All year round, the residents of the House in Ludington, seem to be plagued by the ghost waking them up from their sleep and watching them from the rocking chair. Around Christmas time, the ghost is said to be the one placing the Christmas Angel on the Christmas Tree.
In the seemingly quiet and picturesque town of Ludington, Michigan, lies a house shrouded in mystery and ghostly legends. While its exact address is kept secret to protect the privacy of its current residents, this haunted house has been the subject of local lore since the early 1980s. Over the years, tales of eerie occurrences and supernatural events have transformed this unassuming home into a focal point of spine-chilling fascination.
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from the USA
Ludington, named after James Ludington after developing the logging operations in the village, is a a small town of the Great Lakes at Lake Michigan with pristine beaches, historic lighthouses an forests were people have come for fishing since Colonial times. There are many locations for a ghost story, but there is one house said to have experienced a haunting around Christmas.
Ludington Michigan: Spray towers over the 57-foot-tall Ludington Lighthouse in Michigan as a storm packing winds of up to 81 mph howled across the Midwest and South on Tuesday, Oct. 26. // Source: Jeff Kiessel, Ludington Daily News. Flickr
The Phantom Footsteps
The most persistent and unnerving phenomenon reported by the house’s owners is the sound of creaking stairs. Every morning at precisely 5:15, the unmistakable noise of footsteps ascending the staircase echoes through the silent halls. Despite thorough investigations and countless sleepless nights by the residents, no physical presence has ever been found. This daily occurrence has become a ghostly alarm clock, signaling the presence of an unseen visitor.
Does it still happen? We have not heard otherwise, although, because of the privacy of the residents, there is not much details and facts to go on and the story as found is from the book: Haunted Christmas: Yuletide Ghosts and Other Spooky Holiday Happenings By Mary Beth Crain from 2009
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Haunted Houses
Another chilling aspect of this haunted house is the sensation of being watched. The owners often report feeling an intense gaze emanating from the corner of the living room, where antique rocking chairs sit. These chairs have been known to rock gently on their own, as if someone or something is quietly observing from a bygone era. The eerie creaking of the chairs as they move by themselves adds to the house’s unsettling atmosphere.
The Christmas Haunting
One of the most intriguing and seasonal phenomena in the haunted house of Ludington occurs every Christmas, a time for quiet and joy for others, but a haunting experience for the residence. The owners meticulously decorate their tree, placing the angel at the top as the final touch as in most houses in America. However, each year, without fail, the angel is mysteriously repositioned. No one has ever seen it happen, but each morning, the angel sits perfectly atop the tree, as if placed by an invisible hand, before the residents themselves get a chance to put it on top.
Local gossip and old neighborhood tales provide a clue to this particular haunting. Decades ago, a kindly neighbor had made it a tradition to climb a ladder and place the angel on the Christmas tree for the owners of the house. Why? As an acto of kindness? As a prank?
This annual act continued until the neighbor’s death. Strangely enough, it was after his passing that the angel began to appear on the tree by itself, leading many to believe that his spirit continues the tradition from beyond the grave.
The Christmas Angel: Put on the top of the tree, the Christmas Angel seems to be haunted as it seems to get there by itself. Could it be the ghost of a past resident or perhaps a neighbor putting it there as a ghost?
A Brief History of Christmas Trees
The tradition of decorating Christmas trees dates back to the 16th century in Germany, where devout Christians would bring decorated trees into their homes. This came from an even older pre-christian tradition in Europe of the Yuletide and midwinter celebration for the pagans.
The custom spread across Europe and eventually to America, where it became an integral part of the holiday season. The act of placing an angel or star atop the tree symbolizes the Archangel Gabriel or the Star of Bethlehem, guiding the wise men to the birthplace of Jesus. In the haunted house of Ludington, this tradition has taken on a supernatural twist, blending holiday cheer with eerie mystery.
The Haunting of House of Ludington
The haunted house of Ludington, with its spectral footsteps, self-rocking chairs, and mysteriously moving furniture, offers a captivating glimpse into the supernatural. The annual Christmas haunting, where an unseen hand places the angel atop the tree, adds a poignant and ghostly touch to the festive season. Whether it’s the spirit of a benevolent neighbor or a lingering echo of the past, the ghostly presence in this house ensures that Christmas in Ludington is a season of both wonder and spine-tingling mystery.
Centuries after the witch panic in Salem, New England was gripped by another entity – vampires! Thought to crawl out from their graves at night and back to their remaining family to feed and consume the life of them. This has later been known as the New England Vampire Panic The only way to stop them was to dig them up and set them on fire.
In the quiet, frostbitten corners of 19th-century New England—amid snow-capped fields and rickety clapboard farmhouses—a curious darkness was spreading. But it wasn’t witches this time. It wasn’t demons, or ghosts, or devils hiding in the woods. No, what haunted the good, God-fearing folk of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Vermont was something far stranger.
Vampires.
Not the aristocratic, silk-robed kind with Eastern European accents. Not the seductive, night-stalking vampires of Hollywood imagination. These were homegrown, farm-dwelling, dirt-under-their-nails revenants. According to local belief, they didn’t sip fine blood from crystal goblets. They clawed their way out of graves and siphoned the life from their living kin—not with fangs, but with supernatural persistence.
This wasn’t just a gothic fever dream. It was real. It had a body count, graves empty after their families dug them up and burnt their remains to cure themselves of the curse of the undead. After it swept across the east coast, it was later called the New England Vampire Panic.
Old Graveyards: A serene graveyard in New Hampshire reflects the eerie history of vampire folklore in early New England that was gripped by fear during the New England Vampire Panic.
A Disease by Any Other Name
To understand how New England came to believe in vampires, we need to talk about tuberculosis—known in the 1800s as consumption.
Before it had a scientific explanation, TB was a horrifying, slow-moving plague. It wasted the body and if you first got infected, there was a two in ten chance of surviving it as there was no cure. Victims grew pale and thin, their cheeks sunken, eyes glassy. They coughed blood. They wheezed and gasped and sometimes appeared to grow stronger just before they died, as if something unnatural were prolonging their suffering.
The White Death: The plague of tuberculosis is a disease that has killed more people than any other microbial pathogen and mummies dating back to the 8000 BCE. Over the years, many attempts to cure it through curious means show desperation. Fresh air, bloodletting, elephant urine, eating wolf livers and human breast milk has from ancient times been tried.
It was contagious, of course, though no one knew why or how. When one family member died, others often followed. Households dropped like dominos. And so the imagination of rural folk—grounded in a stew of folklore, fear, and grim necessity—did what it does best: It reached for reasons.
They began to believe that the dead were not staying dead.
Vampire Lore: In addition to consumption being rooted in a vampiric infliction, you also had rabies that gave strange symptoms and rare genetic disorders like porphyria that gave a sensitivity to sunlight and reddish teeth. Although in the New England Vampire Panic, it was mainly tuberculosis.
The New England Outback
Exactly why New England? After all, tuberculosis was a worldwide problem, why did the vampiric panic happen here, 200 years after the witch craze in Salem not too far from where they would begin to exhume their loved one from their graves?
There are several factors of how this particular lore and New England Vampire Panic started. One has to do with numbers. After years of civil war, the number of people living in Exeter, Rhode Island for instance, had dwindled to a few thousand, scattered across small rural communities. By some, this was later known as Vampire Capital of America and had a high count of exhumations like the case of Mercy Brown.
Contrary to popular belief about being puritanical, the rural New Englanders in the 1800s were not overly religious and 10 percent belonged to church in these parts. Missionaries were sent to these parts to get them back to God’s words as they saw these rural communities living in cultural isolation from the rest of the world..
The belief of the uneducated farmers have taken hold for many in later years. But was it really so? It seems like many places like Manchester, Vermont where Rachel Burton was exhumed and burned on the town square was founded by educated and not really the most superstitious and religious men. This seems to have changed after the Revolutionary War when it was then described as a place of drinking gambling, and superstitions like vampirism.
They were however superstitious and let their beliefs fester side by side with the industrial revolution and modernisation of the society in the cities not far from their farming communities. Also as a small community, there were a lot of relations between the exhumations. Like the case of the exhumation of Nancy Young having relation through marriage to Sarah Tillinghast who was also exhumed the same way. They were neighbors, although the farms were few and far between, family and friends, and like the sickness of consumption, so did the fear of the undead spread and infect through generations and places.
The Curious Case of Mercy Brown
The most infamous case of the New England Vampire Panic took place in 1892, in the icy hills of Exeter, Rhode Island. The Brown family had been ravaged by tuberculosis. First, mother Mary Eliza died. Then daughter Mary Olive. Then son Edwin became ill and left for Colorado in a desperate bid for recovery.
And then Mercy Lena Brown, a 19-year-old girl with dark hair and a shy smile, fell sick and died on January 17, 1892.
Mercy Brown: A historical portrait of Mercy Brown, the young woman at the center of the New England Vampire Panic.
The townsfolk were suspicious. Too many Browns were dying. Someone, or something, must be behind it. They began to murmur. Maybe one of the dead was still feeding. Edwin, now barely hanging on, had to be saved.
So in March—when the ground thawed enough to dig—they exhumed the bodies.
