Replevying a Corpse

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.

Chris Woodyard is the author of A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death, 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.

The Tooth Snatcher

Since we are nothing if not topical here, I excuse this slight supernatural story involving tooth-snatching on the grounds of enfeeblement from a recent root canal. Ouch.

“The Rev. Mr. Perring, Vicar of a parish which is now a component part of London, though, about forty-five years ago it had the appearance of a village at the outskirts, had to encounter the sad affliction of losing his eldest Son at an age when parents are encouraged to believe their children are to become their survivors; the youth dying in his seventeenth year. He was buried in the vaults of the church.

“Two nights subsequently to that interment, the father dreamed that he saw his Son habited in a shroud spotted with blood, the expression of his countenance being that of a person enduring some paroxysm of acute pain: ‘Father, father! come and defend me!’ were the words he distinctly heard, as he gazed on this awe-inspiring apparition; ‘they will not let me rest quiet in my coffin.’

“The venerable man awoke with terror and trembling; but after a brief interval of painful reflection concluded himself to be labouring under the influence of his sad day-thoughts, and the depression of past sufferings; and with these rational assurances commended himself to the All-Merciful, and slumbered again and slept.

“He saw his Son again beseeching him to protect his remains from outrage, ‘For,’ said the apparently surviving dead one, ‘they are mangling my body at this moment.’ The unhappy Father rose at once, being now unable to banish the fearful image from his mind, and determined when day should dawn to satisfy himself of the delusiveness or verity of the revelation conveyed through this seeming voice from the grave.

“At an early hour, accordingly, he repaired to the Clerk’s house, where the keys of the church and of the vaults were kept. The Clerk after considerable delay, came down-stairs, saying it was very unfortunate he should want them just on that very day, as his son over the way had taken them to the smith’s for repair,—one of the largest of the bunch of keys having been broken off short in the main door of the vault, so as to render it impracticable for anybody to enter till the lock had been picked and taken off.

“Impelled by the worst misgivings, the Vicar loudly insisted on the Clerk’s accompanying him to the blacksmith’s—not for a key but for a crowbar, it being his resolute determination to enter the vault and see his Son’s coffin without a moment’s delay.

“The recollections of the dream were now becoming more and more vivid, and the scrutiny about to be made assumed a solemnity mingled with awe, which the agitation of the father rendered terrible to the agents in this forcible interruption into the resting-place of the dead. But the hinges were speedily wrenched asunder—the bar and bolts were beaten in and bent beneath the heavy hammer of the smith,—and at length with tottering and outstretched hands, the maddened parent stumbled and fell: his son’s coffin had been lifted from the recess at the vault’s side and deposited on the brick floor; the lid, released from every screw, lay loose at top, and the body, enveloped in its shroud, on which were several dark spots below the chin, lay exposed to view; the head had been raised, the broad riband had been removed from under the jaw, which now hung down with the most ghastly horror of expression, as if to tell with more terrific certainty the truth of the preceding night’s vision. Every tooth in the head had been drawn.

“The young man had when living a beautiful set of sound teeth. The Clerk’s Son, who was a barber, cupper, and dentist, had possessed himself of the keys, and eventually of the teeth, for the purpose of profitable employment of so excellent a set in his line of business. The feelings of the Rev. Mr. Perring can be easily conceived. The event affected his mind through the remaining term of his existence; but what became of the delinquent whose sacrilegious hand had thus rifled the tomb was never afterwards correctly ascertained. He decamped the same day, and was supposed to have enlisted as a soldier. The Clerk was ignominiously displaced, and did not long survive the transaction. Some years afterwards, his house was pulled down to afford room for extensive improvements and new buildings in the village.

“As regards the occurrence itself, few persons were apprised of it; as the Vicar—shunning public talk and excitement on the subject of any member of his family—exerted himself in concealing the circumstances as much as possible. The above facts, however, may be strictly relied on as accurate.”

Glimpses of the Supernatural, Frederick George Lee, 1875

Editor’s note: A friend who provided the above example writes to the Editor:—”I knew the family, and the circumstance of Mr. Perring’s singular dream; and can certainly testify to its truth.”

A minor point, but while this was published in Spiritualist journals and Lee’s book, in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the language suggests eighteenth century.

While the body-snatchers’ primary goal was corpses for the anatomist market, teeth were also prized merchandise. Dentures were frequently made from post-mortem pearly-whites, also known today as “Waterloo teeth,” after the wholesale tooth-snatching that occurred after that battle. This article  tells the history of the practice, which did not begin with Waterloo, and suggests that many people did not realize the source of their false teeth.

Ben Crouch, described in the following squib, was said to be the leader of “the most expert gang of resurrectionists ever known.”  He specialized in corpse teeth, and even got the proper credentials to facilitate his dental acquisitions.

