This was awesome! 👌 All these amazing locations you go to I hope you’ve been doing rubbings. Some of these tombstones and monuments are beautiful! You’re blessed, man! I hope you know how appreciated you are, dude. Thanks! 🍻
The amount of research and legwork that must go into these videos is insane to think about. Thank you for making the time to share your passion and education with us.
Clicked on this so fast! Dime store adventures is always a good time and this video title is STELLAR. This channel deserves to be so much bigger. Keep up the good work!
I know who the carver is: Zerubabbel Collins. His carvings are so distinctive. There are a bunch in the Old Bennington Cemetery where Robert Frost is buried.
My friend’s family owns a funeral home, so I know that this is pretty true, although usually they can’t be buried post-September due to the ground being so cold. Most of the time we put them in a special vault in one section of the graveyard until spring, when they are able to be buried. But the vault is basically a fridge! ❤
As funny as it may seem, Henry Bowditch actually knew what he was talking about. As a mortician I'm very familiar with the process and the circumstances of decomposition and I know, just like he did, that very wet graves produce adipocere (basically hardened, wax like body fat) in corpses which usually tends to keep bodies in better stages of conservation. This whole thing has been known about ever since the 1600's but wasn't a very well known or understood phenomenon which is why it could easily be misinterpretet.
I wish every corner of the country (and really, the world) had good storytellers sharing the unique folklore and history of their areas. This channel is one of my all-time favorites for how cozy it is.
I first learnt about New England's vampire panic mostly from Caitlin Doughty's video on Ask A Mortician a few years ago, and one thing she mentioned that really stuck with me was that this period was not pre-rennaissance, middle ages stuff. Some of it was in the mid-19th century (ahd Mercy Brown in the late 19th century), at the same time as scientific and medical advancements... Edit: also that Bram Stoker was influenced by these American vampires lmaooo
It's easy to look back and laugh, but you have to realize TB was terrifying. It was an illness that slowly sapped the life of those infected over years. It would rapidly spread across entire communities. You're forced to watch as your loved ones gradually weaken more and more. There was no cure. There was no effective treatment. There was no hope. Vampires, as silly as they are, were a tangible enemy. Something they could focus their emotions on and something they could blame for their loss, other than a cruel, inevitable fact of life. We saw similar social panic break out over the past few years even. It's not a primitive part of humanity - it's something that will always exist. When all science, logic, and reason, fail, people will turn to anything they can regardless of how silly it may be to ease their turmoil.
"Very heavily resemble a Dracula type vampire" That's not some kind of coincidence. Bram Stoker started writing Dracula after reading about the exhuming of the body of Mercy Brown in Rhode Island, which made the NYC newspapers he was having shipped to him in Europe.
The cemetery in Clinton CT is worth visiting if anyone is in that area. I grew up there and there are so many stories revolving that cemetery. Its huge and its right off of route one behind the Pierson school
You're a great story teller. I am from central MA,northern RI , CT area. The old Douglas Woods.. near the tri state marker. Would love to hear some more stories about the area
I 10000% expected that "but first" to be a transition into a sponsor. Like "but first i need to tell you about pur sponsor for today's video some addictive needless bullshit!" Thank you.
I could not imagine the misery of watching many members of your house die in just a couple years, while you can do nothing but sit there and watch. That has to be one of the saddest situations a person wouldn't want to live through.
It was called the white plague for a reason. TB is airborne, too. That’s why America has such strict laws around it, forcing you to get treatment under quarantine. Oh, and antibiotic resistant TB is now spreading. Sweet dreams.
We have head stones just like this. Hallowell, Maine has a huge cemetery with many of these. I photograph slate stones and love the different carvings. It's fun to see how styles change over the years.
Love how you find old historical history stories that you share with us! Been watching your channel now for over a year! You always have such great details as well.
best up and comer on RUclips right now, I remember watching the search for Rowe Spring a while ago and a lot of your other stuff and you improve every video man. I love how you utilize old newspapers to peer into the annals of history, it’s an often underused tactic in this medium and for you to use them to put things into context is awesome, quality channel.
There is a part of Pennsylvania that was originally claimed by Connecticut, so there are probably transplants from colony Connecticut, who brought their folklore beliefs with them.