Mary Eliza and Mary Olive had decomposed as expected. But Mercy? Her body, kept in a crypt during the harsh winter, was remarkably intact. Her cheeks had color. There was blood in her heart, clear signs she was the vampire.
The heart and liver were removed and burned. The ashes were mixed into a tonic and given to Edwin to drink. (A sentence that should never be uttered casually, but here we are.)
Did it work? Tragically, no. Edwin died two months later. But Mercy’s story endured, becoming the poster child of the New England Vampire Panic—a real-life tale so haunting that even Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, reportedly took notes.
Mercy wasn’t the only one. According to folklorist Michael Bell, there was around 80 of these types of exhumations. From Maine to Massachusetts to Rhode Island, similar rituals were performed. Perhaps as far west as Minnesota. Not always with a name. Not always with fire. But the goal was the same: stop the dead from killing the living.
The Vampire Next Door in the New England Vampire Panic
These were not “vampires” as we think of them today, but corpses with unfinished business, still feeding on their living relatives from beyond the grave. They drained vitality, not with teeth, but through a metaphysical link. The only cure? Dig up the body, examine it, and if necessary, destroy the vessel.
Some communities in Maine and Plymouth, Massachusetts, opted to simply flip the exhumed vampire facedown in the grave and leave it at that. But in places like Connecticut, Vermont and especially in Rhode Island, they took it one step further.
If the corpse was found unusually fresh, with blood in the heart or organs (a not-uncommon occurrence in cold New England graves and those buried in the winter or put in freezing crypts waiting for the ground to thaw), it was declared the source of the curse. The heart would be removed and burned to ash, sometimes the liver, kidney or other organs were also taken. Often, the ritual was done in secret, other times it was done publicly, sometimes on a blacksmith’s anvil or just on a nearby rock in the cemetery. In many cultures it was believed that the fire in a blacksmith’s anvil was a divine gift and that they had the power to banish evil through their metal and flames.
There were also some cases where vines and sprouts growing from the coffins and bodies were seen as signs of vampiric activity, like we see with the exhumation of Annie Dennett. They believed that the vine or root growing at or by the grave reached the next coffin, another family member would be sick and die. This part of the legend is a bit more difficult to trace back to a particular superstition shared with other places.
As the ritual demanded, their heart and liver were burned on a nearby rock and the ashes were mixed with a tonic and given to the sick relatives to drink. Sometimes it was also said to be smoked or the fumes from the burning were inhaled by those attending.
The Mystery of J.B: Connecticut State Archaeologist, Nick Bellantoni, was excavating the cemetery and found something no one could have expected. Among the graves, one burial in particular captured attention: a coffin marked only with brass tacks, spelling the initials “J.B. 55”. The remains inside had been subject to a post-mortem ritual that hinted unmistakably at vampire panic practices during the New England Vampire Panic. // Photo courtesy of Nicholas Bellantoni
After the ritual, it seems like the rest of the body was reburied. In Woodstock, Vermont, a father exhumed the bodies of his daughters and burned them to save his last surviving child. In Griswold, Connecticut, archaeologists discovered 29 burials in the 1990s—one with the skull and thigh bones rearranged in a skull-and-crossbones pattern. The jaw had been hacked apart. The coffin was inscribed with “JB55,” believed to stand for “John Barber,” a middle-aged man who likely died of TB. The mutilation? A post-mortem attempt to stop the spread of vampirism.
Although it is today known as the New England Vampire Panic, the people at the time didn’t use this terminology as the term was not commonly used in the community. But when the newspapers and outsiders started to look at the phenomenon, they classified it as vampire lore because of the similarities about the lore in eastern Europe dating back to the tenth century.
There are many versions about where the vampire lore that struck the New England coast around this time. According to residents of Exeter, Rhode Island, they claimed they got the exhumations tradition from the Native Americans that certainly had their own vampire lore. But what about the European connection?
Vampire Lore in the World: Although New England cultivated its own vampire belief, it certainly wasn’t the first. Across the ocean in Europe, the fear of the vampires in eastern Europe took hold in the 1700 and worked its way west. In Europe the wooden stake was said to be the thing banishing the vampire. In America, they burned their organs showing signs of vampirism.This illustration comes from an 1851 book by Paul Feval titles “Les Tribunaux secrets” and was created by René de Moraine.
In this time, there was also a Vampire panic in Europe, especially eastern and central Europe. German and Slavic immigrants are said to have brought their lore and superstitions with them in the 18th century. There were Hessian mercenaries that served in the Revolutionary War and Palatine Germans colonized Pennsylvania. There were also Germans and different eastern Europeans traveling through the area as healers, bringing with them the ideas of the undead and exhumation as a cure for the terrible diseases the townsfolk didn’t yet understand.
The Science Arrives too Late for Many
The New England Vampire Panic began to wane by the early 20th century, as germ theory and modern medicine began to explain disease in ways people could trust. TB was finally understood as a bacterial infection, not a curse.
In the meantime, there were as many as 80 exhumed graves we know of, but there were probably many more. For example, in 1862, reports of vampirism swept the community of Saco, Maine so strongly that almost every deceased resident was dug up and reburied, allegedly. Every corpse was, apparently, a suspect.
But the New England Vampire Panic hadn’t been entirely irrational. These were desperate people watching their families die horribly. They didn’t have the benefit of science. They had folk remedies, tradition, and fear—and so they reached for the most ancient tool humans possess: storytelling.
And in the dark corners of New England, those stories had fangs.
List of Vampire Cases of the New England Vampire Panic
Once upon a time there used to live a Basilisk in a cave underneath where the Tanner’s Fountain (Gerberberglein) is today. Said to kill with its poisonous breath even, it has become the very symbol of Basel today.
After taking his regime of terror too far on a stormy winter night, the Bailiff of Brunegg committed a sin so huge on a hunt that would send him into a haunted afterlife.
Why did we stop telling ghost stories for Christmas? In the olden days, it used to be a tradition to gather around and tell each other ghost stories in Victorian England. Often set in cold and dark castles or somewhere far remote in the cold icy night. Here are some perfect short stories you can read for free, perfect for Christmas time.
How about having a look about the darker things that Christmas has to offer. It’s not all just ugly sweaters and sweet eggnog. Here are some of the Dark Christmas Legends from around the world, bringing the spooky tales and traditions we are missing during yule times.
The Portent of the Shadow or just The Shadow is set during a Christmas gathering of friends, one guest tells of a terrifying, supernatural encounter involving an otherworldly shadow that leads to madness and death. Classic Edwardian Christmas ghostliness.
In the ruins of the former castle of Rouelbeau in Switzerland, the ghost of a Lady in White is said to appear during Christmas times. As one of the Weiße Frau from Germanic folklore, she is believed to have been the mistress of the castle until she was cast away for not bearing a son.
One of James’s lesser-known but fascinating tales — set at Christmas, it’s presented as a series of letters about a disturbing Punch and Judy show, a mysterious disappearance, and a spectral visitation on Christmas Eve. It first appeared in print in the June 4, 1913 issue of the magazine Cambridge Review. It was published again in 1919 as part of the anthology A Thin Ghost and Others.
In the middle of the night, it was said that the bells of St. John Church in Rapperswil, Switzerland started to toll. When the churchwarden went to investigate, it was said that he saw the headless ghosts of the fallen soldiers from the Battle of Näfels holding midnight mass.
Set in snowy Ukraine on Christmas Eve, this folkloric tale follows a trickster devil who wreaks havoc in a village while a young man seeks to win his beloved’s heart under supernatural influence.
Each December, when the nights grow long and the spirit of Christmas fills the air, Bern’s holiday phantoms awaken. These tales from lore and legends, remind us that even amidst celebration, the spirits of bygone eras linger.
At a cozy inn on Christmas Eve, guests trade spooky stories—until a real, bloodstained intruder named “Jerry Bundler” appears, turning festive warmth into true fright.
All year round, the residents of the House in Ludington, seem to be plagued by the ghost waking them up from their sleep and watching them from the rocking chair. Around Christmas time, the ghost is said to be the one placing the Christmas Angel on the Christmas Tree.
A cold day in February, the village people in Manchester, Vermont gathered in the square to stop a vampire thought to suck the life out of a young woman. By burying her up and burning her remains, they thought they could fight back the curse of the undead.
New England, with its brooding forests, craggy hills, and centuries-old graveyards, has long been fertile ground for ghost stories, witch trials, and spectral folklore. But perhaps one of its grimmest and most unsettling chapters comes from a sleepy little village in southern Vermont — Manchester, 1793 — where townsfolk turned on one of their own dead in a desperate bid to halt a creeping, invisible killer: tuberculosis.
This is the eerie tale of Rachel Burton (née Harris), a woman whose body was unearthed, mutilated, and burned in front of a crowd of hundreds, believed to be a vampire draining the life of her husband’s new wife from beyond the grave.
The Death of Rachel Harris
In the late 18th century, Captain Isaac Burton, a respected deacon in the local Congregational church, buried his first wife, Rachel Harris, after she succumbed to consumption (the old term for tuberculosis). Consumption was a slow, wasting disease — it could pick off entire families one by one in a cruel, unrelenting sweep. To early New Englanders, it made sense to suspect some supernatural culprit.