[Crouch] was a big, powerful man, quite famous as a prize-fighter. His father was employed as a carpenter at Guy’s Hospital, which probably explains the way in which he first became attracted to resurrectioning… In 1817 he and Jack Harnett, another of the gang, gave up resurrectioning and began the business of supplying dentists with human teeth. They got sutlers’ licenses and followed the English army to France and Spain. After a battle they would get as many teeth as possible from the dead, likewise stealing any money or valuables that might be found on the corpses. The Medical News, Vol. 81, 1902

Other toothsome Spiritualist tales? Send with a warm salt-water rinse to chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com

In other supernatural teeth news, I posted previously on a woman bitten by a demon after some table-tipping experiments, also on The Phantom Teeth of Knightsbridge, and occult dentistry.

Chris Woodyard is the author of A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death, 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.

Valentine’s Day: It’s Murder

Valentine’s Day, with its endless opportunities for romantic disappointments, amorous rivalries, and insulting comic valentines, was a source of many heat-of-passion homicides.  

VALENTINE CAUSES MURDER

One Man Dead and Number Injured in St. Louis Fight.

St. Louis, Feb. 16. As the result of a quarrel which started over a valentine, John Carley, aged thirty, is dead from a bullet wound, Mrs. Minnie Howard, his step-sister, is under arrest charged with the shooting. William Ewing and Maud Goodwin received cuts and bruises and were locked up as witnesses. The trouble occurred in a boarding house conducted by Mrs. Howard. She asserts that she fired the shots which killed Carley, to prevent him from killing Ewing during the general scrimmage.

Lincoln [NE] Nebraska State Journal 17 February 1904: p. 2

Valentine Causes Murder.

Pickensville, Ala., March 22. Lee Doss shot and killed Luther Ball, who had sent an offensive valentine to a sister of Doss.

The Allen County Republican-Gazette [Lima OH] 23 March 1897: p. 1

It is curious that this story of Valentine patricide mentions the dead man’s insurance, practically inviting local vultures to swoop on those minor daughters.

THE DEADLY VALENTINE.

A Penny Caricature Results in the Murder of a Modern Woodman in West Virginia.

A comic valentine resulted in the violent death of Charles R. Stewart, a member of camp No. 5719, Charleston, W. Va., on the evening of February 13. “Neighbor” Stewart’s son, Louis, defending his mother, shot his father to death. The tragedy was the sequel to the receipt by Stewart of a comic valentine, which he thought had been sent him by his wife, with whom he had not been on the best of terms. Mrs. Stewart angrily denied sending the penny caricature. The son, Louis, interferred in the quarrel. The father turned to assail him with a chair, when the son drew a pistol and fatally wounded his father. The son is in jail. Stewart held a Woodman certificate for $2,000, payable to his three minor daughters, and full settlement will be made as soon as the complete proofs of death are filed.

Louisville [NE] Courier 24 March 1900: p. 1

C.R. STEWART, SHOT BY HIS SON, DIES FORGIVING.

Charleston, W. Va., Feb. 15. Charles R. Stewart, shot Tuesday night by his son, Lewis, died yesterday. Before his death he became reconciled with his wife, whom he accused of sending him a comic valentine, when his son interfered. Stewart said to Judge Hall: “Be as easy on my boy as you can, and may God forgive him.” The Coroner’s jury held young Stewart on a charge of homicide.

The Standard Union [Brooklyn, NY] 15 February 1900: p. 12

The law did go “easy” on the boy.

Merciful Sentence for Parricide.

Special to The Washington Post.

Charleston, W. Va., July 21. Lewis Stewart, who last February shot and killed his father, C.R. Stewart, was to-day found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to pay a fine of $10 and to spend one hour in jail.

The Washington [DC] Weekly Post 24 July 1900: p. 2

Attempted murder was also a recognized Valentine’s tradition, according to this frighteningly candid chemist.

Poisoned Valentines.

“Poisoners,” said a chemist, “make use of Valentine Day to send boxes of poisoned cake or candy to their foes. Therefore beware.

“This fact is a sad reflection upon human nature,” he resumed. “Yet here is a worse reflection. Once, in a poisoning case in St. Louis, I testified that there were several deadly poisons that left no trace of any sort behind in the body of the victim. Well, the lawyers asked me what these poisons were, and I refused to divulge their names. ‘Such knowledge is too dangerous for the public at large to possess,’ I said.

“The judge upheld me, and I didn’t give the names of the poisons. But do you know that within the next month I received eight hundred letters from all parts of the world asking me, on all sorts of plausible pretexts, the poisons’ names? And still, to this day, I occasionally receive such letters, especially in the valentine season. I’ve received over a thousand in all. That is to say, I have direct knowledge of a thousand persons who would, if they dared, commit murder.”

The Journal and Tribune [Knoxville TN] 13 February 1910: p. 29

A POISONED VALENTINE.

The Deadly Present Sent to a Jersey City Belle Last Monday.

From the New York Star.

Miss Nellie Willis is a well-known young lady, who moves in good society in Jersey City. She lives with her mother, who is a widow, at 167 1/2 Fourth street. For several weeks she has been annoyed by receiving anonymous letters, some of which were obscene, while others contained passionate words of love. No attention was paid to the letters, and most of them were destroyed soon after they were received. When at last the letters became abusive they were turned over to the post office authorities, who were asked to try and discover who the writer was, so that the annoyance could be stopped. Efforts were made to find the writer, but without success. Sometimes the missives would be mailed in Jersey City, and at other times in Brooklyn and again in New York and Garden City.

