The New England vampire scare that took place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is widely known in some parts of the region. Public awareness of this strange time in New England history has grown with books, documentaries, movies on the subject. Some historians claim the panic and its related attempts to curtail the creatures of the night took place even into the twentieth century.

The first known recorded vampire case occurred in Willington, Connecticut in 1784. The case of Rachel Burton of Manchester, Vermont, took place nine years later and is one of the earliest recorded cases in the region.

In 1789, Captain Isaac Burton married Rachel Harris. She was a strikingly beautiful woman with a charming personality. About a year into their marriage, her health began to rapidly decline, and she grew more ill with each passing day. She was soon diagnosed with consumption (tuberculosis), which took her to her grave.

Within a short time following Rachel’s death, the captain married his second wife, Hulda Powell. She, too, was a good-looking woman with an affable nature. Soon, however, Hulda began to show symptoms of the same dreaded affliction that took Isaac’s first wife. Hulda’s strength and vigor were waning fast, and something had to be done without delay. 

It was then that a strange belief took hold of the family and friends of Captain Burton. Based on other stories they had heard, they concluded that the first wife was coming back from the grave and feeding on the lifeblood of Hulda. Perhaps it was revenge for the captain remarrying so quickly, or it was, more likely, the work of a vampire. The word vampire was not used at the time. The dead were not thought to rise from the grave in the dark bowers of the night. It was their spirit or ghost that would leave the tomb and prey upon the living, then return to nourish the body that lay in repose. As long as the body remained in whole within its grave, the spirit would continue to make its nightly rounds.

The townsfolk feared that it was Rachel’s spirit that was leaving the tomb and feeding upon Hulda before returning to the grave each morning. Family and friends pleaded that Rachel’s corpse must be disinterred and her vitals removed, then burned. This ritual, already practiced in a few other places in New England, would surely exorcise the demon that wreaked havoc upon the Burton family. 

In February 1793, residents gathered at Rachel’s grave and began the task of ridding the family of its vampire. Rachel had been buried for three years when she was disinterred. It is reported that almost 1,000 people showed up for the gruesome event. Her vitals were cut out and taken to the forge of blacksmith Jacob Mead, where they were reduced to ash. Timothy Mead, Jacob’s minister brother, blessed the remains in an attempt to purge the demon that was sucking the life from Hulda. This form of medicine did not work, unfortunately, as Hulda succumbed to the dreaded consumption on September 6, 1793.

In many similar cases around New England, the sick were given a concoction of medicine mixed with the ashes of the cremated organs. It is not recorded whether Hulda was administered such a potion to imbibe. Folklore and superstition played a vital part in the fear that gripped New England during this period. There was no cure for consumption, so when medicine failed, superstition took over, and several practices of exorcising suspected vampires became common.

The ways of the New England vampire were strange, but not nearly as strange as the cures carried out in hopes of eradicating their deadly “bite.”