Vermont during the “Vampire Craze.”
Having spent a long night tending to her sick husband, Martha Adams was glad to be out in the crisp early morning air to milk the family cow. Resting her head against the cow’s side, Martha was soothed by its warmth and slowly began to milk.
It had been about five years ago when Charles, Martha’s husband, began to cough. Year after year, she watched as the life drained out of him. It was as if his body was wasting away leaving him with very pale skin, but rosy cheeks. “How odd,” Martha thought. It had been several years now that Charles spent most of his days in the bed or a chair, starring out at the fields he could no longer plant or harvest.
“Thank goodness for my children and my business as a seamstress.” Martha recalled how she hated sewing as a child but her mother had insisted saying, “Someday you will be very glad to have this skill.” And indeed she was grateful. As Charles could do less and less, her two daughters Emily, 18 years old, and Susan 16 years old, had begun working with her. In fact, they had done so well, they were the dress and milliners for Cavendish and beyond. Emily was turning into an exceptional milliner and two women from Woodstock had visited just last week to have her make hats for them.
Her reverie was short lived as she heard a piercing scream,”Ma!” It was Emily. Nearly knocking over the milking pan in her haste to get up, Martha ran to the house. Emily was standing in the doorway with tears streaming down her face. “It’s Papa,” she said. “He’s gone.”
“Gone?” asked Martha
“He’s dead,” replied Emily.
The other children had come running when they heard Emily’s cry. The three boys, the twins Jeremiah and Noah, 15 years old and Zachary 13, had been tending to barn chores and soon were standing next to their mother outside, while Emily and Susan clung to each other crying in the doorway.
It wasn’t long before neighbors and family gathered and activities were underway to bury Charles. While a sad time, Martha was relieved that Charles was no longer suffering.
Six months after his father’s passing, Zachary asked his mother, “What is to become of us now that Papa is gone?” Martha assured him that she and his sisters could continue to run their business, while he and his brothers could maintain the farm. “Maybe this coming summer we can plant some new crops.”
While Zachary was reassured, Martha wasn’t so sure as she noticed something odd about Emily. She was coughing a bit more than usual. Was she sick?
As time went by, Martha’s couldn’t ignore Emily’s health. Not only was she losing weight but she tired very quickly. Before long, some of their customers were asking about Emily’s health. “She’s looking rather pale, isn’t she?” commented one long standing customer. Martha brushed it off by saying Charles’s death had been particularly hard on Emily as she had so carefully nursed him through his final illness. Yet, she couldn’t help thinking that this was how Charles started. Worst still, she had heard Zachary coughing last night.
While, Emily’s health continued to decline. Zachary’s cough seemed to come and go, leading Martha to believe he was just more prone to colds.
Three years after Charles’s death, his sister Alicia came for a visit. While she had come for her brother’s funeral, she had only stayed a day as she had her own family to care for in Dummerston VT.
Within an hour of her arrival, she pulled Martha aside. “You have to do something,” she said.
“What?” a puzzled Martha replied
“Don’t you see it?” said Alicia. “The cursed spirit that was once my brother is now feasting on Emily and Zachary. He has become a vampir!”
Martha was shocked and couldn’t say anything, which was just as well as Alicia wasn’t about to let her get a word in edge wise. Further, Charles and Alicia’s mother was from the “old country” and had some “funny” ideas that Martha generally just ignored.
“We’ve seen this where I live. One family, the Spauldings, had eight of their 11 children die before they did something.” She went on to explain that the Spaulding children, all with symptoms similar to what Charles had, and now Emily and Zachary were experiencing, started dying with great regularity. “It only stopped when they finally took action.”
“What did they do?” asked Martha. To which Alicia was only too happy to describe in detail.
“When the eighth child died, they dug up all the graves, including Lt. Spaulding’s, and discovered a black vine was wrapped around them. They cut away all the vine and carefully examined the body of the last child to die. She had blood in her heart, a sure sign that she was a vampir. So they removed the heart, liver and burned them. From that day on, no other member of the family died from consumption.”
Martha was horrified at the story. Alicia then began to tell her that it was time for Martha to deal with Charles, as it was clear he was now a vampir. She even went so far to say that she had arranged to have his grave dug up.
After years of dealing with her sister-in-law, Martha was hesitant to tell her “no” outright, so she said she needed to discuss this with the children before anything was done and needed a few days to talk to them. While Alicia didn’t like to be put off, she did agree to wait two days before taking any steps. Truth be told, she hadn’t quite figured out the particulars of having Charles’s body exhumed.
Martha was terribly conflicted. On the hand she didn’t want to believe her husband had become a vampir but on the other, the thought of her children dying was almost too much to bear.
This was all she could think about and was very distracted when doing a dress fitting for her good friend Amy Baldwin. The second time Martha pricked her client with a pin, Amy told Martha to stop and tell her what was troubling her. With a mixture of reluctance and relief, Martha told her about Alicia’s visit, ending with “I don’t know what to believe or what to do.”
Amy was quick to reply that there was someone who could help her with such a difficult decision, Dr. Harlow. “After all,” she said, “Dr. Harlow saved that patient Phineas Gage who everybody said was going to die. They had even measured him for his coffin, they were so sure.” Gage was the railroad worker who had a tamping rod shoot through his head as a result of a blasting accident, and which brought Harlow, as well as Cavendish, a certain amount of fame.
Martha thought this was a good idea and went straight away to his surgery.
Dr. Harlow listened to the story of Charles’s illness, his death, the symptoms that Emily now had and Zachary seemed to be developing, as well as Alicia’s proposal to rid them of the “cursed” vampir.