Neither Miss Willis nor any of the members of her family could imagine who these letters were coming from, or for what purpose they were written. Miss Nellie is about 19 years of age, has a very pretty figure and is quite handsome. She has two sisters, one of who is married to Mr. Alexander Connors, who is in the feed business at Thirty-fourth street and Tenth avenue, New York, and another one is married to Mr. P. Cox, a Wall street broker. Her brother is an engraver and does business on Maiden lane.

The letters suddenly stopped coming to the house, and for a week not a note of any kind was received, and Miss Willis began to think that the annoyance had stopped.

On Monday morning the postman delivered at the house a good-sized box addressed to Miss Willis. As it was St. Valentine’s day it was supposed by Mrs. Willis that the package contained a valentine from one of her daughter’s many admirers. As Miss Nellie was out when the package was received, it was left in the parlor until she returned. When Miss Willis opened the package that evening she found a pretty box made of lacquered wood, and on opening it saw that it was filled with delicious looking figs.

She took one of the figs from the box and was about to eat it, when her attention was called to a green spot on the side. Upon a closer examination she found that the fig had been slit with a knife, and on breaking it open, the inside was found to be sprinkled with a green powder. The rest of the figs were examined, and every one had been treated in the same way. The box was taken to a chemist, who told Miss Willis that she had had a narrow escape from being poisoned, as each fig contained a big dose of Paris green.

The discovery was so startling that the young lady was taken ill and has been suffering from nervous prostration. The box and figs were turned over to the police, who are making every effort to find the scoundrel who mailed the package. The postmark was that of one of the stations in New York. When Mrs. Willis was spoken to about the matter she said:

“I cannot imagine who sent Nellie the box or for what purpose it was sent. Someone must have a spite against her. She narrowly escaped being poisoned.”

Miss Willis met with a romantic adventure shortly before Christmas. At a party one night she met a young [man] named H. Cisco. He called on her several times, when he asked her to marry him. She refused his offer, and her mother forbade him to come to the house. When he found out that he could not call on her he would watch wherever she went and annoy her with his attentions on the street. He finally threatened to kill Miss Willis, and she had him arrested. When brought up before the police justice he said that be was a student at the Troy Institute, and that he did not intend to harm Miss Willis. He was discharged, and since that time nothing has been heard of him.

The Savannah [GA] Morning News 23 February 1887: p. 7

HER VALENTINE A STRANGE PARCEL

York Young Woman Receives a Package, Following Threatening Letters

Special to The Inquirer. York, Pa., Feb. 18. Miss Lulu M. Cole, an attractive and popular young woman of this city, received a deadly valentine last Saturday, the fact of the reception of which has just been made public.

On that day a box came to her by mail. It contained a small vial, the contents of which, when examined by a pharmacist, were said to be poison. It will be further analyzed. There was no note accompanying it, and there is scarcely any clew to the sender.

In a measure Miss Cole was prepared for the deadly messenger by a number of letters– eight or more–which she had been receiving during the preceding few days, all of which were threatening, and some of which expressed a burning desire to see Miss Cole dead. One of the writers is said to have made use of the expression that she or he would not be. satisfied until the girl was no more.

The whole matter has been placed in the hands of the postal authorities, and an effort will be made to discover the offenders. The authorities, as well as Miss Cole, are reticent about the matter and will give none of the letters for publication. Miss Cole denies a report that she suspects a woman who is jealous of her, claiming that there is no jealousy nor any cause for jealousy, so far as she knows, and that she has not the least idea as to whom the writer or writers may be.

The Philadelphia [PA] Inquirer 19 February 1903: p. 1

The mystery of the Valentine poison does not seemed at all clarified by this ‘explanation.’

WHO PUT IN THE POISON?

Miss Davis Says She Simply Sent a Bottle of Whiskey to Miss Cole.

York, Pa., Feb. 22. The mystery surrounding the sending of a bottle of poison through the mail to Miss Lulu Cole of this city has been cleared up by Detective White.

Miss Grace Davis, a young woman of the West End, made a statement to-day to the effect that she had mailed a small bottle of whiskey and a valentine to Miss Cole, explaining that it was all a joke.

“When Miss Cole accused me of sending threatening letters to her, of which I am absolutely innocent,” said Miss Davis, “I decided to have some fun. I filled a small bottle with whiskey in the presence of my mother and sister and others and, with a valentine inclosed it in a package and intrusted it to a friend, Percy Blossed, to mail. He tasted some of the whiskey before mailing the package. I marked the bottle ‘Nerve Tonic.’”

Miss Davis’s story has been corroborated and the detective is now working to discover how poison was introduced into the liquor after it left the hands of Blosser, who can prove by witnesses that he had not tampered with the package.

So far as known Miss Davis and Miss Cole have always been friendly.

The Sun [New York NY] 23 February 1903: p. 3

GIRL DRIVEN FROM HOME BY THREATS

Miss Lulu Cole Again Tormented by Anonymous Threatening Letters.

York, Pa., March 4. Another threatening letter has been received by Lulu Cole, who recently received by mail a bottle supposed to contain poison and numerous letters containing threats upon her life.