We have the story of her, told by Judge John S. Pettibone (1786-1872). Already from this source, a lot of time had passed. She was a young woman, around 20 and was buried around 1792 and described by the judge as “a fine, healthy, beautiful girl” before her death. The ritual was described in his History of Manchester manuscript from around 1860 under a section titled Tale of the Demon Vampire.
Within a year of Rachel’s passing, Captain Burton remarried, taking Hulda Powell as his second wife. But it wasn’t long before Hulda, too, began to wither away. She suffered the tell-tale signs: a persistent cough, fatigue, night sweats, and alarming weight loss. The similarity of her symptoms to those of Rachel raised superstitious suspicions. In an era without germ theory, people didn’t understand how tuberculosis spread — but they did know when a deathly pattern felt unnatural.
And in New England folklore, there was a chilling explanation for such tragedies: the dead could feed on the living.
The Vampire Cure for Consumption
According to local belief, if a deceased family member was suspected of preying on their kin, there was only one way to stop them. You had to exhume the corpse and destroy the offending organ — typically the heart or liver — sometimes feeding the ashes to the afflicted, or simply burning them in the hopes of severing the connection between dead and living.
Sources vary about when the exhumation took place. Some say it was around three years after Rachel died. Some say that it was In February of 1793, after Hulda’s health worsened, the townsfolk and Burton’s family settled on this morbid course of action. Rachel Harris’s body would be exhumed, and whatever malevolent hold she had over Hulda would be broken in a public ritual.
Accounts suggest that between 500 and 1,000 people gathered at the graveyard in Manchester to witness the ritual — an astonishing turnout for a remote colonial village, but a testament to the grip of fear and superstition on the community.
It seems like many places like Manchester, Vermont where Rachel Burton was exhumed and burned on the town square was founded by educated and not really the most superstitious and religious men. This seems to have changed after the Revolutionary War when it was then described as a place of drinking gambling, and superstitions like vampirism.
Leading the ritual was Timothy Mead, while his relative, Jacob Mead, fired up his blacksmith’s forge nearby. The chilling operation was carried out in broad daylight, with Deacon Burton, a religious leader, presiding over the spectacle.
Rachel’s heart, liver, and lungs were removed, though contemporary accounts do not detail whether there was anything particularly ‘unusual’ about the condition of her remains — though it hardly mattered. The ritual was the important part.
The organs were then placed onto Jacob Mead’s blacksmith’s forge and burned to ash in front of the assembled crowd. As the account from 1860 says: “It was the month of February and good sleighing”. The belief was that by burning the vital organs, they would destroy the vampire’s connection to the living and halt the spread of the disease.
Often in these rituals, the sick would ingest the ashes of the burnt parts, often mixed into a tonic for them to drink. It’s not explicitly said, but it’s likely this also happened here. But for what purpose? Hulda Burton died in September of 1793, just months after the gruesome exhumation. The disease had already claimed her, and no amount of superstitious ceremony could stop it.
But the ritual’s failure did little to dissuade similar practices throughout New England. The vampire panic would continue for decades, culminating in famous cases like Mercy Brown’s exhumation in 1892 — a remarkably similar incident a century later, in the same region.
An Eerie Reminder
Today, there’s little to mark the site where Rachel Harris Burton’s grave was disturbed in Factory Point Cemetery in Manchester. Time and weather have worn away many of the old headstones, and the blacksmith’s forge long since cooled.
In the cemetery, the Vermont Folklife Center put a sign and marker in 2022, commemorating the story of Rachel Harris Burton. Her grave is noticeable because of the distinctive stone that was carved by Zerubbabel Collins, which was a very famous family of carvers.
But if you find yourself in Manchester, Vermont, wandering one of its ancient cemeteries on a fog-laden evening, spare a thought for poor Rachel — accused in death, desecrated in superstition, and forever part of America’s eerie legacy of vampire panics.
After all, history’s most unsettling tales aren’t always buried as deep as we think.
Once upon a time there used to live a Basilisk in a cave underneath where the Tanner’s Fountain (Gerberberglein) is today. Said to kill with its poisonous breath even, it has become the very symbol of Basel today.
After taking his regime of terror too far on a stormy winter night, the Bailiff of Brunegg committed a sin so huge on a hunt that would send him into a haunted afterlife.
Why did we stop telling ghost stories for Christmas? In the olden days, it used to be a tradition to gather around and tell each other ghost stories in Victorian England. Often set in cold and dark castles or somewhere far remote in the cold icy night. Here are some perfect short stories you can read for free, perfect for Christmas time.
How about having a look about the darker things that Christmas has to offer. It’s not all just ugly sweaters and sweet eggnog. Here are some of the Dark Christmas Legends from around the world, bringing the spooky tales and traditions we are missing during yule times.
The Portent of the Shadow or just The Shadow is set during a Christmas gathering of friends, one guest tells of a terrifying, supernatural encounter involving an otherworldly shadow that leads to madness and death. Classic Edwardian Christmas ghostliness.
In the ruins of the former castle of Rouelbeau in Switzerland, the ghost of a Lady in White is said to appear during Christmas times. As one of the Weiße Frau from Germanic folklore, she is believed to have been the mistress of the castle until she was cast away for not bearing a son.
One of James’s lesser-known but fascinating tales — set at Christmas, it’s presented as a series of letters about a disturbing Punch and Judy show, a mysterious disappearance, and a spectral visitation on Christmas Eve. It first appeared in print in the June 4, 1913 issue of the magazine Cambridge Review. It was published again in 1919 as part of the anthology A Thin Ghost and Others.
In the middle of the night, it was said that the bells of St. John Church in Rapperswil, Switzerland started to toll. When the churchwarden went to investigate, it was said that he saw the headless ghosts of the fallen soldiers from the Battle of Näfels holding midnight mass.
Set in snowy Ukraine on Christmas Eve, this folkloric tale follows a trickster devil who wreaks havoc in a village while a young man seeks to win his beloved’s heart under supernatural influence.
Each December, when the nights grow long and the spirit of Christmas fills the air, Bern’s holiday phantoms awaken. These tales from lore and legends, remind us that even amidst celebration, the spirits of bygone eras linger.
At a cozy inn on Christmas Eve, guests trade spooky stories—until a real, bloodstained intruder named “Jerry Bundler” appears, turning festive warmth into true fright.
All year round, the residents of the House in Ludington, seem to be plagued by the ghost waking them up from their sleep and watching them from the rocking chair. Around Christmas time, the ghost is said to be the one placing the Christmas Angel on the Christmas Tree.
In the midst of a consumption epidemic ravaging whole families on the coast of New England, the Ray family took drastic measures to save the eldest son from illness. The Jewett City Vampires were believed to be behind the consumption running in the family’s veins. Could burying up the bodies and burning them keep them from feeding on the living?
Buried in the annals of Connecticut history is a lesser-known, chilling chapter of American vampire panic — the unsettling case of the Jewett City Vampires.
This grim and fascinating story unfolded in the mid-19th century in Jewett City, a quiet mill town in Griswold, Connecticut. And like many such tales, it was rooted not in mythic monsters, but in the all-too-real terror of tuberculosis, known back then by a far more ominous name: consumption.
The Ray Family: A Family Struck by Death
The story centers around the Ray family, whose seemingly cursed lineage became the focus of the town’s fear and superstition. The Rays were a large farming family that were greatly affected by the tuberculosis epidemic ravaging the coast of New England. Between 1845 and 1854, several members of the Ray family died in rapid succession from tuberculosis. In an age before germ theory, the illness seemed almost supernatural — wasting away the victim’s body, leaving them pale, weak, and sunken-eyed, sometimes for years before death.
And in those uncertain days, when science faltered, folklore eagerly filled the void.
The neighbors of Jewett City began to murmur. Surely this wasn’t natural. The idea took hold that perhaps the dead of the Ray family were not resting peacefully in their graves, but rather rising at night to drain the life from their surviving kin.
The Exhumation of The Jewett City Vampires
The first in the family to die of consumption was 24 year old Lemuel Ray in 1845. Then his father, Henry B. Ray followed in 1851 and his brother, 26 year old Elisha Ray in 1853.
The eldest son in the family, Henry Ray got the disease the year after and panic started to set into the community. Surely there was something supernatural at play?
In 1854, driven by grief and superstition, the surviving members of the Ray family took a drastic step. According to contemporary accounts, they exhumed the bodies of Lemuel and Elisha from the Jewett City Cemetery on the 8th of May. The remaining and extended Ray family together with their friends and neighbors, gathered in the cemetery to perform the ritual.
At the time, it was believed that if a body was too well-preserved — particularly the heart or vital organs — it meant the deceased was still spiritually active and preying upon the living. In such cases, the suspected vampire’s heart would be cut out and ritually burned to sever the unnatural bond.
Records from the era confirm that at least one body was exhumed and burned on a nearby hill. The hope was that this morbid ritual would stop the deaths within the family and finally lay the restless spirit to peace.