It always makes my day when a new video drops! Hopefully you've been spared the ire of persnickety southern Mainers, but on the off chance it ever comes up again, Saco is pronounced "sock-oh"
I am from New England. This is very sad. I have never heard of this. 😢 I can't imagine the torment these suffering people went through while feeling the need to exhume, mutilate & burn their beloved relatives. I can't imagine that God-fearing people from hundreds of years ago would have resorted to doing such a thing, but fears/rumors/superstitions can be contagious. Look what happened to those who suffered & died during the Salem witch hunt! Horrifying ignorance! May God rest their souls. Perhaps this was an excuse for a rare few to experiment on dead bodies for medical purposes during a time in which it was illegal. The first "medical examiners" were grave robbers. They broke the law to experiment on dead people for educational purposes. ✝️ When looking at it from a scientific perspective, the deceased loved ones who died from disease likely might have given the disease to the survivors. Burning the loved one's belongings or cremating their loved ones would have destroyed the pathogen. Without protective equipment, however, the people handling the dead people would have put themselves at risk of a wide variety of deadly bacterium, etc. If this were true, Id think there would've been an outbreak of other deadly diseases, aside from TB/consumption, after the corpses were exhumed & dissected, especially if antibiotics didn't exist at the time. History is interesting, but this is yucky & sad. People did the best they could with what they knew & what they had at the time. Lord, help us all to help each other. 😅🥸🤦🏽♀️🕊️ Peace be with you all.
Thank you for pronouncing Exeter correctly, you have NO idea how infuriatingly common it is for people to pronounce it "Egg-sitter". As always, amazing video~
It is pronounced "SOCK-oh" Maine. Its an Abenaki people's word for "outlet". You continue to amaze me in how well across the board you pronounce everything.
Fellow historian here- REALLY like your work, mate! Love how down to Earth and unslick it is, real grassroots vibe. Cracking stuff! BUT... coz of that, you defo don't need to add a music track like at the start. It just distracts from how cool your work is!
The first "Consumption Vampire" story I heard about was from Griswold, CT in 1990. From Smithsonian Magazine in August 2019, a "coffin, marked with tacks that spelled out “JB 55,” contained a body whose skull had been hacked from the spine and placed on the chest, which had been broken open, along with the femurs to create a skull and crossbones. JB 55 had been in the ground around five years when someone exhumed him and tried to remove his heart, part of ritual to stop a suspected vampire from preying on the living." If anyone is interested the article is called "New England ‘Vampire’ Was Likely a Farmer Named John" by Jason Daley.
Fantastic work as always! Always love seeing stories from the Little Rhody! As you mentioned previously, timing was likely a huge factor in the staying power of Mercy Brown's story. Mercy died in 1892, 10 years after Robert Koch had identified the pathogen responsible for tuberculosis. However it's likely that people living in more rural and isolated communities (like the one the Browns lived in) wouldn't have known or even trusted this new information, instead relying on local superstitions and beliefs. Additionally in Mercy Brown's case (and potentially others) her heart and liver weren't simply burned but the ash from her organs was made into a tonic that was fed to her brother, Edwin, to ward off consumption. He would die two months later regardless. I think the timing near the dawn of the modern medical age in addition to a small amount of familial cannibalism turned her story into one of morbid curiosity
I have never heard of this superstitious belief concerning tuberculosis. I love that you are putting your sources on the screen. Which historical newspaper database are you using? Your research is excellent. Thank you.
This reminds me a lot of the Japanese novel/manga/anime Shiki, which is decidedly a vampire story but plays out much more similarly to this. (Minor spoilers) The titular Shiki do drain the blood from their victims, but the victims don't immediately turn; they only turn after growing weak and dying of anemia, and are layer exhumed by the other Shiki. Shiki are also encouraged to target their family members if they still have any, which makes it seem even more like a disease.
Always makes my day to see a new video here. Woke up with a really long day ahead of me and got to enjoy my morning coffee while watching this. Great stuff. Thank you and keep 'em comin'.
I have a copy of “Westerly and its witnesses” and live in Westerly. It says in the book that the grave was unlettered, meaning no headstones. The burial ground is also said to be a mix of natives and African Americans. There is a vague description of where the location is in relation to the old Sisson residence, which actually still stands today. I believe it is on what is currently known as the old Crandall farm property in Dunn’s corners. i’ve searched the area on foot and via drone with no luck. I wish somebody would find it because considering it is the only one of the stories that involves a minority that it is historically significant.