The writer of this later letter boldly defies the postal authorities, detectives, and constabulary, and tells Miss Cole that her life is in jeopardy even at the own fireside. Living in continual fear has become so great a strain upon Miss Cole that her health is being impaired and she will, on the advice of her physician, leave town for awhile.

The Washington [DC] Times 4 March 1903: p. 4

Let’s be careful out there this Valentine’s Day!

Chris Woodyard is the author of A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death, 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.

The Corpse Counted the Coins: 1892

A GHASTLY FRAUD.

The story is just being told of a remarkable swindle which was perpetrated recently in Hawthorn (Vic), and it goes to show the extremes to which people will sometimes go in order to carry out imposition on the charitably disposed (says a Melbourne exchange). It appears that some little while back a leading official of the Hawthorn Ladies’ Benevolent Society was waited upon by a woman who was crying bitterly, and who was apparently in deep and genuine distress. Her appearance was that of one poverty-stricken and woebegone in the extreme. She told a pitiful tale to this lady, whose character for charitable deeds is well known.

For a long time, she said, they had had scarcely anything to eat, and, worst of all, her poor husband had just died, and there was no money in her possession to give him a decent burial. The recital of this terrible tale of alleged destitution was accompanied with much sobbing, and hypocritical blessings were called down upon the charitable lady, when a promise was given that the case would be attended to. No time was lost, for with an equally kind-hearted and generous lady friend a visit was at once paid to the house where this terrible family disaster had occurred.

The two ladies entered the house. It was found to have very little furniture in it, and what there was was of the poorest description. The place was dirty and ill-kept; but this was accounted for by the “widow” by the statement that want of food had deprived her of the requisite strength to do household work. The hearts of the ladies were indeed touched at the picture of poverty presented to them. They were assured there were no food in the house, while walking through the house was another woman mourning loudly, like the mourners of old, and tearing her hair at the decease of her brother.

Filled with pity for the poor creatures the two ladies entered what they supposed was the chamber of death. What a picture was here presented. On a stretcher lay the body of a splendidly-formed man, and even now it was in the poorest burial shroud which it had been possible to procure. Evening was coming on, and the corner of the room was wrapped in gloom.

“Look, at his dear dead face,” the woman said, wringing her hands the while and lifting the sheet at the same time. The ladies were rather frightened at the spectacle which presented itself during the few seconds the sheet was lifted, for beneath it was the face of a man of less than middle age. It bore the hue of death, and hastily turning aside the ladies proceeded to be practical.

In the first place they left an ample sum behind them for the funeral expenses, and informed the mourning relatives that they would order the necessaries, and even luxuries, of life to be forwarded from a local store. Then they departed, but after being gone a few minutes one of the ladies discovered that she had left her umbrella in the house. She ran back, and went straight into the room where the body had been.

She started back in affright, for there was the corpse sitting up in bed, coolly and collectively counting over the cash which had been left for his burial. The strange and startling discovery was at once reported, but before steps could be taken to award punishment the coterie of swindlers had flown. It was amply proved afterwards, however, that the face of the “corpse” had been liberally treated with coloured whitewash to give it the appearance of a dead person, and there is every reason to suppose that he has “died” in the same way many a time before.

Ohinemuri [NZ] Gazette 16 July 1892: p. 9

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  This was a popular “old chestnut” to judge by the many variants one finds in the popular press. In some the corpse is already coffined in a borrowed casket and clinks the coins to ascertain whether they are genuine; in others, the money is snatched back from the corpse by the charitable lady. It is certainly possible that the imposture actually was perpetrated on numerous occasions, but the tone and the changing locations to suit each newspaper (Melbourne, Baltimore, &c.) suggest an “urban legend.”  There were also many stories of corpses reviving from cataleptic trances, but one doubts that the first act of those resurrected persons was to count the charity cash or to check it for counterfeit coin.

Mrs Daffodil found it interesting that the “widow” in this story claimed she was too weak from hunger to clean house. Cleanliness in the face of dire poverty was one of the marks of the “deserving poor.” The charitable ladies apparently found this excuse a plausible one.

Of course the sub-text of this story is the importance of a “decent burial,” even to the very poorest. There were also religious committees where ladies gathered to sociably sew shrouds for the poor. For example, that funereal person who wrote The Victorian Book of the Dead found notices of the meetings of the “Ladies’ Shroud Sewing Society” in Denver, Colorado in 1904-1912, where the women of the synagogue made shrouds both to sell as a fund-raiser and for burying the poor.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Chris Woodyard is the author of A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death, 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 on Twitter @hauntedohiobook. And visit her newest blog The Victorian Book of the Dead.

Corpse Collectors

A famous corpse collector: Juana la Loca, pictured in 1877 by Francisco Pradilla. Joanna of Castile was said to have carried with her the embalmed body of her husband, Philip. She would have the coffin opened so she could kiss the body and see if he had yet come back to life. Her refusal to have Philip’s corpse buried was one of the factors in her brother having her declared mad and incompetent to rule.