They burned the heart of the corpses in the graveyard and most likely mixed the ashes of it into a mixture for Henry to drink or ingest in some way. This was believed to protect and cure him from the vampiric feeding they believed his brother did. Or was it enough to burn their bodies to keep them rising from their graves at night to feed on their remaining family? The sources of this detail remain inconclusive.
But what happened to Henry? Some say that they don’t know and that Henry most likely lived on and that the ritual cured him. Perhaps this is because his tombstone is not right next to his brothers in the cemetery that people believe it. Other sources claim that he died the same year, only 34 years old. In addition to his demise, his own children and wife also followed shortly. Because, a little further behind his brothers and family, his grave can be seen.
Echoes of a Broader Vampire Panic
What makes the Jewett City Vampire Panic especially significant is that it wasn’t a lone case of morbid superstition — it was part of a broader phenomenon that plagued New England throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
Between 1790 and 1890, multiple cases of so-called vampire exhumations were documented in Rhode Island, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. All were responses to consumption outbreaks that ravaged families and small towns, where fear was a tangible, everyday companion.
The famous Mercy Brown case in 1892 was the last well-documented vampire exhumation in America, but the events in Jewett City nearly forty years earlier reflect just how widespread and desperate these beliefs were.
Modern Discovery and Legacy of Vampire Graves in Connecticut
The graves of the Ray family remained largely undisturbed until 1990, when nearby, another unsettling discovery was made — the now-famous Griswold “J.B.” vampire grave, with remains arranged in a classic anti-vampire configuration: skull and thigh bones crossed beneath it.
Though unconnected officially to the Ray family, the proximity of these two cases in Griswold illustrates just how deep the vampire panic had gripped rural New England communities. Had the Rays heard about the rituals the Walton family had done decades before? Was the contagious disease actually fear?
Today, the Jewett City Cemetery still stands, an unassuming plot of land in a quiet town. Although the original graves from the cemetery were moved in recent years because of a building project. The graves of the Ray family look like they are still buried, six feet under.
Once upon a time there used to live a Basilisk in a cave underneath where the Tanner’s Fountain (Gerberberglein) is today. Said to kill with its poisonous breath even, it has become the very symbol of Basel today.
After taking his regime of terror too far on a stormy winter night, the Bailiff of Brunegg committed a sin so huge on a hunt that would send him into a haunted afterlife.
Why did we stop telling ghost stories for Christmas? In the olden days, it used to be a tradition to gather around and tell each other ghost stories in Victorian England. Often set in cold and dark castles or somewhere far remote in the cold icy night. Here are some perfect short stories you can read for free, perfect for Christmas time.
How about having a look about the darker things that Christmas has to offer. It’s not all just ugly sweaters and sweet eggnog. Here are some of the Dark Christmas Legends from around the world, bringing the spooky tales and traditions we are missing during yule times.
The Portent of the Shadow or just The Shadow is set during a Christmas gathering of friends, one guest tells of a terrifying, supernatural encounter involving an otherworldly shadow that leads to madness and death. Classic Edwardian Christmas ghostliness.
In the ruins of the former castle of Rouelbeau in Switzerland, the ghost of a Lady in White is said to appear during Christmas times. As one of the Weiße Frau from Germanic folklore, she is believed to have been the mistress of the castle until she was cast away for not bearing a son.
One of James’s lesser-known but fascinating tales — set at Christmas, it’s presented as a series of letters about a disturbing Punch and Judy show, a mysterious disappearance, and a spectral visitation on Christmas Eve. It first appeared in print in the June 4, 1913 issue of the magazine Cambridge Review. It was published again in 1919 as part of the anthology A Thin Ghost and Others.
In the middle of the night, it was said that the bells of St. John Church in Rapperswil, Switzerland started to toll. When the churchwarden went to investigate, it was said that he saw the headless ghosts of the fallen soldiers from the Battle of Näfels holding midnight mass.
Set in snowy Ukraine on Christmas Eve, this folkloric tale follows a trickster devil who wreaks havoc in a village while a young man seeks to win his beloved’s heart under supernatural influence.
Each December, when the nights grow long and the spirit of Christmas fills the air, Bern’s holiday phantoms awaken. These tales from lore and legends, remind us that even amidst celebration, the spirits of bygone eras linger.
At a cozy inn on Christmas Eve, guests trade spooky stories—until a real, bloodstained intruder named “Jerry Bundler” appears, turning festive warmth into true fright.
All year round, the residents of the House in Ludington, seem to be plagued by the ghost waking them up from their sleep and watching them from the rocking chair. Around Christmas time, the ghost is said to be the one placing the Christmas Angel on the Christmas Tree.
Dug up after his first burial, the mysterious grave of J.B haunted New England as one of its vampire graves from the New England vampire panic. Who was this man, and what happened to make his friends and family dig him up and rearrange his bones, actually turning him in his grave?
When people think of America’s vampire folklore, names like Mercy Brown often rise to the top. But lurking deeper in the shadowy annals of New England’s vampire panic is the strange and unsettling case of a man identified only by his initials: J.B. His grave, discovered in 1990 in Griswold, Connecticut, became the centerpiece of a chilling historical mystery that hints at the desperate and fearful superstitions of rural 19th-century America.
But who was J.B? And what happened back then that was so horrifying, they had to dig his corpse up to make sure that he would stay dead?
A Grim Discovery in the Griswold Woods
In 1990, three young boys playing near a gravel pit in Griswold stumbled upon something macabre — a collection of human bones near a sand and gravel mine. When they told their mothers what happened, they didn’t believe it, but when they returned with a skull.
The police first thought it had something to do with the serial killer, Michael Ross, but they soon realized that the bones were from something much older. What was initially believed to be the remains of a modern crime victim quickly turned into an archaeological investigation when it was determined that the bones belonged to an early 19th-century graveyard known as the Walton Family Cemetery.
Photo courtesy of Nicholas Bellantoni
Connecticut State Archaeologist, Nick Bellantoni, was excavating the cemetery and found something no one could have expected. Among the graves, one burial in particular captured attention: a coffin marked only with brass tacks, spelling the initials “J.B. 55”. The remains inside had been subject to a post-mortem ritual that hinted unmistakably at vampire panic practices. The skeleton had been exhumed and carefully reburied with its head decapitated and put on the chest. Its thigh bones were placed in a cross beneath the skull — a classic “skull and crossbones” arrangement used in old folklore to prevent the dead from rising.
Photo courtesy of Nicholas Bellantoni
This was no accident. This was a deliberate act meant to keep something sinister at bay.
The New England Vampire Panic: Death’s Superstitious Grip
The grave of J.B can easily be seen together with a string of exhumations in the New England area during the 19th century as a part of the vampire panic that grew forth after a tuberculosis epidemic broke out, that made even the most logical man hunting for the undead.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, tuberculosis (then called “consumption”) was an incurable and terrifying disease. It slowly wasted away its victims, hollowing them out until death. In the face of its horrors, rural communities often turned to folklore for explanations.
One deeply held belief was that when several family members fell ill in succession, it might be the work of a vampire among the dead — a family member or neighbor who, from beyond the grave, was spiritually draining the living.
To stop them, they thought they had to dig them up and perform a ritual on the undead. Signs of vampirism were blood left in their organs, unnatural lack of decomposition, their hair and nails growing and bloated bellies, looking like they had recently fed. If some of these signs were present in the grave, they believed that they were a part of the undead and vampires. The grim solution? Exhume the suspect’s body and perform a ritual to stop them.
This often involved cutting out and burning the heart, decapitating the body, or rearranging the skeleton to prevent it from rising. The Griswold case suggests this very ritual was carried out on poor J.B who had been exhumed around five years after his death and where they removed his heart in an attempt to stop the undead from rising and feeding on the living.
Who Was J.B. and What Happened to his Grave?
Despite modern forensic analysis, the identity of J.B. remain a mystery for decades. Archaeologists and historians placed the burial in the 1830s to 1840s, based on coffin construction and burial artifacts. Forensic examination of the bones revealed that J.B. was a middle-aged man who had indeed suffered from tuberculosis. His bones bore signs of the disease’s toll — lesions on the ribs characteristic of pulmonary tuberculosis.
Photo courtesy of Nicholas Bellantoni
The practice of marking coffins with initials was common in the period, but unfortunately, no surviving burial records from Griswold matched those initials, and no contemporary accounts of a local vampire panic in the area have yet surfaced. Yet the condition of the grave makes it clear: someone believed J.B. was a threat from beyond the grave.
When scientists revisited the case, they turned to a farmer named John Barber. Next to him, where a grave marked IB45 containing a female around 45-55 years old. Could it be a family laid to rest next to each other? There was also a grave marked NB 13, suggesting a father son relationship. Something an obituary from 1826 supports. This was for the 12 year old Nicholas Barber where they also mentioned his father, John Barber. This was also confirmed through DNA testing.
Face of the Vampire: Using DNA extracted from a skull, a forensic artist created a facial reconstruction of a man believed to be a vampire from the 18th century. Using 3D facial reconstruction software, a forensic artist determined that JB55 likely had fair skin, brown or hazel eyes, brown or black hair and some freckles, according to a statement. (Image credit: Parabon Nanolabs, Virginia Commonwealth University)
Most often, the organs to those accused of vampirism were cut out and burned. Most often it was the heart, or perhaps the kidneys. Often, it wasn’t years before they dug them up, so what happened if there were no organs left?
