“How much will this cost in your paper?” asked a quiet-looking man, as he handed in the following advertisement at the ___ counting-room:
“Smith–Busted a trace, in this city, just after dinner, Mary Smith, wife of the undersigned, and daughter of old Sim Pratt, the leading blacksmith of Denver, Col. The corpse was highly respected by the high-tonedest families, but death got the drop on her, and she took the up-bucket with perfect confidence that she would have a square show the other side of the divide. The plant transpires this afternoon at her boarding-house on Willow street. Come one, come all.
“Dearest Mary, thou hast left us,
For you on earth there wasn’t room;
But ’tis heaven that has bereft us,
Snatched our darling up the flume.
“Denver papers please copy and send bill, or draw at sight.
By her late husband, P. Smith.”
“I don’t believe you want it in just that way, do you?” asked the clerk, rubbing his chin dubiously.
“Why, not, stranger?” asked the quiet man.
“It don’t read quite right, does it?” asked the clerk.
“Was you acquainted with the corpse, stranger?” demanded the quiet man. “Was you aware of the lamented while she was bustling around in society at that boarding-house?”
“I don’t know that I ever met her,” responded the clerk.
“So I reckoned, Jedge. You wasn’t up to the deceased when she was in the living business. Now, Jedge, the deceased wrote that oration herself afore she died, and I want it in. Do you hook on, partner?”
“But it isn’t our style of notice,” objected the clerk.
“Nor mine, neither,” acquiesced the quiet man. “I was for having a picture of her and a lot more talk, but she said she wanted it quiet and modest, so she whooped that up. Say, stranger, is it going into your valuable space without difficulty?”
“I don’t know,” said the clerk, dolefully.
“I know, partner. This celebration comes off to-morrow afternoon, and that is going in in the morning, if it goes in out of a cannon. I got grief enough on my hands now, stranger, without erecting a fort on the sidewalk, but if you want war, I got the implements right in the back part of these mourning clothes. What d’ye think, Jedge?”
“Does it make any difference where it goes?” asked the clerk.
“I want it in the paper,” said the mourner, “and it’s going in if it taken a spile-driver. Think you twig my racket, stranger?”
“All right,” replied the clerk, “I’ll put it in the ‘Salad’ among other mournful remarks. Four dollars, please.”
“That’s business,” and the quiet man paid the money. “If you ain’t busy come around to-morrow. I’m going to give the old woman a good send-off, and if that gospeller don’t work up a pretty good programme before he gets to the doxology, his folks will think he’s been doing considerable business with a saw-mill. She was a good one, Jedge, and she was pious from the back of her neck to the bunion on her heel; you can tell that from the notice;” and the mourning widower wiped his eyes on the sly, and, later in the day, was fined ten dollars for thrashing the undertaker who had put silver handles on the casket instead of gold ones.
The Osage City [KS] Free Press 23 February 1882: p. 3
As a hardened reader of sensationally horrible deaths in the Victorian press, you would think that very little would shock. Yet there is a category of mortuary stories that recently has given me pause. I refer, of course, to stories involving writs of replevin on corpses.
What?
Here is the basic legal definition.
Replevin is an action or a writ issued to recover an item of personal property wrongfully taken. Replevin, sometimes known as “claim and delivery”, is an antiquated legal remedy in which a court requires a defendant to return specific goods to the plaintiff at the beginning of the action. The advantage of a writ (order) of replevin is that it deprives the defendant of the use of the property while the case is awaiting trial, therefore increasing the likelihood of a quick settlement.
But what does this have to do with corpses?
REPLEVYING A CORPSE
A Dead Woman’s Body Held for a Board Bill.
Trouble Between Foster Geggs and Mrs. Frost, His Landlady.
A Difference of Fifty Dollars Provokes a Strange Suit.
Difficulties Experienced by a Constable in Serving a Writ.
‘Squire Sanderson issued a writ of replevin yesterday for the remains of the wife of Foster Geggs, a merchant of New Lexington, Ohio. They were detained by a Mrs. Frost, a keeper of a boarding-house at No. 322 Walnut street. Constable Frank Dossman served the papers, and, after a great deal of trouble, the body was secured.
Five weeks ago a gentleman and lady arrived in this city from New Lexington, Highland County, Ohio. They were Mr. and Mrs. Foster Geggs. They applied to Mrs. Frost for board and lodging, and were accommodated. The lady appeared to be in bad health, and
THEIR MISSION TO THIS CITY
was the search of medical aid for Mrs. Geggs, who was suffering from a complication of diseases. She appeared to regain her health for a time, but a week ago she had a relapse. Early yesterday morning her sufferings were released by death. When daylight had arrived Geggs sent for Estep & Meyer, the undertakers. They embalmed the body, and, incased in a handsome coffin, it was ready to be shipped to New Lexington for burial. Shortly after noon the undertakers’ wagon arrived to take the remains to the depot, but Mrs. Frost refused to allow them to be removed. She claimed that Geggs owed her $50 for board and lodging.
