WEIRD EXPERIENCE
Had by Man Who Cremated Bodies After the Galveston Flood.
“Poe and Balzac have contributed to fiction stories that thrill the soul with horror,” said the traveler, “but I have one that rivals the morbid Imaginings of the wonderful writers. It is an actual story, if I am to believe a prominent citizen of Galveston, Texas. He told me the story in all seriousness and, what is more, he is still perturbed on account of it. I will relate it just as he did. The entire country will remember the Galveston flood. More than 10,000 lives were lost. The beautiful beach was strewn with bodies. The survivors of the flood assisted in gathering the dead. Hundreds of bodies were cremated. The beach blazed with funeral pyres. Among the survivors was an old man, vigorous and youthful for his years, who saved five lives by his expert swimming. He is today one of the prominent men of Galveston. He lost thousands of dollars by the flood, being a large property owner on the gulf front. My old friend was walking along the beach assisting in the work of picking up the dead after the storm. He came upon the body of a man lying on the sand. The face was upturned. In a glance he took in the condition of the corpse. The clothing was torn into shreds. The body was gashed, bruised and maimed as all of them were, owing to the timbers and debris that was hurled through the waves. He saw in this one instance a face youthful and handsome, handsome, with eyes closed. It was not distorted or discolored. It was not swollen. Instead the expression was most lifelike. The face was in perfect repose. Stranger still was the condition of the hands. They had a natural life color. For an instant the old fellow experienced a little shock, thinking probably life yet remained in the human frame, though he cannot at this time understand why such an idea flitted through his mind. The body had been washed ashore by the sea and, doubtless, had been lifeless for hours. But he was to be startled more than this. As he stooped over the body, looking into the handsome face carefully to see if he could recognize the man, the eyes opened. They were lustrous and life-like. At the same time the lips parted, showing two rows of white teeth. The old fellow started back in horror. He looked again and the corpse seemed to be laughing at him. Still he thought be must be dreaming. He beat himself in the sides, clapped his hands together, thought of nightmares and illusions and looked again. Still the handsome face smiled on him. He tried to remember where he had seen the laughing countenance before. He could not. He looked toward one of the funeral pyres several hundred yards away and shuddered, but he stooped, picked up the body and carried it on his shoulders to the improvised crematory. As he tossed it from his shoulders into the flames the last thing he saw was the face, with eyes open wide and lustrous and smiling.”
News-Journal [Mansfield OH] 14 July 1904: p. 6
Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead. And visit her newest blog, The Victorian Book of the Dead.
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