When the townspeople opened his grave, his body was probably a skeleton already. To get to his decomposing heart, they most likely broke open his ribs to remove it, removed his head and put it back together. His heart and organs were most likely burnt. Most often the undead showed these signs of something being wrong, but what if there were nothing to take?
If there were no organs to take, the separation of the skull from the body was a part of the ritual instead, many that have looked into the case have hypothesized. The rituals craved for people to ingest the ashes of what they cremated, but we simply don’t know what really happened when they exhumed J.Bs body.
It is also said that there were no signs of tuberculosis in the other bodies found near J.B in the cemetery. So for what reason did they dig him up?
Fear Beyond the Grave of John Barber
The story of J.B. of Griswold is a chilling reminder of the power of fear, folklore, and superstition that seems so foreign and barbaric to people not believing in them. In a time before germ theory and antibiotics, death crept so relentlessly through small communities that people were willing to embrace the macabre to protect the living.
Today, the remains of J.B. are studied and preserved as part of Connecticut’s archaeological history, but his story — or rather, the silence of it — still haunts the annals of New England folklore. His grave stands not just as a testament to a forgotten life, but to the uneasy marriage of death and superstition that once gripped early America.
Once upon a time there used to live a Basilisk in a cave underneath where the Tanner’s Fountain (Gerberberglein) is today. Said to kill with its poisonous breath even, it has become the very symbol of Basel today.
After taking his regime of terror too far on a stormy winter night, the Bailiff of Brunegg committed a sin so huge on a hunt that would send him into a haunted afterlife.
Why did we stop telling ghost stories for Christmas? In the olden days, it used to be a tradition to gather around and tell each other ghost stories in Victorian England. Often set in cold and dark castles or somewhere far remote in the cold icy night. Here are some perfect short stories you can read for free, perfect for Christmas time.
How about having a look about the darker things that Christmas has to offer. It’s not all just ugly sweaters and sweet eggnog. Here are some of the Dark Christmas Legends from around the world, bringing the spooky tales and traditions we are missing during yule times.
The Portent of the Shadow or just The Shadow is set during a Christmas gathering of friends, one guest tells of a terrifying, supernatural encounter involving an otherworldly shadow that leads to madness and death. Classic Edwardian Christmas ghostliness.
In the ruins of the former castle of Rouelbeau in Switzerland, the ghost of a Lady in White is said to appear during Christmas times. As one of the Weiße Frau from Germanic folklore, she is believed to have been the mistress of the castle until she was cast away for not bearing a son.
One of James’s lesser-known but fascinating tales — set at Christmas, it’s presented as a series of letters about a disturbing Punch and Judy show, a mysterious disappearance, and a spectral visitation on Christmas Eve. It first appeared in print in the June 4, 1913 issue of the magazine Cambridge Review. It was published again in 1919 as part of the anthology A Thin Ghost and Others.
In the middle of the night, it was said that the bells of St. John Church in Rapperswil, Switzerland started to toll. When the churchwarden went to investigate, it was said that he saw the headless ghosts of the fallen soldiers from the Battle of Näfels holding midnight mass.
Set in snowy Ukraine on Christmas Eve, this folkloric tale follows a trickster devil who wreaks havoc in a village while a young man seeks to win his beloved’s heart under supernatural influence.
Each December, when the nights grow long and the spirit of Christmas fills the air, Bern’s holiday phantoms awaken. These tales from lore and legends, remind us that even amidst celebration, the spirits of bygone eras linger.
At a cozy inn on Christmas Eve, guests trade spooky stories—until a real, bloodstained intruder named “Jerry Bundler” appears, turning festive warmth into true fright.
All year round, the residents of the House in Ludington, seem to be plagued by the ghost waking them up from their sleep and watching them from the rocking chair. Around Christmas time, the ghost is said to be the one placing the Christmas Angel on the Christmas Tree.
Dead as a young girl, the family of Ruth Ellen Rose believed her to be one of the undead, a vampire rising from her grave every night to feed on her siblings, slowly dying of the same disease she did. To stop this, they decided to dig her body up and carve her heart out.
In the hushed woodlands and misted graveyards of 19th-century New England, terror did not always arrive in the night — sometimes it crept in through the sickroom window, carried on the breath of a wasting cough. One such unfortunate to fall victim to this grim tradition was Ruth Ellen Rose, a 15-year-old girl whose short, tragic life and eerie afterlife have lingered in Rhode Island folklore ever since.
Born in 1859 in Exeter, Rhode Island, Ruth Ellen Rose lived — and died — in the heartland of America’s so-called Vampire Panic. New England, though a landscape of tidy farmsteads and Puritan steeples, harbored a persistent, unshakable fear: that the dead could rise from their graves, not in bodily form, but as a spiritual parasite, draining the life from their surviving kin. Consumption, what we now know as tuberculosis, ravaged families so regularly that superstitions took root like stubborn weeds.
Her Mother was Mary Taylor from the Dixon and Peckham family, but she died in 1866. Her father, William G. Rose was a farmer, mill superintendent, and first president of the Exeter Grange. He was also a lieutenant colonel in the Rhode Island militia. He remarried to Mary Ann Griswold Morrarty. Her former husband had been from the Tillinghast family, and this would likely be one of the things that sealed Ruth’s fate.
Ruth’s illness was slow and torturous and came in waves. By 1874, at just 15, she succumbed to the wasting disease. But death, in the fearful lore of Exeter, was not always an ending.
A Family Cursed by Blood
Not long after Ruth’s death her siblings began to show the telltale signs of consumption. She had a lot of them, and although many of them lived long lives, there were some who died earlier. Like Emma Tillinghast, her step sister who died of consumption, although her death is most often noted to be in 1870 when she was 16. This epidemic also took the lives of their infant little brothers Horace and Edwin. In most documents, Ruth is not even listed in the flock of children so the details of the story sometimes become lost to legends.
William Greene Rose
And rumors swirled. William Rose, Ruth’s father, was not just a grieving parent. Whispers claimed he dabbled in Druid rituals, dark rites passed down from the Old World. At least that is how the stories about him have evolved until today. Local legend still speaks of an ancient stone altar, hidden in the woods of Peace Dale, upon which he was said to perform secret sacrifices to halt the spread of the mysterious illness plaguing his bloodline.
Perhaps it was superstition, or perhaps it was grief twisted into madness, but that same year, William disinterred his daughter’s body. He cut out Ruth’s heart himself and consigned it to the flames in an attempt to stop the curse of the undead. The ash was scattered, a desperate and macabre remedy meant to sever the supernatural link between the dead and the dying.
A Legacy of Unearthed Daughters
Ruth’s tragic end was not without precedent. The tale takes a darker turn when one examines her stepmother’s lineage. Mary, her stepmother, used to be a Tillinghast and this family came with stories of vampires. Stukely Tillinghast, whose own daughter, Sarah Tillinghast, had perished of consumption decades earlier — and was similarly suspected of preying on her family from beyond the grave. The echoes of that old curse seemed to pass through generations like a genetic illness, or perhaps, in the eyes of those fearful villagers, a vampiric inheritance.
Thus, it wasn’t merely disease that haunted these families, but their own shared history, where graves were never truly at rest and tragedy was expected to call twice.
An Unquiet Grave
Today, Ruth Ellen Rose lies in an unmarked grave in South Kingstown Historical Cemetery #11, colloquially known as Rose’s Lot. Or perhaps she’s not there at all, as her grave has never been found. Her father and stepmother’s headstones remain standing, weathered but intact, while Ruth’s resting place is conspicuously absent of any enduring marker. Perhaps it was lost to time — or perhaps deliberately left nameless to deny the restless dead a tether to this world.
George Rose Lot
The land itself retains a peculiar unease. Locals have spoken of strange happenings in the overgrown cemetery — flickering lights, phantom footsteps, and the sound of a distant, rasping cough when no one else is near. Some say that Ruth’s spirit lingers still, denied peace by the violence of her end and the stain of her family’s fear.
Once upon a time there used to live a Basilisk in a cave underneath where the Tanner’s Fountain (Gerberberglein) is today. Said to kill with its poisonous breath even, it has become the very symbol of Basel today.
After taking his regime of terror too far on a stormy winter night, the Bailiff of Brunegg committed a sin so huge on a hunt that would send him into a haunted afterlife.
Why did we stop telling ghost stories for Christmas? In the olden days, it used to be a tradition to gather around and tell each other ghost stories in Victorian England. Often set in cold and dark castles or somewhere far remote in the cold icy night. Here are some perfect short stories you can read for free, perfect for Christmas time.
How about having a look about the darker things that Christmas has to offer. It’s not all just ugly sweaters and sweet eggnog. Here are some of the Dark Christmas Legends from around the world, bringing the spooky tales and traditions we are missing during yule times.
The Portent of the Shadow or just The Shadow is set during a Christmas gathering of friends, one guest tells of a terrifying, supernatural encounter involving an otherworldly shadow that leads to madness and death. Classic Edwardian Christmas ghostliness.