HE ACKNOWLEDGED THE INDEBTEDNESS,
but not to the amount she claimed. He offered to settle for $25. This offer the woman spurned. He pleaded with her to allow the undertakers to remove the body of his dead wife, but she shook her head and said no. She wanted her money, and was going to have it, if she had to hold the body for a week. Several of the boarders tried to persuade her to release the remains, but it was of no used. Finally, Geggs threatened to swear out a writ of replevin. Mrs. Frost laughed at the idea, and dared any Constable to enter her house. Seeing no other way to secure the body of his wife, he appeared before ‘Squire Sanderson and swore out
THE WRIT OF REPLEVIN.
The ‘Squire detailed Constable Dossman to serve the papers. When he arrived he found the door of the house locked and barred. He rang and knocked for admittance, but Mrs. Frost refused to admit him. He next tried the windows, but could not in any way gain an entrance. The alley way was the only resort, and on this side the Frost woman did not look for the Constable to enter. After scaling a high fence he found open the rear door. Having gained admittance, he found the corpse in the parlor. The writ was served on Mrs. Frost, and she reluctantly opened up the front door and
THE COFFIN WAS REMOVED
to the undertaker’s wagon, which was still in waiting. The remains were driven to the Grand Central Depot, from whence they were taken to New Lexington last night. The writ also called for several valise and trunks, which were also secured. The interesting and sensational suit will be heard Monday December 27, by “Squire Sanderson.
This is the second instance in this city where a corpse was secured only on a writ of replevin.
ANOTHER CASE
About two years ago the wife of Johnnie Ryan, the Fifth-street concert hall man, swore out a writ for the body of her baby that was buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery on the Warsaw pike. Mrs. Ryan wanted the remains removed to another cemetery, but the Superintendent refused to give up the body, claiming that she owned for the burial lot, and the digging of the grave. She appeared before “Squire Sanderson and swore out the writ. Constable Frank Johnson, with a squad of Special Constables, served the papers. A number of spades were secured and the body of the child was resurrected. The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 17 December 1886: p. 4
Popular thought held that a body was not property and could not be stolen.
The common law recognizes no property in anybody in the dead, though it does recognize the property in the shroud and other apparel of the dead as belonging to the person who was at the expense of the funeral. Cincinnati [OH] Daily Gazette 17 April 1880: p. 8
and
But whatever may have been the rule in England under the Ecclesiastical law, and while it may be true still that a dead body is not property in a commercial sense of that term, yet in this country it is, so far as we know, universally held that those who are entitled to the possession and custody of it for purposes of decent burial have certain legal rights to and in it which the law will protect. Indeed the mere fact that a person has exclusive rights over a body for the purposes of burial, necessarily leads to the conclusion that it is property in the broadest sense of the term, viz., something over which the law accords him exclusive control. (Larsen v. Chase, 50 N. W. 238, cited in “Property in Dead Bodies,” Walter F. Kuzenski, Marquette Law Review, Issue 1, Vol. 9, December 1924)
However, in real life, bodies were often held for ransom. The threat of either retaining a corpse, of publicly displaying it, or of burying it in a pauper’s grave was used in all kinds of circumstances to extort money, legally owed or not. A decent burial was a serious business; even the poorest would go to great lengths to have the trappings of a “proper” funeral, rather than a pauper’s rites, with burial in the Potter’s Field.
Some hospitals apparently had VIP undertakers on the early 20th-century equivalent of speed-dial. I assume the undertakers paid handsomely for their priority status.
ON REPLEVIN WRIT
John Lund Secures Possession of Wife’s Corpse.
Undertaker Holds Body of Woman Who Died at Hospital and Refuses Possession.
After he had been forced to take out a writ of replevin to secure the corpse of his wife, who died yesterday morning at U.B.A. hospital, John Lund, an Englishman, was permitted to proceed with the arrangements for the funeral. Mrs. Lund died yesterday morning and, in accordance with a custom common in the hospitals, a nurse immediately notified Edward J. Corkery, an undertaker at 524 South Division Street. Corkery called for the body.
Soon afterward Metcalf & Co., who had been notified by the husband, went for the body and were referred to Corkery, who refused to give it up unless paid for his trouble. Lund went to the prosecutor for a warrant for kidnaping, but the prosecutor advised him to take out the replevin papers, and made them out himself. The body was taken by a constable late last night on the writ and removed to Metcalf’s establishment.
The funeral will be held from the residence of Andrew Olesen, 264 Ann street, Saturday afternoon at 2:30. Grand Rapids [MI] Press 5 September 1907: p. 8
It is a nice point whether a dead person can be kidnapped, but the prosecutor obviously made the right call.