The superstition of vampires a fascinatingly ancient thing! This superstition and its markings on the dead can be found all over. Miniminuteman has a great video he did on halloween about it. I don't know where "consumption vampires" would originate from, but humans have feared the dead returning for a VEEERRRY long time, so I wouldn't be surprised if this specific belief is also ancient.
I think you're right about the date being at the heart (heh) of the enduring nature of the Mercy Brown story. I've seen other sources which suggested that George thought the whole superstition was ridiculous, and only relented under protest and in order to appease some relatives and/or townsfolk. It's also possible that some of the loose ties to Edgar Allen Poe helps keep it going.
No matter how stupid these people from the 1700s/1800s were , you have to admit they were all helping eachother . Nowadays we just make fun of each others issues on the internet.
they weren't stupid at all.. nor superstitious IMO... If they were we wouldn't be here now.. We are likely the stupid ones for not being able to read past the modern interpretation of the works they left behind to decode the actual science they were doing... To the unlearned then science appeared as magic, miracles witchcraft and sorcery... now we call it susperstious and ignorant... 😢
I love your form of story telling so much. One of the interesting things is we live in the same country but every time i see one of your videos it feels like I'm seeing a whole different country.
I loved hearing the stories of "vampire graves" from the New England areas. These are not at all as twisted and sick as those tales about Count Vlad. I'm Romanian, and my mother's mom and dad, grandparents, etc.,. were all from Transylvania 🧛🧛♀ and came to the US in the late 1890s or so. I just really enjoy hearing a good vampire story. It's like it's in my blood or something🩸😂😂
While searching for a relatives headstone in a Connecticut cemetery I realized all the headstones were facing the same direction east west. Accept for a family that was off to the side with two stones out of that family were facing north south which seemed pretty strange.
this is actually fascinating. it indicates a different kind of consciousness was used. People perceived some kind of spiritual energy is attached to the body which is absorbing from the living energy. as though there is a sympathetic harmony within the physical body and resonates with other living bodies, which keeps it vitalized. And it continues after death, so those organs might not decay quite as fast. very interesting to think about. Maybe the dead really do impact the living?
Another phenomenal video. My mind is blown. Two of my passions in life are trees and New England history. I live in Connecticut. So cool you went to Cornwall. I love it out there. Can't wait to visit that grave. Thank you for this. Extraordinary work. 🔥 Extremely inspiring. I am dying to know how you do your research!
On Simon Whipples grave there is atleast 1 more line of inscription barely visible above the dirt, any idea what it could possibly say? Id assume its a continuation of the poem but its hard to say since so much is buried
All of Massachusetts is history. I grew up on an old dairy farm in north Attleboro Massachusetts and I didn’t even know it. My brother and I discovered train tracks and old parts of tractors. We talked to a guy that hay bailed the field behind us and told us there was 0 rocks in our yard we could have sold the soil it was so good. And we live 10 miles north of Providence it’s a beautiful thing.
Nelly Vaughn - RI - gravestone said “ I’m waiting and watching for you “. Gravestone had to be moved because so many people visited Mercy Brown thought to be the idea for Bram Stokers Dracula
Thanks for another great video! Happy holidays DSA! 🎄❄️ also thanks for the amazing postcards, I look forward to it every month! i’ll have to scrapbook them :)
Yeah there's like nothing on "bone auger" that I could find, but I did find out that an "augur" is apparently a Roman priest whose job was to predict the future, it can also be used as a verb that means to foretell. If it was spelled like that then maybe they're using it in a noun form to mean some kind of bad omen, maybe a "bone augur" is a type of plant that is commonly associated with death and when it's seen growing out of a grave, it's a portent of illnesses to come to whatever family the grave belongs to. I'm kind of grasping at straws here though, that kind of makes sense but I've got nothing to back it up besides that definition. Good news though is that a new Death Metal band name just dropped and it is fire.
