EXETER GRANGE KEEP / MERCY BROWN'S GRAVE
You can't go by an old graveyard in New England without seeing one of these odd structures called Keeps. It has been suggested the saying "for keeps" comes from the use of these places, which was both simple and two-fold. The early settlers of Rhode Island needed a place to store their dead during the often harsh winter months, since the ground often froze solid until the Spring thaw made it possible to bury their dead. Some even stored their loved one's remains in a back room or a root cellar until spring. It was also the tradition of that day for many to place their soon to be buried relatives in storage for a day or so, just in case their declaring them dead was premature; a common fear of the day. Many such keeps were equipped with a bell and rope or metal door and a heavy hammer for the purpose of sounding an alarm. The keep pictured above resides in the Exeter Grange's graveyard; a cemetery better known for being the final resting place of RI's last accused vampire, Mercy Brown.
The Exeter Grange Keep is the focal point for 98% of the strange phenomena reported coming from this graveyard, not the young girl's grave as many quickly assume. While many of those we've interviewed insist on having seen Mercy's ghost walking in the graveyard on moonlit nights or swear to have heard the young woman's mournful cries drifting out from among gravestones, we feel this is an innocent assumption and have serious doubts that Mercy is the primary ghost everyone has been seeing for all these years.
We are convinced that there is not one, but five separate restless entities, two being those of young women, haunting the old graveyard. Information gathered through numerous eye witness interviews added to our own investigations at the cemetery suggest that it is not only Mercy, but the ghosts of three unfortunates that for reasons we'll never know could not sound the alarm that would have saved them from their premature burial. The cemetery's grounds keeper would hardly go running to a family and tell them he messed up and did not hear their loved one's alarm and so they slowly starved or froze within the sealed keep.
It is they who haunt this old graveyard, mainly the graveyard's keep, more than a falsely accused vampiress.
Click thumbnail for 1892 Newspaper Story
NINE MEN'S MISERY
Located in Cumberland, RI on the grounds of an old monastery is a site many Rhode Islanders don't even know about, never mind visitors to our miniature state. The site's stone and mortar monument marks the area where the luck of nine militiamen evading a bloody tidal wave of Native American anger ran out. The men were found flailed (skinned alive) and hung to slowly die as their tormentors looked on. Upon death, they were beheaded and their heads placed on poles with sticks placed in their mouths to make them smile, mockingly recreating the lying white men's smiles that they had tolerated for too long. The site can be seen as it appears today in the picture on the left just as it was erected in or around 1670.The men's agonized cries and moans have not died over the years and more than one visitor daring enough to put their ear to the stones have heard the cries of the men. Police have been called more than once to investigate reports of screams coming from the woods in the vicinity of the monument. These woods have been the scene of many other gruesome deaths over the centuries as well. Instrument readings go off the scale or are abnormally high in the immediate area of the tomb and many groups have succeeded in recording chilling EVP there. If you decide to see the monument for yourself, you just might see the ghost of a little girl running through the wooded swamp...perhaps another victim of the Natives' bloody revenge for the Great Swamp slaughter of their own children. Stop in at the town library while you're there, it is haunted as well. You just might be the next person to meet the ghost of a monk that sees to it that the library stays neat and clean!
WEST GREENWICH MEETINGHOUSE GRANGE CEMETERY / NELLIE VAUGHN'S GRAVE
The West Greenwich Meeting House Grange Cemetery has received a lot of bad press and undue attention as the residence of one of Rhode Island's vampires. The falsely accused young woman was never tried for witchcraft nor was she a relative of Mercy Brown, and she was never accused of being a vampire except innocently within a classroom where the urban legend began not more than thirty years ago.
The true story surrounding Nellie Vaughn as told by a family member, however, is nonetheless far more chilling than her undeserved urban legend.
Nellie's story began in 1899 when she quickly developed and officially died of "intense fever" (most likely pneumonia) at the age of nineteen and was placed in the family's cemetery plot...
"There was a commotion regarding the girl..." stated (Nellie Vaughn's direct descendant's name withheld by request). "The family wished her to be placed in the community vault [keep] as the situation warranted, but neighbors and other townsfolk insisted that Nellie be buried with haste, for obvious reasons. Others wanted her body burned to insure her disease would not spread. You have to understand, Mr. Laird, that these were times when contagious diseases like Cholera, Scarlet Fever and especially Small Pox were wiping out entire communities at a time and this was a very real fear. Nellie was buried in the family cemetery within a day of her death and of course once she was buried there was no turning back. Even though the family were as sure as the could be that Nellie was dead when they buried her, the deed was done regardless. And so, like so many others in those days, so I understand, there was good chance that Nellie was buried alive!