Perhaps I was a curator at the Body World exhibition in a previous life, but one of the categories of stories that fascinates me is that of people who cannot let the bodies of the dead be decently buried. These enthusiasts are discovered keeping corpses— mummified, skeletonized, liquefied, or shrink-wrapped—in freezer, sitting room, bed, or garden. There are, of course, a variety of rationales for this behavior: mental illness, denial, a belief that the dead will be resurrected, social security checks to be cashed, or a crime to cover up. One woman, whose husband’s body lay in their house for nine months after his death said that he had told her that he wanted his corpse to be eaten by birds. There was no word about whether she had left the bedroom window open to facilitate this wish.

This corpus is by no means complete: I’ve omitted the distasteful story of Karl Tanzler/Count Carl von Cosel, and tales of those spouses embalmed and kept in the drawing room due to some mythic clause in the will about enjoying property as long as the dead spouse “remains above ground.” I’ve left out religious rituals like this Indonesia festival and the story of Hannah Beswick, “the mummy of Birchen Bower,” whose mummification and storage in a clock case was dictated by her fear of being buried alive.

The motives of the corpse collectors in this post are more obscure; perhaps due to  what is now defined as “complicated grief,” where the bereaved are incapacitated by sorrow and cannot move forward.

In our first case, a heartbroken father took extreme measures to keep his dead children with him.

A FATHER’S VOW

He Declares That His Dead Children Shall Never Leave Him

He Has Their Bodies Embalmed, and the Casket Placed in a Room Where He Keeps Them for Twenty Years.

[Philadelphia Press]

A funeral took place in Palmyra, N.J., on Tuesday last, which furnishes the sequel to one of the most remarkable cases ever known. The bodies of three embalmed children, which had been preserved by an eccentric father for twenty years, were interred in one grave, the father having died three months before, and the remaining members of the family being unwilling to perpetuate his singular ideas, in violation of common custom.

In 1859 Henry Coy lived in a comfortable old-fashioned dwelling, on the northeast corner of Front and Cooper streets, Camden. His family then consisted of himself, a wife and two children—one a girl of five years and the other a curly-haired, handsome boy of two. Mr. Coy was a surgical instrument maker, engaged in business in this city, on Eighth street, near Walnut, and afterward in the neighborhood of Second and Dock streets. He was regarded as a skillful man at his trade, and was said to be worth money, but his reticent disposition and disinclination to mix in society prevented any specific inquiry as to his exact financial standing. People who knew him in a business way, however, were content to spread the rumor that he was a man of no inconsiderable wealth. His entire time out of business hours was spent with his family, to whom he appeared devotedly attached.

THE FATHER’S STRANGE CONDUCT

Soon after the war began, Mrs. Coy died, after giving birth to another child—a girl. She was buried, and after that the father seemed more than ever in love with his children. The little daughter was rather a delicate child, and in 1862 she was taken ill and died after a few weeks’ sickness. Unceasing attendance at the little one’s bedside, and the constant loss of sleep, seems to have strangely affected the fathers mind. He would not permit any of the neighbors to touch or even look at the dead body, and declared that it should never leave his sight while he lived. And the eccentric man then went to work to accomplish that purpose. With the assistance of a mysterious stranger the little corpse was subjected to an embalming process and then incased in an air-tight casket and carefully deposited in one of the upper chambers of the dwelling. Old-time residents of Camden remember well that it was a popular superstition that the spirit of the child used to regularly appear at the windows in a supplicating attitude, and the house was said to be haunted. All attempts to see the mummified corpse or to learn the truth of the queer story were fruitless, and in a few months there were not many persons who gave it credence. Some time between the latter part of 1863 and the summer of 1864 observing people noticed that the baby had disappeared, and the previous appearance of a physician’s chaise at the door a dozen times during the week led to the believe that the infant had died and had been embalmed, as the first one had been. The doctor was a strange one, and nothing could be gleaned from him. Just when the boy died is not known, but it is supposed that he followed not long after the second death, and was also put in a casket and laid alongside his brother and sister.

MOVING THE BODIES

In 1866 the story of the mysterious embalming was renewed, and for some unexplained reason it was whispered about the upper part of Camden that Mr. Coy was a Mormon; that he had a dozen or more wives concealed in the house, and that every night prayers were said over the bodies of the dead children. There appeared no just foundation for these stories, for the father was rarely seen on the street, and during his brief absence form home the dreary-looking old house seemed entirely deserted. The upper stories were never opened, and cobwebs collected over the windows and under the eaves. The man became such a thorough mystery that all efforts to ferret out his secret were abandoned, and the gossips were obliged to build their startling stories of ghosts and uncanny noises by night purely from imagination. Mr. Coy left Camden for a time, and, it was popularly supposed, took the bodies of his children along with him; but nothing definite was known of his movements nor of the truth of the rumor, until five or six years later, when he moved. It was then noticed that three oblong boxes were carefully packed in a wagon, and the father drove away with them.

Nothing more was heard of Coy until his recent death was announced, and then the story of twenty years ago was either forgotten or deemed too incredible for revival. The triple burial at Palmyra on Tuesday, refreshed the strange tale in the minds of a few, and it was shown that the rumor had been correct.