There are similar Italian and French words that were probably borrowed from the Roman Latin you mentioned. "bonne" or "bon" i think mean good or beautiful. "augure" means omen or wish. So bon augure=good omens or good wishes (used as a greeting?) Doesn't really make sense in this context though, because it sounds like this story is talking about something that could be seen. I can't guess if it was something in the physical world like your nicknamed plant idea, or something seen supernaturally in some way. The newspaper reporter is just as confused as i am about what the witness is talking about. Funny they printed the story's witness quotes anyway. 😄
An auger is a tool for drilling holes. From the context the story seems to be implying that there was some kind of tree or plant that was drilling its roots into graves to get at the bones. I'd guess it might be related to the story about the evil vine sneaking into the row of graves underground earlier in the video. People in the past were very reliant on plants and nature and there was all kinds of folklore related to plants. I suspect the 'bone auger' idea is a little-known and mostly forgotten aspect of that plant lore.
@@Insanabiliter_In_Linea I just wanted to say that imaging it's got something to do with Roman priests is probably a red herring. The spelling is basically irrelevant, as the whole quote is based around what a newspaper journalist wrote down about what an old woman said 170 years ago. A lot of modern spelling rules weren't even established yet, and even where they were, lots of people had bad spelling or still wrote things down wrong a lot of the time. Even today, speech recording apps constantly misspell homophones or even words that are only vaguely similar. Based on context, it's most likely the 'bone auger' was some kind of plant that was supposed to grow into graves, and very unlikely to have anything to do with Roman priests.
Thanks so much for watching! If you liked the video, consider checking out my Patreon!
www.patreon.com/dimestoreadventures
This was awesome! 👌
All these amazing locations you go to I hope you’ve been doing rubbings. Some of these tombstones and monuments are beautiful!
You’re blessed, man!
I hope you know how appreciated you are, dude. Thanks! 🍻
“rubbings” 🙄😅😳
You have the best channel on RUclips.
Thank you for not being AI.
The amount of research and legwork that must go into these videos is insane to think about. Thank you for making the time to share your passion and education with us.
Clicked on this so fast! Dime store adventures is always a good time and this video title is STELLAR. This channel deserves to be so much bigger. Keep up the good work!
Someone who deserves getting to a million subs for sure. I love this energy so much, hope he makes many more!
I'm so glad y'all are commenting because it got into my reco feed. Thanks never heard of this channel. I'm excited to watch.
@@dabzprincess92 You really need to binge watch, seriously! I haven't found a story yet that wasn't interesting!!
I know who the carver is: Zerubabbel Collins. His carvings are so distinctive. There are a bunch in the Old Bennington Cemetery where Robert Frost is buried.
wait that is the best name ever
@ agree
Pretty sure it's biblical, but i can't for the life of me remember where it's mentioned in chapter verse.
@spacehonky6315 he's a bunch of books, including Haggai, Zechariah, Ezra and Chronicles 1, as far as I remember
I've been to that cemetery and it's so beautiful.his work is also very popular throughout the northeast
"so instead I'm gonna tell the story from this log" you are a pioneer in RUclipsrs chatting about superstitions from woodsy places, this is on brand
if you like this, check out "The Wandering Woodsman" - he's been doin it for longer I think
If you bury someone in new england in october or later, it would kinda be like putting them in the fridge until may
My friend’s family owns a funeral home, so I know that this is pretty true, although usually they can’t be buried post-September due to the ground being so cold. Most of the time we put them in a special vault in one section of the graveyard until spring, when they are able to be buried. But the vault is basically a fridge! ❤
I love how the backup when not being able to go to the locations is "this log"
With a "widow maker" right behind him. Brave man.
As funny as it may seem, Henry Bowditch actually knew what he was talking about. As a mortician I'm very familiar with the process and the circumstances of decomposition and I know, just like he did, that very wet graves produce adipocere (basically hardened, wax like body fat) in corpses which usually tends to keep bodies in better stages of conservation. This whole thing has been known about ever since the 1600's but wasn't a very well known or understood phenomenon which is why it could easily be misinterpretet.
I wish every corner of the country (and really, the world) had good storytellers sharing the unique folklore and history of their areas. This channel is one of my all-time favorites for how cozy it is.