In the ruins of the former castle of Rouelbeau in Switzerland, the ghost of a Lady in White is said to appear during Christmas times. As one of the Weiße Frau from Germanic folklore, she is believed to have been the mistress of the castle until she was cast away for not bearing a son.
One of James’s lesser-known but fascinating tales — set at Christmas, it’s presented as a series of letters about a disturbing Punch and Judy show, a mysterious disappearance, and a spectral visitation on Christmas Eve. It first appeared in print in the June 4, 1913 issue of the magazine Cambridge Review. It was published again in 1919 as part of the anthology A Thin Ghost and Others.
In the middle of the night, it was said that the bells of St. John Church in Rapperswil, Switzerland started to toll. When the churchwarden went to investigate, it was said that he saw the headless ghosts of the fallen soldiers from the Battle of Näfels holding midnight mass.
Set in snowy Ukraine on Christmas Eve, this folkloric tale follows a trickster devil who wreaks havoc in a village while a young man seeks to win his beloved’s heart under supernatural influence.
Each December, when the nights grow long and the spirit of Christmas fills the air, Bern’s holiday phantoms awaken. These tales from lore and legends, remind us that even amidst celebration, the spirits of bygone eras linger.
At a cozy inn on Christmas Eve, guests trade spooky stories—until a real, bloodstained intruder named “Jerry Bundler” appears, turning festive warmth into true fright.
All year round, the residents of the House in Ludington, seem to be plagued by the ghost waking them up from their sleep and watching them from the rocking chair. Around Christmas time, the ghost is said to be the one placing the Christmas Angel on the Christmas Tree.
In the unassuming looking office building Pacific Isle Mortgage, workers have been complaining about a ghost disturbing their work. Running around the hallways and pranking the employees, the ghosts are said to be of the mischievous sort.
In Pearl City, Hawaii, along the busy stretch of Kamehameha Highway, sits the unassuming office building of Pacific Isle Mortgage. Little do people just pass through that this building is one of the most haunted buildings on Oahu island.
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from theUSA
At first glance, this two-story structure at 379 Kamehameha Highway, Suite B, appears to be just another typical business location, where the daily grind of paperwork and phone calls fills the air. However, those who have spent time within its walls know that something far more unsettling lies beneath the surface.
For years, employees working in this building have reported strange and eerie occurrences that defy explanation. It all began innocuously enough—lights flickering, a door inexplicably swinging shut on its own—but the activity soon escalated, leaving those who work here in a constant state of unease.
One of the most unnerving experiences happened to a woman who was working late one evening. As she sat at her desk, diligently reviewing documents, she felt a strange sensation. At first, it was just a light touch, as if a gentle breeze had brushed past her. But then, she distinctly felt someone playing with her hair, gently tugging at the strands as though a playful child were standing behind her. Heart pounding, she spun around in her chair, only to find the room empty, her hair swaying slightly from the invisible touch.
Echoes of Laughter
The building’s spectral inhabitants are not always so subtle. On more than one occasion, the faint sound of children laughing has echoed through the hallways, a chilling contrast to the otherwise quiet and professional atmosphere. Workers have reported hearing the patter of small footsteps running down the corridors, accompanied by gleeful giggles, yet no children are ever seen. These phantom children seem to delight in playing unseen games, their presence felt but never fully understood.
In one particularly unsettling incident, an employee arrived early to work, only to hear the unmistakable sound of children’s laughter emanating from the second floor. Convinced that she was the first to arrive, she cautiously ascended the stairs, her heart racing with each step. But when she reached the top, the laughter abruptly stopped, leaving behind an eerie silence. The office was as it should be—empty and still, save for the lingering sense that she was not alone.
A Building with a Past?
What could be the source of these paranormal disturbances? Some speculate that the building may have been constructed on land with a history, perhaps the site of a forgotten tragedy or a place where spirits were left restless. There really isn’t much to go on regarding the building’s history. The place itself was built in 1970.
Could it be that where the Pacific Isle Mortgage now stands, used to be a sacred heiau from ancient times? Others believe that the spirits may be tied to the objects or people that have passed through the office over the years, their energies lingering long after they have moved on.
Despite the unnerving experiences, the employees of Pacific Isle Mortgage continue their work, albeit with a heightened awareness of the building’s haunted nature. The playful, and sometimes mischievous, spirits have become an unsettling part of the office’s daily life—a reminder that even in the most mundane places, the supernatural may be closer than we think.
So, the next time you pass by 379 Kamehameha Highway, take a moment to consider the unseen occupants who share this space with the living. Perhaps, if you listen closely, you might even hear the distant echoes of laughter, a reminder that the spirits at Pacific Isle Mortgage are always near, watching and waiting.
Once upon a time there used to live a Basilisk in a cave underneath where the Tanner’s Fountain (Gerberberglein) is today. Said to kill with its poisonous breath even, it has become the very symbol of Basel today.
After taking his regime of terror too far on a stormy winter night, the Bailiff of Brunegg committed a sin so huge on a hunt that would send him into a haunted afterlife.
Why did we stop telling ghost stories for Christmas? In the olden days, it used to be a tradition to gather around and tell each other ghost stories in Victorian England. Often set in cold and dark castles or somewhere far remote in the cold icy night. Here are some perfect short stories you can read for free, perfect for Christmas time.
How about having a look about the darker things that Christmas has to offer. It’s not all just ugly sweaters and sweet eggnog. Here are some of the Dark Christmas Legends from around the world, bringing the spooky tales and traditions we are missing during yule times.
The Portent of the Shadow or just The Shadow is set during a Christmas gathering of friends, one guest tells of a terrifying, supernatural encounter involving an otherworldly shadow that leads to madness and death. Classic Edwardian Christmas ghostliness.
In the ruins of the former castle of Rouelbeau in Switzerland, the ghost of a Lady in White is said to appear during Christmas times. As one of the Weiße Frau from Germanic folklore, she is believed to have been the mistress of the castle until she was cast away for not bearing a son.
One of James’s lesser-known but fascinating tales — set at Christmas, it’s presented as a series of letters about a disturbing Punch and Judy show, a mysterious disappearance, and a spectral visitation on Christmas Eve. It first appeared in print in the June 4, 1913 issue of the magazine Cambridge Review. It was published again in 1919 as part of the anthology A Thin Ghost and Others.
In the middle of the night, it was said that the bells of St. John Church in Rapperswil, Switzerland started to toll. When the churchwarden went to investigate, it was said that he saw the headless ghosts of the fallen soldiers from the Battle of Näfels holding midnight mass.
Set in snowy Ukraine on Christmas Eve, this folkloric tale follows a trickster devil who wreaks havoc in a village while a young man seeks to win his beloved’s heart under supernatural influence.
Each December, when the nights grow long and the spirit of Christmas fills the air, Bern’s holiday phantoms awaken. These tales from lore and legends, remind us that even amidst celebration, the spirits of bygone eras linger.
At a cozy inn on Christmas Eve, guests trade spooky stories—until a real, bloodstained intruder named “Jerry Bundler” appears, turning festive warmth into true fright.
All year round, the residents of the House in Ludington, seem to be plagued by the ghost waking them up from their sleep and watching them from the rocking chair. Around Christmas time, the ghost is said to be the one placing the Christmas Angel on the Christmas Tree.
Said to suck the life out of her siblings, the young girl, Nancy Young was believed to be a vampire after she died of consumption in Foster, Rhode Island. To stop the curse of the undead, the family exhumed her body to put it on fire.
When people think of America’s “vampire panics,” their minds often drift to the misty graveyards of rural New England — where names like Mercy Brown and Sarah Tillinghast have secured their place in eerie folklore. But lurking in the shadows of this unsettling chapter of history is a lesser-known, yet equally tragic figure: Nancy Young Foster of Rhode Island.
Though her story didn’t make international headlines like Mercy Brown’s, it’s a haunting reminder of the desperate lengths 19th-century families went to when death came knocking — and refused to leave.
Rhode Island: Along the rocky shores of Rhode Island State, a lot of vampire legends took form, driving people to exhume their dead and beloved from their graves to rid themselves of the curse of the undead they believed sucked the life out of their family.
Consumption and a Curse in Foster, Rhode Island
In the 1800s, consumption, now known as tuberculosis, was ravaging families across New England. In an age before germ theory was understood, when one family member after another fell ill with the same wasting sickness, superstition often filled the void left by medical ignorance. In some rural communities, it was believed that a deceased loved one, buried in the local cemetery, was feeding on the life force of the living from beyond the grave.
She was the oldest daughter of Levi and Anna Young, living together on their farm straddling between Rhode Island and Connecticut, just a few miles from where Sarah Tillinghast farm in Exeter was. She was managing the accounting on their land filled with her siblings and an inherited slave called Elija. They had arrived on the farm in 1806 and produced corn and other produce.
Read More: Check out the story about Sarah Tillinghast that share a very similar story
Nancy, a young woman likely in her late teens or early twenties, reportedly succumbed to tuberculosis on the sixth of April, 1827 and buried her in the newly walled off burial ground close to the farm. She was one of the first in her family to be buried in this lot, but soon the number of grave would grow.