The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 6 May 1882: p. 10

Henry Coy is buried at the Epworth Methodist Church Cemetery under a stone which reads “Henry – Sarah Coy and Family.” I wonder if the house has survived and still has a haunted reputation?

John Speaks of North Carolina was equally heartbroken when his young son ran off to join the Army and died in France two years later. He refused to bury the corpse and built a special room for the boy’s coffin.

KEPT FROM THE GRAVE.

DEAD SOLDIER NOT BURIED

VICTIM OF THE GREAT WAR

COFFIN AT A FARM-HOUSE

PARENTS’ FOUR YEARS’ VIGIL

After a four years’ vigil over the remains of his soldier son, Mr. John Speaks, of Iredell County, North Carolina, still refuses to bury the body, which is lying in state in a little annex to his farmhouse. Although a poor man, he has persistently refused to accept the $10,000 insurance which the Government is ready to pay on the life of the dead soldier. He will not take compensation for the life of his son, who was killed by a German shell.

Thomas Boyd Speaks, the son, was 15 years of age when he volunteered for service overseas, without the knowledge or consent of his father. The latter was distressed, and made efforts to secure the release of the boy, but without success. Two years after he had enlisted in the “Iredell Blues,” at Statesville, Thomas Speaks was killed in action near the Argonne Forest, a little over a month before the armistice was signed. He was buried in France, but in 1921 the body was sent to the United States with thousands of other Americans who had fallen in battle.

For seven months John Speaks slept every night in the same room with the flag-draped coffin, and when this became known to the county physician, the sheriff, and the welfare superintendent, acting on reports of neighbours, called on the farmer. They found, however, that the presence of a metal coffin was neither dangerous nor obnoxious to the public. In deference to public opinion, however, the father agreed to the removal of the body from the family living room, and constructed a small building in the garden to shelter it. There it has rested ever since.

The building is only 8 ft. square, is neatly weather-boarded, and has small windows at each end, with a little porch across the front. Pots of flowers and shrubbery adorn the entrance and sides. The coffin is wrapped in the Stars and Stripes, and rests on the box in which it was sent from Europe. The following inscription is on the coffin plate: —”Thomas Boyd Speaks, bugler, Company E, 18th Infantry.” On the walls of the room hang a hat and cap and several other articles of apparel formerly worn by the boy. A clothes brush and a plank on which letters were cut by him with a jack-knife before he enlisted are among the other relics in the room. The parents also carefully preserve a letter from the young bugler, in which he told them how much he wanted the terrible war to come to an end, and how anxious he was to return and tell them of his adventures.

John Speaks, who is 53 years of age, and is a serious-minded man, is surprised that his action has caused any concern.

He declared that any money from the Government for his son’s life would burn his fingers. He does not belong to any church, believing that they are all wrong, but he reads his Bible. Asked why he did not bury his son’s remains. Mr. Speaks said he felt certain it would not be long before the Resurrection of the Dead, and he also mentioned that his son had already been buried once, and he considered that was sufficient. New Zealand Herald, 27 February 1926: p. 2 and Charlotte [NC] Observer 25 October 1925: p. 4

Thomas Boyd Speaks who was only 17 when he died, now lies buried with his parents at Smith Chapel Cemetery in North Carolina.

Another devastated mother of a soldier kept her boy’s corpse in a glass-topped coffin until they could be buried together. It took thirty years.

THIRTY YEARS UNBURIED.

A Mother and Her Mummified Son Laid in the Same Grave.

Louisville, Ky., Feb. 8. A remarkable funeral took place at Rock Island, Tenn., yesterday, that was the talk of the whole county. The dead were a mother and her son, and the most remarkable feature of the event was that the son had been dead and unburied for thirty years. The truth of this is vouched for by responsible parties, who have seen the body at various times.

During the civil war the woman’s son, then a mere lad, enlisted in the Confederate service and was killed at the battle of Murfreesborough. He was an only son—his mother’s idol—and the shock completely prostrated her. She passionately declared that she would never part with her son while she lived, and that when death claimed her also both should be buried in one grave. She had an air-tight cedar casket made with a glass top, in which the body was laid. This was placed in a room assigned for the purpose, where the mother often repaired to commune with the dead. The body did not putrefy, but gradually became mummified. Thirty years it lay there. At last it was removed, and the devoted mother and her son were buried side by side in one grave.

An immense procession followed the bodies to their resting place. New York Times 9 February 1893: p. 1

In a less fraught story, this gentleman, like some very public Bluebeard, kept his first wife to hand in a box.

TWO WIVES BUT NO QUARRELS.

One of the Women is Petrified and Kept in a Box.

  J.N. Rickles, the proprietor of a carriage establishment at Chanute, Kan., enjoys the unique distinction of having two wives who do not quarrel, although they are frequently in contact. He was visited recently by Mr. Broadhead of St. Louis. While the two men were talking in Mr. Rickles’ office Mrs. Rickles came in and was introduced.

“This is my wife—that is, one of my wives,” said Mr. Rickles. “She is wife No. 2. My first wife is over there in the corner.”