This channel is quickly becoming one of my favorite on the platform. Also just want to shoutout the aspect ratio
I first learnt about New England's vampire panic mostly from Caitlin Doughty's video on Ask A Mortician a few years ago, and one thing she mentioned that really stuck with me was that this period was not pre-rennaissance, middle ages stuff. Some of it was in the mid-19th century (ahd Mercy Brown in the late 19th century), at the same time as scientific and medical advancements... Edit: also that Bram Stoker was influenced by these American vampires lmaooo
It's easy to look back and laugh, but you have to realize TB was terrifying. It was an illness that slowly sapped the life of those infected over years. It would rapidly spread across entire communities. You're forced to watch as your loved ones gradually weaken more and more. There was no cure. There was no effective treatment. There was no hope. Vampires, as silly as they are, were a tangible enemy. Something they could focus their emotions on and something they could blame for their loss, other than a cruel, inevitable fact of life. We saw similar social panic break out over the past few years even. It's not a primitive part of humanity - it's something that will always exist. When all science, logic, and reason, fail, people will turn to anything they can regardless of how silly it may be to ease their turmoil.
Hey man, love your videos. Im from NH and ive been watching since you had only a few subscribers. Glad to see your channel gaining traction!
"Very heavily resemble a Dracula type vampire"
That's not some kind of coincidence. Bram Stoker started writing Dracula after reading about the exhuming of the body of Mercy Brown in Rhode Island, which made the NYC newspapers he was having shipped to him in Europe.
Nice job! Great video I love the topic and your delivery was fantastic. Great research very informative.
something so strange about walking around a graveyard and litigating the lives of these dead folk.
keep it up.
👍
The cemetery in Clinton CT is worth visiting if anyone is in that area. I grew up there and there are so many stories revolving that cemetery. Its huge and its right off of route one behind the Pierson school
incredible video, once again. thanks, man
You're a great story teller. I am from central MA,northern RI , CT area. The old Douglas Woods.. near the tri state marker. Would love to hear some more stories about the area
Either way, how sad it must've been to see someone pass away like that.
I knew about this history, but to actually see you touring around finding each grave is so cool! Thanks so much for sharing!
These videos are so good for when I'm feeling nostalgic for New England
I 10000% expected that "but first" to be a transition into a sponsor. Like "but first i need to tell you about pur sponsor for today's video some addictive needless bullshit!" Thank you.
I could not imagine the misery of watching many members of your house die in just a couple years, while you can do nothing but sit there and watch. That has to be one of the saddest situations a person wouldn't want to live through.
Some people did with covid : (
I have a friend who lost I think four family members.
It was called the white plague for a reason. TB is airborne, too. That’s why America has such strict laws around it, forcing you to get treatment under quarantine.
Oh, and antibiotic resistant TB is now spreading. Sweet dreams.
45mins! What a treat! Just one thing about the vine theory… Dumb and Dummerston 😂
It's so cool how you travel to the location and do research on it
This has got to be my favorite youtube channel. Thanks for all the great historical videos!
Can’t believe this channel isn’t bigger yet! Every video is a masterpiece!
Great video, so full of information, and on site video? Awesome
We have head stones just like this. Hallowell, Maine has a huge cemetery with many of these. I photograph slate stones and love the different carvings. It's fun to see how styles change over the years.
Been such a slow streaming day at work, youre a sound for sore ears
Saco is pronounced like “sock-oh” ❤
Love how you find old historical history stories that you share with us! Been watching your channel now for over a year! You always have such great details as well.
24:42
The one you have in North Cumberland is actually in North Smithfield. The actual one in North Cumberland is Abigail Staples.
20:19 "right off the bat" 😏
We have vampire and witch graves here in erie pa one of the vampire graves is a crypt in our main cemetery
I mean, I love these videos but my only question is how do you do your research? It's so good!
Fantastic story teller. Thank you.
PLEASE MAKE MORE VIDEOS OF THESE FORGOTEN STORIES THIS IS AWESOME
Thank you for another great video!
best up and comer on RUclips right now, I remember watching the search for Rowe Spring a while ago and a lot of your other stuff and you improve every video man. I love how you utilize old newspapers to peer into the annals of history, it’s an often underused tactic in this medium and for you to use them to put things into context is awesome, quality channel.
Hi from Vermont!
There is a part of Pennsylvania that was originally claimed by Connecticut, so there are probably transplants from colony Connecticut, who brought their folklore beliefs with them.
