A HISTORY OF VAMPIRES IN NEW ENGLAND

Every time my wife and I go to Augusta, a trip of about forty miles, we always end up at the Barnes and Noble book store for a latte and expresso before returning home.   Books are our weakness and we always wind up buying yet another.  

During our last trip I came across the paperback A HISTORY OF VAMPIRES IN NEW ENGLAND by Thomas D’Agustino.   How could I resist.  

It seems that during the 1700 and 1800’s consumption, the wasting disease (tuberculous), was a pandemic in rural New England.   Members of whole families would die within a few years of each other. Each person contracting the disease became emaciated, pale, bled from the mouth and eventually died.   There was no cure.   Doctors did not understand the disease and religious leaders often saw it as demonic.   Many rural families steeped in superstition believed that a vampire or undead spirit was returning to feed on family members in order to remain alive in the grave. 

There are records of over forty graves being disinterred throughout New England and the corps being violated in order to protect those left alive.  There were probably many more, as family members were often buried on family farms and records not kept.

I finished the book last night, and this morning typed New England Vampires into YouTube and up came a lecture given by Thomas D’Agustino – the book author.  

I am including D’Agustino’s lecture on the blog, but also placing a link to the lecture so viewers can watch it full screen if they so choose.  It is interesting.  

At the time of the witch mania in Western Europe, vampire panic was gripping Eastern Europe and Russia.  I wrote a monologue on The Sussex Vampire for a Sherlock Holmes scion society of the Bake Street Irregulars.  If I can find it, I will post it later.

the Ol’Buzzard      

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To watch full screen click THIS LINK.

the Ol'Buzzard