Stated to suck the life out of her siblings, the younger lady, Nancy Younger was believed to be a vampire after she died of consumption in Foster, Rhode Island. To cease the curse of the undead, the household exhumed her physique to place it on hearth.
When folks consider America’s “vampire panics,” their minds usually drift to the misty graveyards of rural New England — the place names like Mercy Brown and Sarah Tillinghast have secured their place in eerie folklore. However lurking within the shadows of this unsettling chapter of historical past is a lesser-known, but equally tragic determine: Nancy Younger Foster of Rhode Island.
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Although her story didn’t make worldwide headlines like Mercy Brown’s, it’s a haunting reminder of the determined lengths Nineteenth-century households went to when demise got here knocking — and refused to depart.
Consumption and a Curse in Foster, Rhode Island
Within the 1800s, consumption, now referred to as tuberculosis, was ravaging households throughout New England. In an age earlier than germ concept was understood, when one member of the family after one other fell ailing with the identical losing illness, superstition usually crammed the void left by medical ignorance. In some rural communities, it was believed {that a} deceased beloved one, buried within the native cemetery, was feeding on the life drive of the residing from past the grave.
She was the oldest daughter of Levi and Anna Younger, residing collectively on their farm straddling between Rhode Island and Connecticut, only a few miles from the place Sarah Tillinghast farm in Exeter was. She was managing the accounting on their land crammed along with her siblings and an inherited slave known as Elija. They’d arrived on the farm in 1806 and produced corn and different produce.
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Nancy, a younger girl probably in her late teenagers or early twenties, reportedly succumbed to tuberculosis on the sixth of April, 1827 and buried her within the newly walled off burial floor near the farm. She was one of many first in her household to be buried on this lot, however quickly the variety of grave would develop.
After her demise, different members of her household started to exhibit the identical harrowing signs and now it consumed Nancy’s sister, Almira— persistent coughs, bloodied handkerchiefs, sunken eyes, and a ghostly pallor. Concern took maintain as she was slowly withering away from one thing they didn’t know the reason for.
In the future, Levi discovered his daughter in her room, claiming to really feel higher. She advised him about her seeing Nancy in her goals at night time, telling her they quickly could be collectively. One thing about this imaginative and prescient made Levi so involved he went to the elders for recommendation. They got here to the conclusion that it needed to be Nancy, getting back from her grave within the night time to feed the life out of her sister.
In line with many legends, it’s mentioned that Nancy got here again to hang-out multiple of her seven siblings, sucking their blood each night time she climbed out of her grave. But it surely looks as if Almira was the one one really sick on this timeframe and never all of them died of consumption earlier than they took drastic measures to cease the illness from spreading.
A Grim Exhumation
Although particulars of the precise yr and names of these concerned have grown hazy with time, native lore holds that Nancy’s physique was exhumed by her determined household and neighbors. Satisfied that she was the supply of their struggling — a vampire preying on them from the grave — they undertook a grisly ritual to sever the connection.
Main them was Levi and Nathan Lennox, usually known as Doc in line with a few of the on-line sources. Though showing in multiple on-line retelling, there actually isn’t a lot documentation to reality test his existence and might be simply an added element for the legend. He was, in line with the tales, not a physician, however the locals trusted him figuring out about unusual issues and superstitions, like what to do with an undead.
Learn Additionally: Take a look at The Mercy Brown Vampire Incident in Rhode Island
As was customary in such instances, her coronary heart was probably eliminated and burned, both on the gravesite or in a close-by blacksmith’s forge, a standard factor in these folks cures. It was believed that by destroying the center, the vampire’s maintain over the household could be damaged, and the illness could be halted. In some variations of the story, they burned the entire physique, scattering the ashes.
What occurred to the stays they burned although? As customized usually acknowledged, it was frequent to both combine the ashes right into a tonic given to the sick to drink. Some sources declare that the fumes of the smoke coming from her stays have been inhaled by the household to remedy themselves from the household curse of the vampiric infliction.
The small print and affirmation to the small print surrounding her exhumation and what occurred to her stays are nonetheless up for debate.
An Obscure, Enduring Legend
Not like the Mercy Brown case, Nancy Younger Foster’s story wasn’t splashed throughout the newspapers of New England or overseas. As an alternative, it lingered quietly in native oral historical past, handed down in hushed tones and hearth tales.
There are some written accounts of it, one from a newspaper in 1936, from the Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner in 1892 and most of what we all know at this time is from the works of Michael E. Bell who researched the various instances of exhumation based mostly on the vampire legends, written down in his work Meals For the Lifeless: On the Path of New England’s Vampires.
Now, the legend has taken maintain in lots of variations, and a few variations of the legend declare that nothing was accomplished to Nancy, there was no ritual, no staking of the physique or burning of the organs. Some say that she remains to be on the market.
However what of Nancy’s siblings? Almira died of tuberculosis the Nineteenth of August in 1828, solely 17 yr outdated. Their brother Olney died a few years later when he was 29, of what, it doesn’t actually say, nevertheless it’s probably it was from consumption as properly. Most of the Younger siblings died younger. Huldah died when she was 23 in 1836, Caleb died in 1843 when he was 26 and Hiram in 1854 when he was 35. Two different brothers lived to be older but additionally succumbed. Solely their youngest daughter, Sarah gave the impression to be the one to flee the sickness and lived to an older age.
The Vampire Legacy of Rhode Island
At present, her title surfaces principally within the footnotes of vampire lore lovers and paranormal historians, however in her time, Nancy’s destiny was one other somber reminder of how demise and superstition wove themselves into the on a regular basis lives of New Englanders.
Her headstone remains to be on her household plot, tipped in any case these years and all this ruckus surrounding her burial.
When you ever end up wandering the outdated burial grounds of Foster, Rhode Island, take a second to pay attention. Within the heavy silence of nightfall, with the coolness of fog threading via the timber, you may simply really feel the lingering sorrow of a lady accused of preying on her personal blood, buried twice — as soon as in earth, and once more beneath the burden of forgotten superstition.
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References:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/24831878/nancy-young
New England’s Vampire Historical past | Legends and Hysteria
New England Vampires: Nancy Younger – 1827 | What Lies Past