With this next case, we meet Mr. John B. Habig, a well-known Cincinnati character and keeper of the Cincinnati public morgue for 20 years, in a highly discreditable incident.
AN EXTRAORDINARY REPLEVIN
An Attempted Case of Extortion
The body of the aged gentleman who fell dead in front of No. 88 Twelfth street, on Thursday morning, as reported in the Gazette of yesterday, was identified yesterday by his son as that of William Hall, as was surmised. The young man, William C. Hall, an engineer on the I.C. & L Railroad, came to the city yesterday and after identifying the body at Mr. John B. Habig’s undertaking establishment, No. 183 West Sixth street, ordered it removed to Soards, a few doors east for shipment and interment, at the same time offering Habig $10, as payment for keeping the corpse. But Habig was not that kind of man; he wanted more than $10 for keeping the body a day and a half, and demanded $40. The young man refused, claiming that the demand was extortionate, and was told that he must pay it, or he could not have the corpse. This was late last night, but Mr. Hall posted off to ‘Squire True, who, fortunately, was in his office trying the case of the Hamiltonian horse-killers, and who at once gave Mr. Hall the requisite magisterial assistance. Constable Green was armed with a writ of replevin and at once started off after the body. Shortly before midnight the strong arm of the law grasped the corpse and transferred it to Soards’ establishment, from whence it will be shipped to Mt. Carmel to-morrow morning. If Mr. Habig wishes to rid himself of the richly deserved odium which much attach to the act, he must rise and give a satisfactory explanation of his exorbitant demand.
In years gone by the deceased kept a well-known livery stable on Sycamore street below Fourth. Cincinnati [OH] Daily Gazette 8 August 1874: p. 4
The Cincinnati Enquirer also reported on the case, adding the detail that “The daughter of the deceased remarked that she did not wish Habig to bury the body because he had sent a drunken attendant with her when she went to view it.” The newspaper added, “Mr. Habig has added to his reputation, but not to his stock of money, or we have been sadly misinformed.” Yet when he died, the Enquirer wrote favorably of him, stating in his obituary: “On down the pages of crime’s annals in this vicinity the name of Habig is so closely linked with these crimes and tragedies that it is a question if there lived in Cincinnati during that period a man whose name was more familiar to the public eye.” [Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, 4 May 1898: p. 8] He was described as a big, fat, jolly man, always ready for fun. De mortuis, one assumes. Plus he left three sons to carry on the undertaking business, who would be more inclined to advertise if the Enquirer didn’t rake up the past.
Freight and railway companies often found shipping the dead a very profitable line.
Replevying a Corpse
A poor widow had the dead body of her husband brought by rail from Dover to Leamington, without first inquiring the cost. The railway company charged at the rate of 1s a mile, making £8, and as the widow could not pay this sum they detained the corpse for two days until the money was raised. Evening Post, 14 May 1892: p. 1
HOLDING CORPSE FOR THE EXPRESS
The agent of the Adams Express Co. at Shamokin held the corpse of Henry Fretz, awaiting the payment of charges amounting to over a hundred dollars. It was finally settled by the government.
Fretz was from Pitman, Northumberland county, and an apprentice in the United States Navy. February 14 he was drowned in the San Francisco Bay and government officials notified his parents that they would bury the body there or bear the expense of having it shipped home.
The parents requested the body to be shipped and it arrived in Shamokin Wednesday evening, accompanied by a bill for charges amounting to over a hundred dollars. Being unable to pay the claim, the agent refused to turn the corpse over to the grief-stricken parents and it was held in the Shamokin office, where it remained until the tangle was straightened out by the government assuming the charges. Wilkes-Barre [PA] Times 27 February 1909: p. 9
Sometimes the writ was for a partial corpse.
Recently a man had his leg amputated in a Washington hospital, and, upon visiting the capital some months afterwards, discovered the member preserved in alcohol. He was shocked, and demanded it, that he might bury it. The demand was refused, but, upon bringing suit in replevin, the case was decided in his favour, and he was given possession of his own leg. The Arizona Sentinel [Yuma, AZ] 28 February 1885: p. 2
Here we find dueling replevins: for corpse and for shroud.
POLICE WILL GUARD FUNERAL SERVICES
Undertaker Threatens to Take the Clothes Off of a Corpse During Row With a Rival, So Precaution Is Taken
Funeral services for Charles Klytta, 60 years old, will be held under police protection this afternoon from his late residence, 5438 South Laflin street, because B. Trundell, an undertaker at 1702 West Forty-Eight street, threatens to interrupt the ceremonies with a writ of replevin and remove from the body a suit of clothes which he says he paid for.
This threat grows out of a dispute between two undertakers soon after Klytta fell heir to $1,000 several weeks ago. Klytta was employed by Trundell, but he was a close friend of Joseph Patka, 1750 West Forty-Eighth street, a business rival of Trundell’s.
