consider the following; RI with a tiny fang because of the vampire shit that went down in like the 1890's and being really superstitious
Ooh I just looked this up its a really good story
Alright so in the 1800s New England was much less religious than they are today. Only around 10% belonged to a church. In place of Christianity, they believed in superstitions– horseshoes over the door, shoes buried under the fireplace, daisy wheels carved everywhere, they went all out. Rhode Island was a leader in this regard. After all, they had been founded by religious dissenters
From 1730 to 1940, practically the whole Northeast had tuberculosis and they were calling it consumption. Throughout the 1800s, there was this thing called the Great New England Vampire Panics. Basically if your whole family got tuberculosis and died, then the town thought that was pretty suspicious. Maybe that family was cursed. Maybe someone in that household was draining other family members of their life force. Maybe one of the first victims isn’t really dead.
Something would need to be done before the vampire finished off their family and moved on to the rest of the town
Maine and Massachusetts would simply dig up the grave, flip the coffin upside down, and cover it back up. Problem solved.
Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Vermont would exhume the body, cut out its heart, and burn it. Sometimes people who had TB but hadn’t died yet would inhale the smoke/ eat the ashes as a cure
New Hampshire was the only New Englander who didn’t believe in vampires
This stuff peaked in the 1890s, and when other people heard about it, it was seen as barbaric and backwards. It was the 19th century, not the Middle Ages for cryin out loud
It wasn’t common knowledge for so long because vampire exhumations were kept very hush-hush. No one wanted to be known as the family with a vampire in it. Most exhumations were done by the family, a few doctors, and maybe a priest/missionary (Rhode Island got sent a lot of missionaries)
Except in Vermont. Those two were sort of opposite ends of the spectrum. Rhode Island had a ton of infamous vampires; Vermont had a ton of infamous vampire hunts. They tended to have large cemeteries in the center of town, impossible to conceal what was going on; whereas Rhode Island had hidden family plots tucked away on rural farms
Vermont vampire hunts would involve most if not all of the town. They were a big community event. It was almost a festive occasion
tl;dr Rhode Island the vampire and Vermont the vampire hunter
vaporwave
yousharknotpass
germansingergirl
kaledo-art
2087
areudirty
dededos
titsay
