Memories of Vampires in Griswold

     Discussion of vampires in the 21st century is a macabre subject, evoking
images of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, or perhaps the cast of characters portrayed in
Anne Rice’s series of novels about the Living Dead who wander the world preying
upon others.
     According to Dr. Nick Bellantoni, the Connecticut State Archaeologist,
however, there is no evidence that the mobs that dug up numerous graves between
1790 and 1890 saw their work as macabre.  They were merely trying to save their
families from tuberculosis, a disease that was draining the life out of the
community.
     When the graves were dug up, people found bloated bodies, with fluid
oozing from the orifices.  Because the skin was receding, it appeared that hair
and nails were growing.  This natural post-mortem deterioration gave people the
impression that the bodies were still alive and that they were feeding off of
the blood of others.
     It is unclear how the townspeople believed that the living dead were
drinking the blood of others, but Dr. Bellantoni thinks that they may have
believed that there was some sort of spiritual transmission of the disease.
Tuberculosis resulted in the wasting away and the eventual death of its
victims, creating the appearance that life’s blood was being drained from them.
     It was for just such a tuberculosis victim, Henry Nelson Ray, that a crowd
dug up the remains of his deceased brothers, Lemuel Baker Ray and Elisha Baker
Ray, at the Congregational Church Cemetery in Jewett City.  The crowd burned
the bones of the two Ray brothers in May 1854, hoping that they could prevent
the boys from infecting others. 
     This type of mob activity was typical of the time, and there are many such
cases documented in Eastern Connecticut and Western Rhode Island.  Often, the
ashes of the burned bones were mixed with wine or water and fed to sick
people.  It was hoped that drinking the concoction would provide some immunity,
but the immunization never worked. 
     Bellantoni came across the remains of a suspected vampire in a gravel pit
not far from what is now called the Jewett City Cemetery.  Some boys who were
sledding in the area discovered a skull, and they notified their mother, who
called the police. 
     The medical examiner decided that the remains were more than 100 years 
old, so he called Bellantoni. Bellantoni has examined the disinterred remains
of approximately 200 people since beginning his job as the Connecticut State
Archaeologist in 1987.  Most of those recovered have been early settlers of
European descent, and this case was no exception.
     The archaeologists found 29 people buried in the hill that was deeded to
Nathaniel Walton in 1757.  Walton had purchased the land to be used as a burial
plot for his family.  All of the bodies found there were wrapped in
sheets, and brass tacks on the coffin lids displayed the initials and the ages
of the deceased.
    There was something different about one of the bodies that were rescued
from the gravel pit, however.  It had been dug up before, and the bones were
rearranged before being put back into the ground. The body that appeared to
have been tampered with was that of a rugged 55-year-old farmer, whose initials
were J.B.  J.B. died sometime between 1820 and 1840.  He had scarring on his
ribs, indicating that he had tuberculosis at the time of death.  He also broke
some bones on his left side five years prior to his death.  There were many
bones broken five to ten years after his death, however, which leads Bellantoni
to believe that J.B. was a suspected vampire.


Dr. Bellantoni speaks to the crowd.

     J.B.’s assailants broke his ribs, took his skull off and placed it on his
chest, facing west, and broke his legs off to position his femur bones in a
cross position on his chest.  Bellantoni thinks that this may have been done to
prevent him from leaving his grave to prey upon the blood of others.
     Although the crowds who participated in this socially accepted activity
were merely trying to prevent tuberculosis from spreading, their efforts proved
futile.  Sanitariums were eventually created to treat tuberculosis and Dracula
was published in 1897, giving vampires a very macabre image.  The practice of
digging up graves to burn the diseased was considered inappropriate and
socially unacceptable practice by the end of the 19th century.