When Klytta received the $1,000 he left his wife and eight children and went to live with Nicholas Jasnoch, 4858 Winchester avenue. Then he began to spend his small fortune in having a good time. He became ill and was told he had not long to live.
Immediately both undertakers asked Klytta if he couldn’t throw the “business” their way. Klytta was in a dilemma. He liked Patka as a friend, but also thought he should respect the wishes of his former employer. Finally a Bohemian lodge of which he was a member was asked to settle the question. A committee waited on Klytta’s death bed and argued the matter, with the result that Patka was chosen.
Scarcely had Klytta breathed his last, however, when Trundell drove up and carried off the body. Mrs. Klytta pleaded in vain for the return of the body. Then she engaged Attorney D. Carmichael, and he tried to get the body. Yesterday the lawyer obtained a writ of replevin from the Municipal court and, accompanied by a bailiff and a policeman, went to Trundell’s establishment. The body was laid out in state in the parlor, clad in a new suit of clothes.
The writ did not provide for taking the clothing with the body and an argument ensued. Finally Patka took the body and new suit and carried them off to his undertaking shop. Therefore Trundell threatens to obtain a writ of replevin for the clothing and to get it today when the services are held at the Klytta residence. The Inter Ocean [Chicago, IL] 8 November 1912: p. 1
Undertakers more usually replevined their own property, such as coffins or candle-holders.
Bill Is Not Paid:
Takes Coffin Back
Detroit, Oct. 9 Because his bill for $300 had not been paid, Stanley Lappo, an undertaker, flanked by two constables, entered the home of Mrs. Vincent Dziegiuski. After retrieving the woman’s body from its casket, he loaded the latter, with candles, pedestals and display palms, into his wagon and drove off. The undertaker later explained the woman’s husband had agreed to pay the account before the funeral took place. When he failed to do so, Lappo obtained a writ of replevin and took possession of his property.
The husband later effected an arrangement with another undertaker, and the funeral was held a few hours later. Duluth [MN] News-Tribune 10 October 1921: p. 6
Sometimes the quarrels leading to a writ were not about money, but about something more visceral. This is an excerpt from the story of Mrs. Terrica Beck, an elderly Catholic woman badly treated by her daughter and son-in-law. I have not found a resolution to the case.
Throughout her last illness she desired to be buried in the Catholic cemetery. This was her last request. She died in her sister’s house. The expenses of her last sickness were borne by her sister. The coffin and shroud were purchased, and the last sad offices performed by her sister.
Scarcely had her last breath expired, when her son-in-law, before careless of her welfare, appeared and laid claim to her clothing and body. More desirous of the property, he departed expressing his willingness that Mrs. Beck’s dying wishes as to her interment should be complied with….In accordance with the wishes of the deceased, her body was placed in the vault of the Catholic cemetery, whence it was removed by a suit of replevin sued out by her son-in-law. He had obtained a coffin and shroud from the city, and had a grave dug at the expense of the city in the Potter’s Field. He was willing to pay the expense of a law suit, to defeat the dying wish of his wife’s mother, but not to pay for giving her more than a pauper’s funeral. Plain Dealer [Cleveland, OH] 28 April 1870: p. 3
One can only imagine the family dynamic that would lead to the following situation:
Refused to give up Body
Anderson, Ind., Jan. 4
Mrs. Joseph Speece was compelled to replevin the body of her husband so that it could be buried. He died Wednesday at the home of his wife’s father, John Nelson, and when she prepared for the funeral Nelson refused to give up the body until a large board bill had been paid. When a writ was served the body was delivered. The widow also sues Nelson for $100 for the detention of the body. Wilkes-Barre [PA] Times 4 January 1901: p. 1
One last oddity: Although judges in several jurisdictions ruled in the early 1900s that corpses had no commercial value (were not property) and thus could not be replevined, that judgement did not stand all over the country. In a 1906 case where there was a wrangle about the funeral expenses exceeding what the family wanted to pay, the family obtained a writ of replevin to get the body back from the overcharging undertaker. “As some value had to be given the writ it read ‘one corpse to the value of $50.’” The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 30 September 1906: p. 12
There are many dismal stories of first/second wives, mistresses, and hostile family members battling over loved one’s corpses, but they don’t always go as far as replevining. Other stories of legal proceedings over corpses? Swear out a writ to Chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com
Thanks to Michael Robinson for the details of corpse property law.
Undine, of Strange Company, sent this great story of a legal fight over an embalmed body.
She also added a bonus tale of a dead-beat dad: A (somewhat) related story was about a man whose wife died, and he afterwards stiffed the undertaker on the bill. (“Stiffed,” get it? Oh, never mind) When, a while later, his daughter also passed away, this undertaker refused to take the job. In fact, he spread the word through the “Undertaker’s Association” that the man was a, well, deadbeat, so all his colleagues refused the man’s business as well. (As a side note, the bereaved man tried to get a free coffin from a local charity. When they realized he wasn’t indigent–just an incredible skinflint–they indignantly refused.) I don’t recall exactly how the story ended, except that he finally managed to get his daughter buried using a blanket instead of a coffin!