After her death, other members of her family began to exhibit the same harrowing symptoms and now it consumed Nancy’s sister, Almira— persistent coughs, bloodied handkerchiefs, sunken eyes, and a ghostly pallor. Fear took hold as she was slowly withering away from something they didn’t know the cause of.
One day, Levi found his daughter in her room, claiming to feel better. She told him about her seeing Nancy in her dreams at night, telling her they soon would be together. Something about this vision made Levi so concerned he went to the elders for advice. They came to the conclusion that it had to be Nancy, returning from her grave in the night to feed the life out of her sister.
According to many legends, it is said that Nancy came back to haunt more than one of her seven siblings, sucking their blood every night she climbed out of her grave. But it seems like Almira was the only one actually sick in this timeframe and not all of them died of consumption before they took drastic measures to stop the disease from spreading.
A Grim Exhumation
Though details of the exact year and names of those involved have grown hazy with time, local lore holds that Nancy’s body was exhumed by her desperate family and neighbors. Convinced that she was the source of their suffering — a vampire preying on them from the grave — they undertook a grisly ritual to sever the connection.
Leading them was Levi and Nathan Lennox, often called Doc according to some of the online sources. Although appearing in more than one online retelling, there really isn’t much documentation to fact check his existence and is probably just an added detail for the legend. He was, according to the stories, not a doctor, but the locals trusted him knowing about strange things and superstitions, like what to do with an undead.
As was customary in such cases, her heart was likely removed and burned, either at the gravesite or in a nearby blacksmith’s forge, a common element in these folk cures. It was believed that by destroying the heart, the vampire’s hold over the family would be broken, and the sickness would be halted. In some versions of the story, they burned the whole body, scattering the ashes.
What happened to the remains they burned though? As custom often stated, it was common to either mix the ashes into a tonic given to the sick to drink. Some sources claim that the fumes of the smoke coming from her remains were inhaled by the family to cure themselves from the family curse of the vampiric infliction.
The details and confirmation to the details surrounding her exhumation and what happened to her remains are still up for debate.
An Obscure, Enduring Legend
Unlike the Mercy Brown case, Nancy Young Foster’s story wasn’t splashed across the newspapers of New England or abroad. Instead, it lingered quietly in local oral history, passed down in hushed tones and fireside 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 know today is from the works of Michael E. Bell who researched the many cases of exhumation based on the vampire legends, written down in his work Food For the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires.
Now, the legend has taken hold in many variations, and some versions of the legend claim that nothing was done to Nancy, there was no ritual, no staking of the body or burning of the organs. Some say that she is still out there.
But what of Nancy’s siblings? Almira died of tuberculosis the 19th of August in 1828, only 17 year old. Their brother Olney died a couple of years later when he was 29, of what, it doesn’t really say, but it’s likely it was from consumption as well. Many of the Young siblings died young. 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 other brothers lived to be older but also succumbed. Only their youngest daughter, Sarah seemed to be the one to escape the illness and lived to an older age.
The Vampire Legacy of Rhode Island
Today, her name surfaces mostly in the footnotes of vampire lore enthusiasts and paranormal historians, but in her time, Nancy’s fate was another somber reminder of how death and superstition wove themselves into the everyday lives of New Englanders.
Foster: The Swamp Meadow Bridge in Foster, Rhode Island. // Source: Basheer Tome/ Wikimedia
Her gravestone is still on her family plot, tipped after all these years and all this ruckus surrounding her burial.
If you ever find yourself wandering the old burial grounds of Foster, Rhode Island, take a moment to listen. In the heavy silence of dusk, with the chill of fog threading through the trees, you might just feel the lingering sorrow of a girl accused of preying on her own blood, buried twice — once in earth, and again beneath the weight of forgotten superstition.
Once upon a time there used to live a Basilisk in a cave underneath where the Tanner’s Fountain (Gerberberglein) is today. Said to kill with its poisonous breath even, it has become the very symbol of Basel today.
After taking his regime of terror too far on a stormy winter night, the Bailiff of Brunegg committed a sin so huge on a hunt that would send him into a haunted afterlife.
Why did we stop telling ghost stories for Christmas? In the olden days, it used to be a tradition to gather around and tell each other ghost stories in Victorian England. Often set in cold and dark castles or somewhere far remote in the cold icy night. Here are some perfect short stories you can read for free, perfect for Christmas time.
How about having a look about the darker things that Christmas has to offer. It’s not all just ugly sweaters and sweet eggnog. Here are some of the Dark Christmas Legends from around the world, bringing the spooky tales and traditions we are missing during yule times.
The Portent of the Shadow or just The Shadow is set during a Christmas gathering of friends, one guest tells of a terrifying, supernatural encounter involving an otherworldly shadow that leads to madness and death. Classic Edwardian Christmas ghostliness.
In the ruins of the former castle of Rouelbeau in Switzerland, the ghost of a Lady in White is said to appear during Christmas times. As one of the Weiße Frau from Germanic folklore, she is believed to have been the mistress of the castle until she was cast away for not bearing a son.
One of James’s lesser-known but fascinating tales — set at Christmas, it’s presented as a series of letters about a disturbing Punch and Judy show, a mysterious disappearance, and a spectral visitation on Christmas Eve. It first appeared in print in the June 4, 1913 issue of the magazine Cambridge Review. It was published again in 1919 as part of the anthology A Thin Ghost and Others.
In the middle of the night, it was said that the bells of St. John Church in Rapperswil, Switzerland started to toll. When the churchwarden went to investigate, it was said that he saw the headless ghosts of the fallen soldiers from the Battle of Näfels holding midnight mass.
Set in snowy Ukraine on Christmas Eve, this folkloric tale follows a trickster devil who wreaks havoc in a village while a young man seeks to win his beloved’s heart under supernatural influence.
Each December, when the nights grow long and the spirit of Christmas fills the air, Bern’s holiday phantoms awaken. These tales from lore and legends, remind us that even amidst celebration, the spirits of bygone eras linger.
At a cozy inn on Christmas Eve, guests trade spooky stories—until a real, bloodstained intruder named “Jerry Bundler” appears, turning festive warmth into true fright.
All year round, the residents of the House in Ludington, seem to be plagued by the ghost waking them up from their sleep and watching them from the rocking chair. Around Christmas time, the ghost is said to be the one placing the Christmas Angel on the Christmas Tree.
The Calcasieu Courthouse in Louisiana is said to be haunted by Toni Jo Henry, a notorious figure in local history who was executed there in 1942. Visitors often report unexplained occurrences like strange sounds as well as the smell of burning hair from the way she died.
The Calcasieu Courthouse in Lake Charles, Louisiana, is steeped in history since it was built in 1912. And the old Parish Court House on 1000 Ryan street is also believed to be haunted by the lingering spirit of its most infamous prisoner, Toni Jo Henry. She was the first, and for now, the only female executed by the electric chair in the state.
The Haunted Courthouse: Calcasieu Parish Courthouse in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places. // Source. It is said that the court building is haunted by the murderer, Toni Jo who were put to death by the electric chair: Wikimedia
The Life and Crimes of Toni Jo
In the early 1940s, Toni Jo, a former sex worker, gained national notoriety for her cold-blooded murder of a man named Joseph P. Calloway.
Her real name was Annie Beatrice McQuiston, and she had lived a rough life. After her mother died early on from tuberculosis, she ended up as a prostitute. She started out working in a factory, but after her foreman knew about her mother, fearing her to contaminate other workers,he fired her. When she told her father about what happened, he beat her up and she ended up leaving home in search of a new life.
She fell in love with a man named Claude Henry, or simply Cowboy when she was working in a brothel, and it is said she got clean and wanted a new life in California. He, on the other hand, was a fugitive after killing a cop, awaiting 50 years in jail. She married him, but he was arrested soon after.
Toni Jo wanted to get him out of the Texas jail he was serving time. She teamed up with a homeless man named Arkie and brutally tortured and killed a car salesman named Joseph Calloway who picked them up along the road in Jennings, Louisiana.
They dumped the body in a ditch and went straight to a dive bar the same night. Drunk at a bar they bragged about it and the other people present reported them to the cops at once.
Her charm and beauty couldn’t save her, as it took three grueling trials before a jury finally convicted her of the heinous crime three times. On November 28, 1942, Toni Jo made history as the first and only woman in Louisiana to be executed in the electric chair. And the place it happened was in The Calcasieu Courthouse.
She said in an interview right before her execution to the the American Press’ Eliot Chaze:
“The victim does not return to haunt me. I never think of him. I’ve known all along it would be my life for his. I believe mine is worth as much to me as his was to him. I wonder, though, sometimes, why it’s legal now for another fellow to kill me.”
Outside, thousands of people had gathered. Some to see justice be done as the court had ordered, some supported her, thinking that killing her as well was no justice at all.
The Haunting of Toni Jo
Since her execution, tales of Toni Jo’s restless spirit have permeated the The Calcasieu Courthouse where the execution took place. Employees and visitors alike have reported feeling an unsettling presence, particularly in the areas where she spent her final days. Some have even claimed to smell the distinct and eerie scent of her perfume or even of burning hair, a grim reminder of her tragic end. There are also stories about hearing the sounds of her footsteps or even her dying screams.
