Some Colonial Farmers Believed In Vampires, State Archaeologist Explains

MADISON, CT — In 1990, a colonial-era farm burial ground in Griswold was discovered by kids who were playing in the area. And they had a skull to prove they'd found unearthed bones from unmarked grave sites. The burials likely dated to the 1700 and 1800s, determined the state's archeologist, Dr. Nick Bellantoni.

Of the 29 dead entombed in the earth, one burial stood out to Bellantoni. And it was this grave that led to a discussion about the folklore around Colonial belief in vampires.

In a piece by the Smithsonian Magazine, it's noted that, "200 years after the Salem witch trials, farmers became convinced that their relatives were returning from the grave to feed on the living."

From Bellantoni's interview with Smithsonian Magazine:

It was one of only two stone crypts in the cemetery, and it was partially visible from the mine face. Scraping away soil with flat-edged shovels, and then brushes and bamboo picks, the archaeologist and his team worked through several feet of earth before reaching the top of the crypt. When Bellantoni lifted the first of the large, flat rocks that formed the roof, he uncovered the remains of a red-painted coffin and a pair of skeletal feet. They lay, he remembers, “in perfect anatomical position.” But when he raised the next stone, Bellantoni saw that the rest of the individual “had been com­pletely...rearranged.” The skeleton had been beheaded; skull and thighbones rested atop the ribs and vertebrae. “It looked like a skull-and-crossbones motif, a Jolly Roger. I’d never seen anything like it,” Bellantoni recalls.

Without giving anything away now, the E. C. Scranton Memorial Library presents a program by Bellantoni, Vampire Folk Belief In Historic New England: The Archaeological Evidence, on Wednesday, Oct. 26 at 6:30 p.m. via Zoom. Sign up here.

"The cause for the oddity was the belief that its occupant was a vampire," the library explains about the grave. "Vampire folklore was rampant in New England from 1780 to the 1890s. As it turns out, a real public health issue was to blame."

Don't miss Bellantoni's lecture, just in time for Halloween.