believe if the graves are searched, there will be found a body, or some part of a body, full of blood and not yet gone to decay, and that in that body, generally that of a relative of the sick person, lives some essence of the dead person called the “vampire,” which leaves the grave every night to suck blood from the sick person. The way to effect a cure is this: The graveyards on the lonely hillsides must be searched, and when a body is exhumed which does not show ordinary signs of decay, the heart and liver must be examined to see if they are still full of blood, for it is In those parts that the vampire is supposed most commonly to have its dwelling place. Then the part filled with blood must be burned to kill the vampire.
It is believed also that a part of the superstition is that the ashes of the burned parts must be given to the sick person in water in order to assure his recovery, but upon this part of their strange faith the vampire people keep a stolid silence. How often these vampire hunts are indulged in by the people of Exeter is not known to the outside world, but once in awhile it is rumored about the countryside that “the vampire people are out searching the graves.” Sometimes the news gets into the Rhode Island papers, and there is a mild sensation for a few days.
The last vampire hunt which attracted attention was in 1892. A prosperous farmer was living with a family consisting of his wife, two daughters and a son, all in good health. First the wife sickened and died of what the local doctor said was consumption. Then the daughters died, one after another, apparently of the same disease, and, lastly,
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the son began to Waste away. He went to Colorado Springs, but, failing to get better, he returned to Exeter. Then all the neighbors assured the father that what was the matter with the young man was the vampire. Yielding to the opinion of the community, the father consented to a vampire hunt, and the medical officer of the district came by request from the neighboring village of Wickford to be present at it. The graves of the mother and the first daughter who had died were examined, and the bodies found to be little more than skeletons. But when the grave of the last daughter who had died was opened the body was found to be in an excellent state of preservation, though she had been dead two months.The medical officer opened the body and took out the heart and liver. As the heart was lifted out, bright, red blood flowed from it and the assembled people exclaimed, “the vampire!” A fire was then kindled near the graveyard and the heart and liver burned to ashes. The affair got into the Providence papers and was much talked of for awhile.
“About six years before this there was another vampire hunt in Exeter, news of which leaked out to the world. On that occasion it is said that a whole body was cremated, It having been discovered in its grave fresh and full of blood long after the usual period had elapsed in which bodies are expected to turn to dust.
The home of the vampire myth is in Slavonic lands. The word itself is of Servian origin, and means a blood-sucking ghost. Between 1830 and 1873 there was an outbreak of the superstition in Hungary, and from there it spread all over Europe. Some fringe of this wave of superstition must have
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