Thanks, Undine!
For more stories of Victorian death and mourning see my book, The Victorian Book of the Dead, also available for Kindle. Or ask your library/bookstore to order it. You’ll find more details about the book here and indexes here.
I’m not fond of telling this story, said the General, because each time, like the old fool I am, it brings tears to my eyes … but the best of France is in it.
It’s about two boys, astonishingly gifted, full of heart and brains, that nobody could meet without liking. I knew them when they were tiny little fellows. At the time war broke out, the younger one, François, had just passed his examinations for St. Cyr. He had no time to enter; he was rushed along in the wholesale promotion and made second lieutenant then and there. Fancy what it meant to him —epaulettes and battles at nineteen! His elder brother, Jacques, a boy of twenty, —a really remarkable fellow in his studies, was hard at work in the Law School, where he had taken honors. He went off to the front as second lieutenant, too.
The two brothers were thrown together for the first time in the same brigade of the “iron division,” as it was called —the younger in the 26th of the line, the other in the 27th. They were quartered in a ruined village, and each day they met, making themselves liked everywhere and enjoying a great popularity with the soldiers on account of their youth and friendliness.
It soon got round that the St. Cyr boy’s regiment was going to get some hot fighting. Jacques said nothing, but he went to his colonel and asked for permission to take the place of his brother, whom he considered too little prepared for what promised to be a violent engagement.
The colonel recognized the generosity of this request, but he cut the young man short. “An officer can’t be transferred from his own corps to another,” he said.
The day fixed for the attack came. The first company–François’ company—was sent ahead to skirmish. It was simply mowed down. Another followed, and then another. They finally had to fall back, leaving their dead and part of the wounded on the field. The little second lieutenant was not among those who returned.
Two days later our men took the offensive again. The elder brother, storming the German trenches with his regiment, passed close by the body of his little François as it lay there all shot to pieces. A bit farther on, a bullet caught him in the shoulder.
His captain ordered him back to have the wound dressed; he refused, kept on, and was hit full in the forehead.
The bodies were taken up and carried back to the ruins of the village. The sappers of the 26th said:
“He was a fine fellow, that little second lieutenant. He shan’t go underground without a coffin, at any rate. Let’s make one for him.”
And they began sawing and hammering.
Then the men of the 27th put their heads together and said: ” There must be no difference between the two brothers. We might as well make a coffin for our lieutenant, too.”
By nightfall, when they were ready to bury the brothers side by side, an old woman spoke up. She was a wretched old creature, so poor and broken that she stubbornly refused to leave the village. “I’ve lived here, I’ll die here,” she kept on saying. She lay huddled up on some straw in her little hovel, and her only food was the leavings of the soldiers. When she saw the bodies of the two lads and understood what was going on, she said:
“Wait a minute before you nail the covers on. I’m going to fetch something.”
She hobbled away, fumbled around in the straw she slept on, and pulled out a piece of cloth that she was keeping for her shroud.
“They shan’t nail those boys up with their faces against the boards. I want to shroud them,” she said. She cut the shroud in two and wrapped each in a half of it. Then she kissed each one of them on the forehead, saying,
“That’s for your mother, dearie.”
No one spoke when the General ended. And he was not the only one to have wet eyes. In each of our hearts there was a prayer for France.
Maurice Barrés
de l’Académie Française
1915
From The Book of the Homeless (Le livre des sans-foyer), edited by Edith Wharton, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916
Eclipse with Solar Streamers, (Or Eye of Sauron) from 1913
I don’t know about you, but the upcoming eclipse has me feeling pretty damn jumpy. Other than the fact that the waning light is uncannily like that when a tornado is about to hit, there’s a feeling that the world is at a tipping point and all it would take is the barest weight of the umbra to send it spinning into the abyss….
But it was ever thus. And it is this theme—of eclipsical unease and coronal curiosities that I treat today. It seems that nobody is fond of eclipses but the scientists.
Comment on the Eclipse of June 8th
By William D. Burk
An Eclipse of the Sun or Moon at best can never bring anything good, because the earth is robbed of the Sun’s vital energy or the Moon’s natural energy for the time being. The part of the world where an eclipse is most visible is bound to suffer more than other parts where the eclipse is not visible, and the effect will be more or less so in things or places that are ruled by the sign and Lord of the sign wherein the eclipse falls. Azoth April 1918: p. 236
Cuba and Porto Rico lay outside the line of totality in the last eclipse of the sun; in fact, the amount of obscuration was rather less than was observed in New-York, or more correctly, than would have been observed if the clouds had permitted. None the less, to the eclipse is to be charged a large amount of infant ill-health and mortality.