Unlike other country doctors of his time, Harlow had trained at one of the best medical schools in the country, Jefferson in Philadelphia. He had seen many cases of consumption, and while he didn’t know what caused it, or even had an effective treatment, he was very clear that the ritual proposed by Alicia would not impact the course of the disease for Emily or Zachary.
Harlow explained to Martha that while he couldn’t offer a treatment for Emily and Zachary other than eating well and getting sufficient rest, what Alicia was proposing shouldn’t be done, and as he felt responsible for the health of the community, he would block any such attempt.
He also told her that many people were seeking “cures” at sanatoriums in a healthful climate, such as California. Because Harlow had been trained in aseptic technique, he did suggest to Martha that they may want to wash their hands more frequently
Martha was extremely relieved after talking to the doctor and immediately went to the hotel where her sister-in-law was staying and told her there would be no digging up of Charles and furthermore, she was contemplating a move to California, “which might be much better for my family.”
Before Alicia could make a comment, Martha turned on her heels and left. On the way home her thoughts turned to California, how to sell the farm as well as what it would be like starting a new business.
History of Vampires: The concept of the vampire as an undead creature inflicting harm originated in Eastern Europe, around a thousand years ago. The vampire, often as a spreader of disease in a village, did not drink blood or create other vampires with a bite.
As the vampire story spread from east to west-it first appeared in English in 1732- the idea of an undead being as well as feasting on blood became popular.
Blood was thought to contain medicinal benefits in the 18th century. Because of blood letting, a common practice by physicians, it was cheap and plentiful. Blood was believed to be the vessel of the human soul, and by imbibing blood one imbibed life. What better medicine than a liquid with the residue of the human soul inside? Human blood was prescribed for everything from epilepsy to failing eyesight in the 1700s. The vampire of the West, therefore, was medically savvy, and the dead creature, it came to be believed, consumed blood to restore life. The Horrors of History: Vampires
“Vampire” or vampir as originally written, would not become a widespread term until after the publication of “Dracula” in 1897.
Tuberculosis: At the beginning of the 19th century, tuberculosis (TB)-called consumption- had killed one in seven people that had ever lived. In Cavendish, once death certificates were required, starting in 1857, close to 25% of all deaths were from consumption in 1857 and 1858. Over a 10 year period, from 1857 to 1867 30 (11%) of the 276 deaths, for which there were Cavendish death certificates, were caused by TB.
According to the American Lung Association, which was founded in 1904 in response to the TB epidemic, TB is a highly infectious disease that can affect any part of the body, but most often, it attacks the lungs. It was often called "consumption" because sufferers of the disease became gaunt and emaciated as if their bodies were being consumed. It was also called "The White Plague" because its victims would become extremely pale. Starting to sound like a vampire isn't it? The connection was further cemented by other TB symptoms, which included light-sensitive eyes, low body heat, a weak heartbeat, and coughing up blood.
When people contracted and died of “consumption” they often spread the disease to their family and neighbors, who would then become ill and often die. To some of the more superstitious people of the 1800s, this was eerily similar to the vampire rising at night and drinking the blood of family and friends until they wasted away and died.
All of this brings us to New England in the 1850s. Poor nutrition and sanitation made the perfect breeding ground for TB, and outbreaks were common. It was specifically outbreaks in rural Rhode Island and Connecticut that caused what became known as The Great New England Vampire Panic. Suspicions that the area was rampant with night stalking bloodsuckers struck fear across the region. Here's the gruesome part. In a number of cases, the recently deceased were exhumed and checked for signs that they were indeed the living dead. In some cases, the hearts and lungs of the suspected vampires were burned, before the departed was reburied, in an attempt to stop further night time terrors.
In 1882, Robert Koch discovered the tubercule baccilum (TB) and found that TB was not genetic but rather a highly contagious disease that could be decreased, if not prevented, through good hygiene.
Vermont’s Vampire Craze: During the 18th and well into the 19th century, New England was swept by a “vampire craze,” largely fueled by old world folklore and the TB epidemic. Bram Stoker, who wrote “Dracula,” describes the victims much as a TB patient would have been-drained of blood, anemic and pale.
Below are reports of various vampires in Vermont history.
• Then Again: When vampires were to blame for a deadly wasting disease
• The Great New England Vampire Panic
• Vampire Panic: Science History Institute
Dr. John Martyn Harlow: A graduate of one of the best medical schools in the country at the time, Jefferson in Philadelphia, Dr. Harlow is best known for saving the life of Phineas Gage, the railroad worked that had a tamping rod pass through his head and lived for another 12 years. Given Harlow’s quickness to submit an article about Gage, as well as his presentations before the Medical Societies, it is likely he would have been following the latest health news and would have seen studies about the recommendations fpr TB patients to relocate to temperate climates. . In the second half of the 19th century, the conviction spread that particular climatic environments could contribute to curing TB. Subsequently, the most frequently prescribed remedy for pulmonary forms was a stay in a temperate climate. Murray JF, Schraufnagel DE, Hopewell PC. Treatment of tuberculosis. A historical perspective. Ann Am Thorac Soc 2015;12(12):1749-59.
Harlow was also trained in aseptic technique, whereby hands were washed before attending to patients. This practice was developed in the early to mid-1800s through the efforts of such scientists as Robert Koch, Louis Pasteur, Ignaz Semmelweis, and Joseph Lister. Harlow was fortunate to train under a surgeon who had trained in Paris, where such techniques were practiced and required of the medical students.
During the Vampire years, exhumation of bodies thought to be “undead” was more likely to happen in small rural towns with a “country doctor,” a term not applicable to Harlow.
California: Between the gold rush, and the southern part of the state being advertised as an ideal climate for people with consumption, many people relocated to California
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