Search your fav search engine for
Connecticut Western Reserve
It always makes my day when a new video drops! Hopefully you've been spared the ire of persnickety southern Mainers, but on the off chance it ever comes up again, Saco is pronounced "sock-oh"
Thanks!
@stuhayes2010 Thanks so much for the donation! Means a lot!
I am from New England. This is very sad. I have never heard of this. 😢 I can't imagine the torment these suffering people went through while feeling the need to exhume, mutilate & burn their beloved relatives.
I can't imagine that God-fearing people from hundreds of years ago would have resorted to doing such a thing, but fears/rumors/superstitions can be contagious. Look what happened to those who suffered & died during the Salem witch hunt! Horrifying ignorance! May God rest their souls.
Perhaps this was an excuse for a rare few to experiment on dead bodies for medical purposes during a time in which it was illegal. The first "medical examiners" were grave robbers. They broke the law to experiment on dead people for educational purposes. ✝️ When looking at it from a scientific perspective, the deceased loved ones who died from disease likely might have given the disease to the survivors. Burning the loved one's belongings or cremating their loved ones would have destroyed the pathogen. Without protective equipment, however, the people handling the dead people would have put themselves at risk of a wide variety of deadly bacterium, etc. If this were true, Id think there would've been an outbreak of other deadly diseases, aside from TB/consumption, after the corpses were exhumed & dissected, especially if antibiotics didn't exist at the time.
History is interesting, but this is yucky & sad. People did the best they could with what they knew & what they had at the time. Lord, help us all to help each other. 😅🥸🤦🏽♀️🕊️ Peace be with you all.
If you wanna find some New England vampires go to Rhode Island.
Stellar video!
Always so amazingly well researched! Love the stories and the newspaper clips
Thank you for pronouncing Exeter correctly, you have NO idea how infuriatingly common it is for people to pronounce it "Egg-sitter".
As always, amazing video~
It is pronounced "SOCK-oh" Maine. Its an Abenaki people's word for "outlet".
You continue to amaze me in how well across the board you pronounce everything.
That was absolutely wild. Sometimes with social media today I think people believe bizarre things. We've got nothing on the past.
Fellow historian here- REALLY like your work, mate!
Love how down to Earth and unslick it is, real grassroots vibe. Cracking stuff!
BUT... coz of that, you defo don't need to add a music track like at the start. It just distracts from how cool your work is!
I absolutely love the music! Almost better that the stories themselves!
The first "Consumption Vampire" story I heard about was from Griswold, CT in 1990. From Smithsonian Magazine in August 2019, a "coffin, marked with tacks that spelled out “JB 55,” contained a body whose skull had been hacked from the spine and placed on the chest, which had been broken open, along with the femurs to create a skull and crossbones. JB 55 had been in the ground around five years when someone exhumed him and tried to remove his heart, part of ritual to stop a suspected vampire from preying on the living." If anyone is interested the article is called "New England ‘Vampire’ Was Likely a Farmer Named John" by Jason Daley.
Yeah, I’m sure there are other undocumented cases as well.
Fantastic work as always! Always love seeing stories from the Little Rhody!
As you mentioned previously, timing was likely a huge factor in the staying power of Mercy Brown's story. Mercy died in 1892, 10 years after Robert Koch had identified the pathogen responsible for tuberculosis. However it's likely that people living in more rural and isolated communities (like the one the Browns lived in) wouldn't have known or even trusted this new information, instead relying on local superstitions and beliefs. Additionally in Mercy Brown's case (and potentially others) her heart and liver weren't simply burned but the ash from her organs was made into a tonic that was fed to her brother, Edwin, to ward off consumption. He would die two months later regardless. I think the timing near the dawn of the modern medical age in addition to a small amount of familial cannibalism turned her story into one of morbid curiosity
this was a great video on a subject i am very familiar with but i learned alot still thanks
I have never heard of this superstitious belief concerning tuberculosis. I love that you are putting your sources on the screen. Which historical newspaper database are you using? Your research is excellent. Thank you.
I'm in Rhode Island and we learned about Mercy Brown, and that was it.
Love your channel!
Watching this 18 hours after I got the notification, because I wanted to save it for a peaceful moment with tea and cookies
Another great episode! Great research and story telling!