In those islands all mothers and nurses have a fear of the evil operation of an eclipse on tender infants. They say that it is a fear that the children will be hit by the eclipse, but if any one should suggest that it is the devil which does the hitting the statement will not be disputed by adult Cubans and Porto Ricans. The only remedy against the malign influence that is know is to strip the babies as soon as the eclipse begins and expose them in the open air unattended until the shadow has passed entirely off the sun. If the child gets a case of pneumonia or bronchitis as the result of the several hours of exposure, it is proof positive that it has been “hit” by the devil behind the astronomical phenomenon; if the baby escapes it is due entirely to the purity of its soul.
When any child is “hit” it is taken first to the “padre” for the expulsion of the devil, and then to the “medico” for the completion of the treatment. In all such cases the approved treatment consists of the administration of an emetic to dislodge the devil of the eclipse and confidence that all will go well under the influence of faith and medicine. On the morning of the eclipse the weather in Cuba, at least on the north shore, was decided raw, and a larger portion of the exposed children took colds and died. Children who are not thus exposed at the time of an eclipse are supposed, according to local superstition, to be “hit” by the eclipse “diabolo” in less manifest ways, and to be beyond these methods of cure. All children who have never been exposed to this treatment must be exposed to the eclipse or take the consequences. New York [NY] Tribune Illustrated Supplement 29 July 1900: p. 13
And from India:
A woman far gone in pregnancy is locked in a room and every entrance to her room is close covered so that no ray of the dimmed sun or moon may reach her. While thus locked up the woman cannot do any work. She cannot dress vegetables or even break a straw or she may maim the limbs of the child in her womb.
If she sees any of the eclipse the child will suffer from eclipse madness or grahan-ghelu. When the eclipse is over every one bathes either at home or in a river or in the sea. They fetch fresh drinking water, purify the house-gods by going through the regular daily worship, take a meal, and present gifts, grain and copper or silver coins to the family priest. Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Volume 9, Part 1, 1901: p. 395-6
In the United States, an eclipse and “maternal influence” was blamed for a child’s defective iris.
INFLUENCE OF STRANGE SIGHTS ON PREGNANCY.
Editor Medical Brief:—Already much has been written on “the influence of strange sights on pregnancy,” and I propose contributing one article, touching a very striking case of that kind. Some years ago, about 1808, was requested to see a child teething, and while talking with the mother about the child’s condition my attention was directed to one of the little fellow’s eyes, the mother remarking the while that “about one-half of that eye is darker than the other half and always has been since I first noticed the color of his eyes.” His were dark enough to be called black. On close inspections I found that the eye resembled an eclipse so closely that the impression at once entered my mind that probably the mother had been looking at the sun during an eclipse, and upon inquiry, elicited the fact she had looked long at an eclipse of the sun during the early months of utero-gestation. It was a complete facsimile; the line of disk of the eclipse being perfect and smooth. I may add, it was not discernible at about the distance of one yard from the eye, and did not extend outside of the colored part of eye. The child died since of measles in Grafton, W. Va. J. G., M. D. Medical Brief, Volume 9, 1881: p. 379
Eclipses were cited as a cause of insanity.
ECLIPSE DROVE HIM INSANE; DIED ON WAY TO STATE HOSPITAL
Union City, Jan. 29. Rev. Horatio Carr, of Union township, who went insane at the sight of the eclipse on last Saturday morning, died at 5 p.m. yesterday afternoon while en route to North Warren, where he was being taken to be placed in the state institution for the insane.
Rev. Carr was past 70 years and had been considered “queer” for the past several years, and following the eclipse of the sun he became imbued with the belief that the world was coming to an end. His queer actions became so pronounced that it was thought advisable to take him to Warren for treatment.
On the trip to the state institution, he became very violent, and his weak physical condition, unable to withstand the great shock, caused his death. His body was brought to the Cooper-Crowe undertaking parlors in Union City, and he will be buried from there this afternoon.
Rev. Carr was a graduate of Allegheny college, and despite his “queerness” was a scholarly man and well versed in religion. He is survived by a brother, Samuel Carr of Union City, and several distant relatives. The Kane [PA] Republican 29 January 1925: p. 8
They were also blamed for suicides: An eclipse coupled with the full moon made the consequences even more dire:
ECLIPSE CAUSES SUICIDE
Canton Man Affected by Appearance of the Moon.
Canton, O., Nov. 30. The eclipse and the change of the moon Saturday, it is believed, as the cause that drove Jacob Walser, aged 45, to commit suicide on the J.A. Reed farm, north of town. Walser’s body was found hanging by a strap from the rafters in the barn.