Mr. Broadhead considered the remark a most unusual one. Noticing his perplexity Mr. Rickles volunteered to explain. He led the salesman to a pine box in one corner of his establishment. Lifting a lid off the box he displayed to the astonished salesman the form of a petrified woman. The form was perfect and the features almost as natural as one could expect to see in life. Mr. Broadhead says that Rickles explained to him that his first wife had died nearly a quarter of a century ago, while he was living in what is known as the “bad lands” in North Dakota. Several years later he had the body exhumed for removal and found that it had turned to stone. He then concluded to keep it in his possession and since then has taken the body with him wherever he went. In this instance Mrs. Rickles No. 2 is not the least bit jealous of having Mrs. Rickles No. 1 in the house. Marshall [MI] Statesman 4 May 1894: p. 6

In this next article, the daughter who so carefully buried her mother and sister in the basement gave an excuse rarely heard in 1913: The two dead women had been afraid of having their bodies snatched.

BODIES OF TWO WOMEN UNEARTHED IN HOUSE

Daughter in Hospital, Held Pending Investigation.

Tells St. Louis Police She Buried Mother and Sister Because They Feared Cemeteries.

St. Louis, Mo., April. 22. The bodies of Mrs. Ernestine Kommichau and her daughter, Selma, were unearthed this afternoon in the basement of a building at 2412 South Broadway. Marie Kommichau, another daughter, confined in the City Hospital with a broken leg, is under arrest and will be held pending an investigation. The three women occupied the house three months ago. Three weeks ago Marie said her sister had died and the mother had taken her body to Illinois for burial.

Albert Stuhr, owner of the building, early today visited the premises and reported the peculiar odor to the authorities. Detectives located the newly-made grave and the bodies were found partially encased in concrete.

Marie Kommichau, whose broken leg resulted from a fall down stairs, is 49 years old. She declared at the hospital this afternoon that her mother had died of senility and her sister of heart trouble caused by excessive use of headache powders. She explained that with her mother and sister she had conducted a notion store in the front room of the house at No. 2412 South Broadway for nearly twenty years.

Afraid of Cemeteries

“My mother and sister were afraid of being buried in cemeteries,” she said. “They were afraid their bodies would be stolen and also afraid that they would be buried alive. That was the only reason I did not have their bodies attended to in the usual way.

Before my mother died, she made sister and me promise that we would not take her body out of the house, so the undertakers could get her,” said Miss Kommichau. “We had no doctor for her—there has not been a doctor in our house for ten years, and a doctor could have done mother no good.

“We put her body in a showcase which we took from the notion store and poured plaster of Paris around the glass and cracks to keep the air out. We kept the showcase containing the body upstairs in ta rear room. No one knew for none of the neighbors had paid any attention to mother and they did not inquire about her.

“When sister died I knew that people would ask about her and that if neighbors found out I was keeping her body they would ask about mother too. So I told the neighbors that mother had died and that Selma had taken her to Illinois for burial.

Buried Both Bodies in Basement

“Then I took both bodies into the basement. I laid them on the basement floor and poured plaster of Paris and cement over them.”

Marie said that she needed help in removing the body of her mother from the showcase and called in a German woman who was passing the store and whom she never saw before.

“She was clumsy,” continued Marie, “and was no help. I told her she needn’t mind about staying. I never saw her again and I don’t know whether she ever told anyone.”
Marie said that one man, Adam Almeroth, living here, knew of the deaths.

“He is a very religious man,” said Marie. “He has called on us now and then for a long while. He said prayers over mother’s body and over sister’s body. I don’t think he knew the bodies were buried in the basement, for I don’t remember ever telling him.”
Marie asked the police not to allow the bodies of her mother and sister to be removed from the house.

Mrs. Ernestine Kommichau was 79 years old and Selma was 50 years old.

The bodies were so disintegrated that identification was difficult. From the neck of each was suspended a crucifix. At the feet of each was a porcelain urn of the kind sometimes used to hold holy oil. The graves were decorated with two small cedar trees, a wire cross and a mussel shell. Under the corpses was a layer of quick lime. Dallas [TX] Morning News 23 April 1913: p. 2

In 1945 the mummified body of a woman, found in her daughter’s bedroom, caused a sensation in Washington D.C. when it emerged that mummy dearest had died in 1912 and had exacted a strange death-bed promise.

UNDERTAKER SPREADS SOME LIGHT ON MUMMIFIED BODY FOUND IN CAPITAL

Pittsburgh, April 23. Edgar E. Eaton of Wilkinsburg, Pa., veteran undertaker, cast some light on the grisly story of Mrs. Mary E. Woodward, whose mummified body was found in Washington, D.C., this week, more than 32 years after her death. The perfectly-preserved body was found in an ancient casket in her daughter’s bedroom by investigators. The daughter, also named Mary E. Woodward, died two days ago at the age of 79.

Eaton said the eerie situation began in March,, 1912 when Mrs. Woodward died in St. Louis

“There may have been some trouble over burying the mother in St. Louis, but I don’t know,” Eaton said.

“The first I recall is that her body was brought here on March 30, 1912—17 days after her death. We re-embalmed it April 15.

“Miss Woodward asked us to keep the body here and took rooms in Wilkinsburg. We fixed a room, and every day she would come and sit there.”

