The Jewett City vampires were thought to be the cause of an incident surrounding the Ray family, a large farming family of Griswold, Connecticut, in the 1840s and 1850s, who upon the death of multiple family members concluded they were plagued by vampires, and in 1854 disinterred the dead relatives and burned their bodies to "protect" themselves from the undead. [1] [2]
Some time in the mid 19th century one member of the Ray family had contracted tuberculosis, and the first fatality came with the death of 24-year-old Lemuel Ray in 1845. [2] Shortly after Lemuel Ray's father Henry B. Ray died in 1851. Two years later 26-year-old Elisha Ray, Lemuel's brother, died in 1853. One year after that in 1854 Henry Ray, Henry B. Ray's eldest son and Lemuel and Elisha's brother, died from the disease. [2] [3] Another common method to ensure that dead family members remained that way was to cut out the heart of the deceased member and burn it to cure the rest of the family and put the spirit to rest. [4]
The Ray family died of tuberculosis (then known as consumption) over a period of nine years. [3]
A few miles away from where the Ray family is buried, in the early 1990s a few children were playing near a hillside gravel mine in Griswold, Connecticut. There, they discovered the unmarked Walton Family graveyard. [1] [3] 29 graves were uncovered collectively belonging to both the Walton family and the Barber Family. [2] One such grave had a body which was buried, exhumed, then reburied with its skull dislocated from its spine placed face down with its femurs placed in an "X" below the skull. [5]
A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods which they inhabited while they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century. Vampiric entities have been recorded in cultures around the world; the term vampire was popularized in Western Europe after reports of an 18th-century mass hysteria of a pre-existing folk belief in Southeastern and Eastern Europe that in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism. Local variants in Southeastern Europe were also known by different names, such as shtriga in Albania, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania, cognate to Italian 'Strega', meaning Witch.
Griswold is a town in New London County, Connecticut, United States. The town is part of the Southeastern Connecticut Planning Region. The population was 11,402 at the 2020 census. Griswold contains the borough of Jewett City and the villages of Doaneville, Kaalmanville, Rixtown, Glasgo, Hopeville, Nathanieltown, and Pachaug.
Jewett City is a borough in New London County, Connecticut, in the town of Griswold. The borough is part of the Southeastern Connecticut Planning Region. The population was 3,328 at the 2020 census, down from 3,487 in 2010. The borough was named for Eliezer Jewett, who founded a settlement there in 1771.
John Scott Harrison was an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio from 1853 to 1857. He was a son of U.S. president William Henry Harrison and First Lady Anna Harrison as well as the father of U.S. president Benjamin Harrison. He is the only person to have been both the son and father of U.S. presidents.
The Mercy Brown vampire incident occurred in Rhode Island, US, in 1892. It is one of the best documented cases of the exhumation of a corpse in order to perform rituals to banish an undead manifestation. The incident was part of the wider New England vampire panic.
In folklore, a revenant is an animated corpse that is believed to have been revived from death to haunt the living. The word revenant is derived from the Old French word revenant'returning'.
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Russell Cheney was an American Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and New England regionalist painter.
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Elisha Payne was a prominent businessman and political figure in the states of New Hampshire and Vermont following the events of the American Revolution. He is best known for serving as Lieutenant Governor of the Vermont Republic and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont.
The New England vampire panic was the reaction to an outbreak of tuberculosis in the 19th century throughout Rhode Island, eastern Connecticut, southern Massachusetts, Vermont, and other areas of the New England states. Consumption (tuberculosis) was thought to be caused by the deceased consuming the life of their surviving relatives. Bodies were exhumed and internal organs ritually burned to stop the "vampire" from attacking the local population and to prevent the spread of the disease. Notable cases provoked national attention and comment, such as those of Mercy Brown in Rhode Island and Frederick Ransom in Vermont.
EliezerJewett was the namesake of Jewett City, Connecticut, now the borough of the town of Griswold, Connecticut. He founded a settlement there in 1771.
Funerary art in Puritan New England encompasses graveyard headstones carved between c. 1640 and the late 18th century by the Puritans, founders of the first American colonies, and their descendants. Early New England puritan funerary art conveys a practical attitude towards 17th-century mortality; death was an ever-present reality of life, and their funerary traditions and grave art provide a unique insight into their views on death. The minimalist decoration and lack embellishment of the early headstone designs reflect the British Puritan and Anglo-Saxon religious cultures.
The Griswold family is an American political family from Connecticut and New York of English descent. The family's fortune originates from the 19th Century industrial and merchant pursuits. They tend to be Republican but a few of them support the Democratic Party.
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Otto Tremont Bannard was an American attorney, banker, businessman and philanthropist who donated to Yale University, his alma mater. He stood for mayor of New York in 1909 but lost. He died at sea while on a cruise to the Philippines.
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