The ghost of Toni Jo Henry is said to be mischievous, often disrupting the daily routines of The Calcasieu Courthouse staff. Locked doors that were previously open, office equipment that malfunctions without explanation, and lights that flicker ominously are just a few of the strange occurrences attributed to her. Some workers have even reported hearing soft whispers and feeling an icy chill when passing through certain hallways.
Perhaps some have even seen her as she looked in her final moment in a simple white dress holding a white ivory crucifix. Her long black hair she got much attention for, cut off.
Face of a Killer: The case got a lot of attention by the media. Both for her terrible crime as well for her good looks. Here is a photo of Toni Jo Henry being held for press photographers by Sheriff Henry W. Reid on February 21, 1940. // Source
Toni Jo’s spirit seems determined to leave her mark on the place where she met her fate, making the Calcasieu Courthouse a focal point for ghost hunters and paranormal enthusiasts. The haunted legend of Toni Jo Henry continues to captivate and terrify those who walk the halls of the courthouse, ensuring that her story—and her presence—remain an indelible part of Lake Charles’ dark history.
Long after the vampire manic swept through New England, a grave of a young girl with a curious epitaph became accused of being the grave of a vampire. Now it is said that Nellie Vaughn is haunting her grave now removed because of vandalism, trying to clear her name.
Deep in the woods of West Greenwich, Rhode Island, where the wind moves with a whisper and moss grows thick on broken stones, was a grave marked with one of the eeriest epitaphs in New England:
“I Am Waiting and Watching For You.”
That chilling inscription, paired with the tragic story of a 19-year-old girl named Nellie Vaughn, has birthed decades of eerie folklore, ghost stories, and whispered warnings. But the truth? It’s not about a bloodthirsty vampire rising from her grave—it’s about a girl caught in the shadow of another legend, and a ghost story that may say more about us than about her.
A Girl in a Grave, a Town with a Legacy
Nellie Louisa Vaughn, also spelled Nellie Louisa Vaughan, died in 1889, just 19 years old, and was laid to rest in the Plain Meeting House Cemetery in West Greenwich. At a glance, her story seems tailor-made for gothic folklore: a young woman, tragically taken in the prime of her life, buried beneath a cryptic and spine-tingling epitaph.
But her death was not accompanied by accusations of vampirism. Decades after her death, there were rumors that no plants would grow on her grave and that the grave itself was looking to sink into the ground. Was something crawling in and out? Was it perhaps something supernatural about her death and her grave?
By the 1970s, she was a well known local legend, her grave vandalised and her story made the newspapers.
The Vampire Panic of New England
To understand how this happened, we have to rewind just a few years and drive a few miles east to Exeter, where a young woman named Mercy Brown died of tuberculosis in 1892—just three years after Nellie. Mercy’s family had already lost several members to the same wasting illness. When her brother Edwin began to fall ill, the townspeople demanded action. They exhumed Mercy’s body and found it, preserved in cold storage, with “fresh” blood in the heart.
The solution? They removed the heart and liver, burned them, and fed the ashes to Edwin in a desperate effort to save him. It didn’t work—but the story exploded. It was reported in newspapers across the country and even overseas. Some say Bram Stoker himself read about it while writing Dracula.
That gruesome tale became the definitive American vampire legend. But what does it have to do with Nellie?
The True Vampire Lore: Gravestone of Mercy L. Brown, a key figure in Rhode Island’s vampire legend, who died on January 17, 1892, at the age of 19.
Mistaken Identity—or Manufactured Mystery?
Fast-forward to the mid-to-late 20th century. A curious thing began to happen: Nellie Vaughn’s grave started attracting attention. Visitors began whispering that she, not Mercy, was Rhode Island’s real vampire. Her grave was vandalized. Her name was spoken on ghost tours. Paranormal thrill-seekers claimed to feel her presence, hear phantom whispers, or see flickers of movement in the trees near her resting place.
Some say that she was buried alive, that she got a stake through her heart and that she was one of the undead from the New England Vampire Epidemic.
But here’s the kicker: there is no historical evidence that Nellie was ever considered a vampire by her contemporaries.
Folklorist Michael Bell, author of Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires investigated what really was going on with the lore. Bell has spent decades researching the vampire panic and says Nellie Vaughn’s legend is pure folkloric conflation—a mash-up of Mercy Brown’s well-documented case, Nellie’s proximity in age and location, and the spine-chilling line carved on her gravestone.
There is a story about a teacher at the local high school in Coventry that told about the Mercy Brown legend in the 1960s. But saying nothing about the specific name or grave, the students stumbled across Nellies’ and said it was this. There have been numerous attempts to track down the teacher, but they have been unsuccessful.
From Human Tragedy to Urban Legend
Nellie Vaughn was a real person, not a creature of the night. She died young, likely of pneumonia or a similar illness on 31 March in 1889—tragic, but not supernatural. She was first buried on her family farm, but in October that year, her mother was given permission to move her remains to the public cemetery.
There is not really much to indicate that her family or anyone believed her to be a vampire in that time, and the legends came after. The earliest documentations for the legend are the newspaper articles from the 70s.
The vandalism of her grave, the repeated breaking of her headstone, and the ghost-hunting theatrics are the unfortunate side effects of myth overtaking memory. In the end they had to remove her tombstone to protect it from the vandals and now, she is hidden in an unmarked grave.
Her story, like many ghost tales, is less about the dead and more about the living: our obsession with mystery, our fear of death, and our irresistible urge to turn sorrow into spectacle.
The Ghost of Nellie Vaughn
After the vampire legends started to stop, the ghost legends took over. People have now reported about hearing her voice close to her gravesite close to the large crypt, saying: I am perfectly pleasant.
There has also been said that a woman wearing Victorian clothes has been seen but vanishes. In most stories she is said to say either, I am perfectly pleasant or I am happy.
Ghost tours mention her name. Paranormal groups claim her spirit haunts the woods. Some say that she came back as a ghost in order to clear her name. Or are we still just profiting on the tombstone of a girl that happened to die during a Vampiric Mass Hysteria?
Nellie Vaughn deserves better than the chains of folklore forged around her grave. She was not exhumed. She was not accused. She was not a vampire. But her story reveals something powerful: how easily we can reanimate the past, and how quickly history can become horror.
Because of the vandalism she suffered, the graveyard had to remove her tombstone in the 90s. Now the grass is growing freely and there is no problem with it sinking into the ground. When the people wandering over it stopped, so did the signs of the legend.
Once upon a time there used to live a Basilisk in a cave underneath where the Tanner’s Fountain (Gerberberglein) is today. Said to kill with its poisonous breath even, it has become the very symbol of Basel today.
After taking his regime of terror too far on a stormy winter night, the Bailiff of Brunegg committed a sin so huge on a hunt that would send him into a haunted afterlife.
Why did we stop telling ghost stories for Christmas? In the olden days, it used to be a tradition to gather around and tell each other ghost stories in Victorian England. Often set in cold and dark castles or somewhere far remote in the cold icy night. Here are some perfect short stories you can read for free, perfect for Christmas time.
How about having a look about the darker things that Christmas has to offer. It’s not all just ugly sweaters and sweet eggnog. Here are some of the Dark Christmas Legends from around the world, bringing the spooky tales and traditions we are missing during yule times.
The Portent of the Shadow or just The Shadow is set during a Christmas gathering of friends, one guest tells of a terrifying, supernatural encounter involving an otherworldly shadow that leads to madness and death. Classic Edwardian Christmas ghostliness.
In the ruins of the former castle of Rouelbeau in Switzerland, the ghost of a Lady in White is said to appear during Christmas times. As one of the Weiße Frau from Germanic folklore, she is believed to have been the mistress of the castle until she was cast away for not bearing a son.
One of James’s lesser-known but fascinating tales — set at Christmas, it’s presented as a series of letters about a disturbing Punch and Judy show, a mysterious disappearance, and a spectral visitation on Christmas Eve. It first appeared in print in the June 4, 1913 issue of the magazine Cambridge Review. It was published again in 1919 as part of the anthology A Thin Ghost and Others.
In the middle of the night, it was said that the bells of St. John Church in Rapperswil, Switzerland started to toll. When the churchwarden went to investigate, it was said that he saw the headless ghosts of the fallen soldiers from the Battle of Näfels holding midnight mass.
Set in snowy Ukraine on Christmas Eve, this folkloric tale follows a trickster devil who wreaks havoc in a village while a young man seeks to win his beloved’s heart under supernatural influence.
Each December, when the nights grow long and the spirit of Christmas fills the air, Bern’s holiday phantoms awaken. These tales from lore and legends, remind us that even amidst celebration, the spirits of bygone eras linger.
At a cozy inn on Christmas Eve, guests trade spooky stories—until a real, bloodstained intruder named “Jerry Bundler” appears, turning festive warmth into true fright.
All year round, the residents of the House in Ludington, seem to be plagued by the ghost waking them up from their sleep and watching them from the rocking chair. Around Christmas time, the ghost is said to be the one placing the Christmas Angel on the Christmas Tree.
An online magazine about the paranormal, haunted and macabre. We collect the ghost stories from all around the world as well as review horror and gothic media.