Walser was subject to melancholia every time the moon changed it was said at the Reed home. This had lasted for 10 years, as long as the family had known him. ‘I am feeling bad,” Walser would say whenever the moon changed. Saturday there came the eclipse coupled with the change to the full moon, which had a bad effect upon Walser. Warren [PA] Times Mirror 30 November 1909: p. 3
An eclipse was indirectly the cause of King Rama IV of Thailand’s death and I seem to have heard rumors about a French King and a Roman Emperor who died of terror during eclipses. Several less exalted people were said to have been frightened to death by eclipses in 1869 and 1900.
Frightened to Death by the Eclipse.
Winsboro News and Herald June 14. Fright at the eclipse was the cause of the death of a…woman who died at her home in the Jenkinsville neighborhood a few days ago. At the time of the eclipse the woman was at work in the field, and seeing the peculiar appearance of everything as the eclipse progressed, she, not knowing the cause of it, became terrified and started home. She ran a distance of three miles to her house, and when she reached it she fell down in a convulsion. The convulsions, which were probably caused by the long run and over exertion, continued, and the woman died a day or two ago. Yorkville [SC] Enquirer 23 June 1900: p. 2
KILLED BY THE ECLIPSE
A woman named Mrs. Gifford, living in the northern part of Marion county, died on Saturday from the effects of fright at the eclipse. She had no knowledge of its approach, and was alone at the time it came on, with the exception of a child four weeks old. Terrified at the sight, she seized the child and fled to a neighbor’s a mile distant. When she reached there her reason was gone. A doctor near by was called who pronounced her incurable. She lingered along till Saturday when she died without her reason having returned. Star Tribune [Minneapolis MN] 18 August 1869: p. 1
These ladies may, indeed, have died of fright, but there was a long-standing belief that eclipses could not only weaken the sick, they could kill.
Eclipses are the astronomical phenomena which, in all ages, have produced most vivid impressions on the minds of men. Ramazzini states that during the eclipse of the moon in January, 1693, the mortality among the sick was greatly increased; and many cases of sudden death occurred. According to [Richard] Mead, on the day of the total eclipse of the sun in April, 1725, all the cases of disease were exacerbated.
Baillon relates the following: A number of Parisian physicians were called in consultation to the case of a woman of high rank, at the time of a solar eclipse, but so lightly did they regard her case that they walked out to view the sky. They were, however, quickly recalled, to see her in a comatose condition, which continued until the sun had regained its natural brilliancy.
According to Matthew Faber, chief physician to the Duke of Wurtemberg, a hypochondriac, who was usually very peaceable, became, at the time of a solar eclipse, first extremely sad, and afterwards so very furious that he sallied out from his house with a drawn sword and struck down all those who opposed him….
According to Rawley, Lord [Francis] Bacon fell down with syncope during an eclipse of the moon, and did not recover until the moon’s disk was again clear. One of my own patients has been singularly affected during an eclipse of the moon. As soon as the obscuration commenced, her respiration became slow and her pulse weak; at a more advanced period her pulse rose, but her respiration was almost suspended. Then she fell into a state of utter unconsciousness, without any motion whatever. As the moon passed out of the earth’s shadow, these symptoms gradually disappeared; and after the eclipse had terminated she felt no traces of the disorder. This case has some analogy with that of Lord Bacon. These facts can scarcely be attributed to the imagination. St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal, Volume 13: p. 514-515
Physician Richard Mead offered some “surprizing” observations:
“What happened January 21, 1693, was very surprizing. For the Moon having been eclipsed that night, the greatest part of the sick died about the very hour of the eclipse: and some were even struck with sudden death.”…
And it is still fresh in the memories of some, that in that memorable eclipse of the Sun, which happened April 22, 1715, and in which the total obscuration lasted here at London three minutes and twenty-three seconds, many sick people found themselves considerably worse during the time: which circumstance people generally wondered at.” The Medical Works of Richard Mead, 1762: p. 188-89
It is axiomatic that animals behaved in strange ways during eclipses, but apparently they, too, were vulnerable to death by eclipse.
Effects of a Solar Eclipse on Animals.—In his report on the eclipse of July 8th, M. [François] Arago mentions in support of a popular notion which he had always disbelieved, that a friend of his put five healthy and lively linnets in a cage together, and fed them immediately before the eclipse. At the end of it three of them were found dead. Other indications of the alarm it produced were seen in a dog which had been long kept fasting, and which was eating hungrily when the eclipse commenced, but left his food as soon as the darkness set in. A colony of ants which had been working actively, suddenly ceased from their labors at the same moment.—Gazette Medicale. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 1843: p. 128
While I don’t have a clue about the astrological statements in the following excerpts, eclipses were invariably seen as portents of conflict, particularly by astrologers in the 1910s, who earnestly analyzed the effects of stars, planets, and eclipses on the prospects for war.