This reminds me a lot of the Japanese novel/manga/anime Shiki, which is decidedly a vampire story but plays out much more similarly to this. (Minor spoilers)
The titular Shiki do drain the blood from their victims, but the victims don't immediately turn; they only turn after growing weak and dying of anemia, and are layer exhumed by the other Shiki. Shiki are also encouraged to target their family members if they still have any, which makes it seem even more like a disease.
1:38 what song is this? this slaps hard for just describing an accused vampire
Have I ever told you how happy it makes me when I see you've uploaded a new video? You're my boy!! Thaaannk youuuuu!!!!
Always makes my day to see a new video here. Woke up with a really long day ahead of me and got to enjoy my morning coffee while watching this. Great stuff. Thank you and keep 'em comin'.
I have a copy of “Westerly and its witnesses” and live in Westerly. It says in the book that the grave was unlettered, meaning no headstones. The burial ground is also said to be a mix of natives and African Americans. There is a vague description of where the location is in relation to the old Sisson residence, which actually still stands today. I believe it is on what is currently known as the old Crandall farm property in Dunn’s corners. i’ve searched the area on foot and via drone with no luck. I wish somebody would find it because considering it is the only one of the stories that involves a minority that it is historically significant.
The superstition of vampires a fascinatingly ancient thing! This superstition and its markings on the dead can be found all over. Miniminuteman has a great video he did on halloween about it. I don't know where "consumption vampires" would originate from, but humans have feared the dead returning for a VEEERRRY long time, so I wouldn't be surprised if this specific belief is also ancient.
I think you're right about the date being at the heart (heh) of the enduring nature of the Mercy Brown story. I've seen other sources which suggested that George thought the whole superstition was ridiculous, and only relented under protest and in order to appease some relatives and/or townsfolk. It's also possible that some of the loose ties to Edgar Allen Poe helps keep it going.
Ah yes pettibone the distant relative of sillybone
The rural areas of Central and Western NY are a lot like Vermont and Massachusetts in my experience.
These are the most interesting videos on RUclips I stg
No matter how stupid these people from the 1700s/1800s were , you have to admit they were all helping eachother . Nowadays we just make fun of each others issues on the internet.
they weren't stupid at all.. nor superstitious IMO...
If they were we wouldn't be here now.. We are likely the stupid ones for not being able to read past the modern interpretation of the works they left behind to decode the actual science they were doing... To the unlearned then science appeared as magic, miracles witchcraft and sorcery... now we call it susperstious and ignorant... 😢
I love your form of story telling so much. One of the interesting things is we live in the same country but every time i see one of your videos it feels like I'm seeing a whole different country.
I loved hearing the stories of "vampire graves" from the New England areas. These are not at all as twisted and sick as those tales about Count Vlad. I'm Romanian, and my mother's mom and dad, grandparents, etc.,. were all from Transylvania 🧛🧛♀ and came to the US in the late 1890s or so. I just really enjoy hearing a good vampire story. It's like it's in my blood or something🩸😂😂
While searching for a relatives headstone in a Connecticut cemetery I realized all the headstones were facing the same direction east west. Accept for a family that was off to the side with two stones out of that family were facing north south which seemed pretty strange.
*except
this is actually fascinating. it indicates a different kind of consciousness was used. People perceived some kind of spiritual energy is attached to the body which is absorbing from the living energy. as though there is a sympathetic harmony within the physical body and resonates with other living bodies, which keeps it vitalized. And it continues after death, so those organs might not decay quite as fast. very interesting to think about. Maybe the dead really do impact the living?
30:36 tillingast is also a Lovecraft character
I get a smile when I see you have posted a new video! You are a true great story teller! Always enjoyable!
Another phenomenal video. My mind is blown. Two of my passions in life are trees and New England history. I live in Connecticut. So cool you went to Cornwall. I love it out there. Can't wait to visit that grave. Thank you for this. Extraordinary work. 🔥 Extremely inspiring. I am dying to know how you do your research!
The algorithm led me to this channel via Matches 860... he does a video on these graves too. But not as studied.
Fantastic! Just fantastic! Thank you again.
@john green - this is related to TB
I hope you get way more popular, you have some interesting subjects and you can put together quite a presentation.
