Very much in the same light as those persecuted in Salem were not Witches, our quest for Vampires in Rhode island details a sad and tragic period of history, where medicine failed those involved and darker older folklore methods were employed in an attempt to save loved ones. The beginning of the 18th century in Eastern Europe had seen a spate of claimed Vampire killings, this practice and its folklore by the centuries end has made its way from the old world into the new, and into rural New England.
 
The June 1784 edition of the Connecticut Courant and Weekly Intelligencer newspaper displays a letter to the editor warning its readers to beware of ‘quack doctors’ , who proclaim that families who dig up their recently dead relatives and burn them, will be spared more deaths from the deadly disease of consumption.
 
It appears this advice was not followed, especially in rural Rhode Island throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries. This candle is influenced by that history, and the list of victims of Vampiric exhumation.