If eclipses have effect on international affairs it would seem that the solar eclipse of April 27th, 1912, in 27˚ 5’ Aries was the celestial portent of the GREAT WAR. Though it occurred over two years before the outbreak of that conflict it is the only solar eclipse within a reasonable number of years previous to it whose central line of total eclipse passed directly over the scenes of the greatest carnage in that war subsequently occurring. This line of totality passed through the northwest of France, Belgium, the Baltic and the north of Russia. If we call this a coincidence it is certainly a most remarkable one. Cardan averred that an eclipse of the Sun in Aries portended “terrible wars and slaughter,” and that eclipse certainly lived up to that reputation. As time went on the next warning the world received of the close approach of the conflict was the lunar eclipse of March, 1914, Previous to the solar eclipse of April 17th, 1912, some astrologers, among them Zadkiel, issued warnings of war, but seemed to expect it that same year and as nothing of that kind occurred the eclipse seems to have been forgotten. It would seem that the matter is of sufficient importance to be taken up by proficient mathematical astrologers and the relation between these eclipses and the Great War be established once for all, if such is possible… The Adept, The American Journal of Astrology, December 1920: p. 8
If the central line of totality is significant, what can we expect for those areas darkened by Monday’s event?
This passage tells of the ominous total solar eclipse on 21 August 1914, and explains the lapse of time between the eclipse of 1912 and the outbreak of the Great War:
The Power of Regulus
“As a matter of fact, it was not merely Mars that was ascending at the summer solstice, but Mars in conjunction with a martial star of the first magnitude, Regulus (or ‘a’ Leonis), and this no doubt greatly emphasized the martial influence. It is an astrological theory, to which perhaps some credence should be given, that fixed star effects are of a sudden and dramatic character. It is a curious fact that the eclipse of the sun on August 21st of this year (1914) [a total solar eclipse. The totality was seen in Northern Europe and Asia.] fell on the identical place occupied by Mars and Regulus at the summer solstice. According to the celebrated astrologer, Junctinus, a great eclipse of the Sun in Leo ‘presignifies the motions of armies, death of a king, danger of war, and scarcity of rain…’
It is generally held by astrologers that great wars are heralded by eclipses. The central eclipse of the Sun on April 17, 1912, which occurred in twenty-seven degrees of Aries, was…followed in the middle of October by the outbreak of the Balkan War, exactly at the time when Mars transited the opposition of the place of the eclipse. At the autumn equinox of that year Mars was culminating at Vienna and in the Balkans. An eclipse is traditionally held to rule as many years as it lasts hours [uh-oh…]; the duration of the rule of this eclipse would thus be fully three years. It must not then be assumed that its effect was exhausted by the Balkan War, which as a matter of fact was in its nature merely the forerunner of the present conflagration…. Prophecies and Omens of the Great War, Ralph Shirley, 1915: pp. 63-4
Apparently the bit about the influence of an eclipse lasting as many years as it spans hours goes back to Ptolemy. As Ann Geneva writes in Astrology and the Seventeenth-century Mind: William Lilly and the Language of the Stars, ”this timeframe provided astrologers with the necessary leeway to connect natural phenomena to important terrestrial events by extending their statute of limitations.”
Having found a good deal of Forteana associated with cholera epidemics, I was surprised that there were far fewer reports of high strangeness in connection with the solar events. I’ve previously reported on a mysterious giant bird associated with an 1869 U.S. eclipse.
My favorite bit of eclipse Forteana is this story, reminiscent of the popular lightning daguerreotypes, found etched on or in window glass.
The following singular phenomenon is related by a Nashville paper: A young lady of this city, wearing a highly polished silver pin, was looking at the eclipse considerably, through an ordinary smoked glass, during the time of transit, and afterwards discovered that the eclipse had daguerreotyped itself upon her pin at the time the sun was half obscured the impression remains there permanently, resisting the action of rubbing as well as exposure to the atmosphere. This is a phenomenon for artists to study upon. The South-Western [Shreveport LA] 15 September 1869: p. 4
While we would like to think that the modern world is beyond all superstition about these anomalous scientific events, in 1999, during the Aug. 11 eclipse, a Brazilian police superintendent released three prisoners because he thought that the eclipse would mean the end of the world. (Picui, Brazil), and a baby born during the blackout was killed by its 31-year-old mother, who feared it was cursed. (Strahotin, Romania) Augusta [GA] Chronicle 10 October 1999: p. 2
A number of schools are planning to close on Monday for fear children will damage their eyes. And yesterday I was startled to get a notice from FedEx about possible service interruptions.
FedEx is closely monitoring potential effects of the total solar eclipse on Monday, August 21, 2017. Our first priority is the safety and well-being of our team members, and we will implement contingency plans as necessary. Events of this nature often cause pickup and delivery delays and disruptions for FedEx customers. [They do??]
Other examples of eclipse unease or Forteana? Send to chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com, who plans to stay indoors with the curtains tightly drawn.
The Victorian Book of the Dead 