The mention of Whateley is going to make the eyes of Lovecraft fans bug out. 9:25
We’re used to your log desk by now.
Hurray for Capt. Spalding !
To put Mercy Browns being exhumed in 1892 in context, Benz had been buildings cars for 7yrs by then.
On Simon Whipples grave there is atleast 1 more line of inscription barely visible above the dirt, any idea what it could possibly say? Id assume its a continuation of the poem but its hard to say since so much is buried
TB was, for a long time, thought to be spread by vampires.
I've always heard "Elisha" as sounding like "Elijah," with the long "eye" sound. Is putting the accent on the first syllable more accurate?
I’d love if you came to hardwick MA there is so much history
All of Massachusetts is history. I grew up on an old dairy farm in north Attleboro Massachusetts and I didn’t even know it. My brother and I discovered train tracks and old parts of tractors. We talked to a guy that hay bailed the field behind us and told us there was 0 rocks in our yard we could have sold the soil it was so good. And we live 10 miles north of Providence it’s a beautiful thing.
Nelly Vaughn - RI - gravestone said “ I’m waiting and watching for you “. Gravestone had to be moved because so many people visited
Mercy Brown thought to be the idea for Bram Stokers Dracula
Thanks for another quirky video. Keep up the good work
Thanks for another great video! Happy holidays DSA! 🎄❄️ also thanks for the amazing postcards, I look forward to it every month! i’ll have to scrapbook them :)
So if you dig up the last grave in the line, wouldn't the next to last become the last?
So cool to see you in woodstock! hoped youd make it to my area of new england at some point, keep up the amazing work
Yaaaay my fav channel ❤🇦🇺✌🏼 Hard to believe you have snow but its as hot as Hades here .Fellow taphophil here, love your vids. Happy holidays 🎄❤🇦🇺✌🏼
Yeah there's like nothing on "bone auger" that I could find, but I did find out that an "augur" is apparently a Roman priest whose job was to predict the future, it can also be used as a verb that means to foretell. If it was spelled like that then maybe they're using it in a noun form to mean some kind of bad omen, maybe a "bone augur" is a type of plant that is commonly associated with death and when it's seen growing out of a grave, it's a portent of illnesses to come to whatever family the grave belongs to. I'm kind of grasping at straws here though, that kind of makes sense but I've got nothing to back it up besides that definition.
Good news though is that a new Death Metal band name just dropped and it is fire.
There are similar Italian and French words that were probably borrowed from the Roman Latin you mentioned. "bonne" or "bon" i think mean good or beautiful. "augure" means omen or wish. So bon augure=good omens or good wishes (used as a greeting?) Doesn't really make sense in this context though, because it sounds like this story is talking about something that could be seen. I can't guess if it was something in the physical world like your nicknamed plant idea, or something seen supernaturally in some way. The newspaper reporter is just as confused as i am about what the witness is talking about. Funny they printed the story's witness quotes anyway. 😄
An auger is a tool for drilling holes. From the context the story seems to be implying that there was some kind of tree or plant that was drilling its roots into graves to get at the bones. I'd guess it might be related to the story about the evil vine sneaking into the row of graves underground earlier in the video. People in the past were very reliant on plants and nature and there was all kinds of folklore related to plants. I suspect the 'bone auger' idea is a little-known and mostly forgotten aspect of that plant lore.
@@chrisball3778 Yeah I know what an auger is, I was just saying I couldn't find anything about the phrase using that spelling.
@@Insanabiliter_In_Linea I just wanted to say that imaging it's got something to do with Roman priests is probably a red herring. The spelling is basically irrelevant, as the whole quote is based around what a newspaper journalist wrote down about what an old woman said 170 years ago. A lot of modern spelling rules weren't even established yet, and even where they were, lots of people had bad spelling or still wrote things down wrong a lot of the time. Even today, speech recording apps constantly misspell homophones or even words that are only vaguely similar.
Based on context, it's most likely the 'bone auger' was some kind of plant that was supposed to grow into graves, and very unlikely to have anything to do with Roman priests.
Another interesting piece of history told by a rivtingbstory teller. Thank you as always!
Christmas came early this year!! New video let’s go!! ❤
So good! Thanks, mate ♥️