"The story that I was told by my mother pretty well confirms this; I was eleven-years-old at this time. It involved the local constable being summoned to my uncle's farm after a man heard the screams of a woman for a moment as he was passing though the family's cemetery the night before. The man stopped and listened, but then they were gone. According to the story, early the following morning the man, still disturbed by the previous night's experience, went to the Vaughn Farm with the constable in tow. The man insisted that George Vaughn return with him to the family cemetery (on the Vaughn farm) where he was certain he'd heard the woman's screams. The men walked quickly to the cemetery, where again the man swore that he had heard the woman's screams. The cemetery was empty, save for a fresh boot print still plainly visible in the packed soil of Nellie's freshly filled grave.
"My uncle (George Vaughn) was so distraught over what he had convinced himself he had done, he was eventually driven mad and, it was rumored, eventually died by his own hand. No one ever talked it and I dared never ask. This was a family topic no one talked openly about until, and only then, when eventually the family had Nellie moved from the family plot at the farm to where she's buried now. I can assure you, though (she laughs), it had nothing to do with her being a vampire".
Imagine, if you can, the absolute terror of waking, sealed in a coffin and suddenly faced with the fact that you had awoken just in time to die a most horrific death. You begin to scream as you desperately pound and claw at the coffin's sealed lid. The pounding of your own heart fills your ears as it begins to slow with each beat. The last thing you hear is your own mournful gasp as your lungs strain for that last breath of air just before you finally lose consciousness and die of suffocation.
The cemetery on Meetinghouse Road is now off limits due to widespread vandalism, making permission very hard to get for legal investigations within the stone walls. To this day, stories persist of a white clothed girl occasionally being spotted walking among the stones and in some cases interacting with a passerby. Until the graveyard is safe from destructive fools and reopened again to investigative groups the stories will have to remain just that. Then again, perhaps this is one case that needs closure.
Rest in peace, Nellie Vaughn . . .
Many thanks to P.R. (May 30, 1887- February 3, 1988)
DOLLY COLE
The woods and thick forests that straddle Tucker Hollow Road in Foster, Rhode Island, have been the setting for more than one story involving the restless dead. Ghosts of mill workers who died in a kiln explosion and the haunted graves of plague victims are commonly found there among the ruins and forgotten gravesites scattered through these woods. Yet, of all these haunting, no name has earned itself a place among the Fraternity of the Restless more than the ghost of an 1893 murder victim named Dolly Cole.
Fact mixes with fancy as is inherent with Urban Legend and many researchers have fallen victim to this. Like Nellie Vaughn, Dolly was never a vampire, an accused witch nor can it be confirmed she was ever a prostitute. The fact that Dolly Cole's case was, albeit briefly, mentioned in the newspaper at all, even remotely, is an oddity in itself to be sure. Seeing all attention was on events unfolding in Fall River, Massachusetts, and a young lady named Lizzie Borden at this time.
Of the murder itself, the only surviving records of the crime is found in the newspaper as fillers. Briefly mentioned in the first article is the fact that the body of a young woman was discovered in Foster, RI and that foul play was suspected. The victim's obituary, found in a following edition, identifies the woman as Dorothy Ellen Cole, 27, of Foster, RI. The trail ends there. No other entries were ever made as to whether the murderer was ever brought to justice and it is highly doubtful that anyone ever was. Lizzie had the spotlight and by the time the dust from that trial and its aftermath settled Dolly Cole had long faded from any public concern. State and respective town officials have confirmed that any official records of the case would have been among thousands of historical files lost to either the 1938 Hurricane or a devastating fire which occurred near that time as well.
Tucker Hollow Road has changed little in over the years. It is still dirt and can be treacherous to the unaware and inattentive driver even in good weather. Off the road to the west is a stream and the small hidden valley where Dolly Cole's body was discovered; the place has since bore her name. It is there and within the thick woods in the valley that many have claimed to have seen and heard the ghost of Dolly Cole. It's a story mostly related between hunters, but an eerily similar one. Each telling of when they suddenly meet up with a light brunette, long haired woman dressed in old-timer men's clothing. She always appears very much alive until she vanishes into thin air the second your eye turns away. Many credible witnesses have insisted that they had spotted this woman standing either near the swamp by the stream or in the immediate vicinity of the bridge that bare her name to this day.
The bridge is easily visited and offers some nice views at certain times of the year, especially Autumn. The swamp however, the hot spot for Dolly sightings, is heavily posted private property and this is strictly enforced by both the owners who form the nearby sportsman's club and the local police and DEM (Department of Environmental Management) enforcement officers patrolling the area frequently. It is strongly advised that you clear any visits with the land owners, The Cranston Fish and Game Association, to avoid being arrested or falling victim to a terrible accident as these woods are REGULARLY used for the shooting and archery sports all year round!