Eaton said Miss Woodward always brought along a large cat and believe it to be the mummified cat which the investigators also found.

“We were told that she had promised her mother on her deathbed never to be parted from her in this life.

“The body stayed here until the Board of Health told her it would have to be buried, although it was perfectly preserved. We shipped it to Washington on Aug. 23, 1912,” Eaton related.

Eaton said he heard nothing more of Miss Woodward until a Philadelphia embalmer told him of a strange case of a daughter who had kept her mother’s body and brought it to him.

The Charleroi [PA] Mail 23 April 1945: p. 2

It is often found that, in many of these stories, the beloved corpse is either abandoned or kept in less-than-hygienic or respectful conditions. In a notorious recent case in San Francisco, a hoarder daughter kept her mother’s corpse for five years in a house seething with vermin. This father kept his child’s coffin under the porch:

KEPT A CORPSE IN THE HOUSE

Dead Child of a California Man Unburied for Five Years.

Los Angeles, Ca., July 2. For five years past “Whistling” Davis, of Long Beach, has kept the corpse of his dead child in a little coffin in house at a locality known as the Willows. The neighbors have at intervals remonstrated and threatened without avail. He has stubbornly refused to bury the body or permit any one to have it interred. Lately the neighbors became excited about the affair, the coroner was notified, and is about to commence an investigation, it being held that there is a law making it illegal for a person to thus retain the body of a deceased human being. Officers went to the beach to arrest the man. On going to his house they found the little casket containing the body under the porch. They took it in charge, and upon opening found in it the little dried skeleton. An inquest will be held tomorrow. Daily Inter Ocean [Chicago, IL] 3 July 1895: p. 2

In a similar story, from 1904 Kentucky, a child’s corpse was abandoned at the local undertaker’s establishment for eleven years. The infant was at long last buried when it was found that the parents—a local doctor and his wife—had disappeared.

Ruminating over the psychology of corpse-collecting, I have to wonder if there is an as-yet-undefined psychological condition to explain it. It is well-known that hoarding is often triggered by a loss or bereavement. Is there a form of hoarding, that involves a corpse, rather than used tin-foil and cottage-cheese containers?

Alternate theories? chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com

A chapter titled “Bone of My Bone: Collecting Corpses, Relics, and Remains” in The Victorian Book of the Dead tells of other mourners who just could not let go. The book also tells of a gentleman who lived in his wife’s tomb so he could gaze adoringly at her body in her glass-topped casket.

For other corpse collectors see Mr Moon and His Mummified Molly, The Casket in the Parlor, The Seven Babies in No. 77, and A Man Buries Himself Alive.

Chris Woodyard is the author of A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death, 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.

A is For Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death

I’m delighted to announce the publication of my latest book A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death. The book is available at Amazon in the USA, the UK, Canada, and Australia, but I’m told that it can be ordered by your favorite bookstore or library from book distributor Ingrams. (Please ask your library or bookstore to order it!) I’m told that Ingrams distributes to Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Target, Chapters/Indigo, Blackwell, Foyles, and a host of other stores, so those retailers either have it for sale on their website or it is in their database so you can order it. If you’d like a signed copy, please contact me with a message on this page or at my Victorian Book of the Dead FB page.

A is for Arsenic is a guide to the basics of Victorian mourning. The book is 208 pages packed with the basics of Victorian mourning and death, with brilliantly gothic illustrations by Landis Blair. Each entry includes a pen and ink illustration along with 19th-century anecdotes ranging from macabre stories to jokes from the Victorian press that explain the concepts and artifacts of Victorian death. (Plus sinister little poems in homage to Edward Gorey.)

I answer your dead-serious questions including: Why did body snatchers strip a body before carrying it away? How long do you mourn for someone who has left you money in their will? What was a coffin torpedo? What is inheritance powder? Who killed off keening? What is dead water? A is for Arsenic also debunks several Victorian mourning myths.

There are 26 alphabetical entries—from Arsenic to Zinc, (see below) along with an informative glossary, appendix, and detailed bibliography. Here are the topics: A – Arsenic; B – Bier; C – Crape; D – Death Token; E – Embalming; F – Fisk Burial Case; G – Gates Ajar; H – Hearse; I – Ice Box; J – Jet; K – Keen; L – Lychgate; M – Mute; N – Necropolis; O – Obelisk; P – Post Mortem; Q – Queen Victoria; R – Resurrection Men; S – Shroud; T – Tear Bottle; U – Undertaker; V – Veil; X – Sexton; W – Weepers; Y – Churchyard; Z – Zinc

Appendix: Mourning Etiquette

Glossary

Bibliography

208 pages

Size: 9 x 6” trade paperback

ISBN: 978-0-9881925-4-6

Retail Price: $18.95

Kestrel Publications, 1811 Stonewood Dr., Dayton, OH 45432-4002, 937 426-5110. E-mail: invisiblei@aol.com

Chris Woodyard is the author of A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death, 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.

Shrouded Spectres: Burial Shroud Superstitions and Ghosts

1775 Thomas Rowlandson drawing of graverobbers–including Death–pulling a shrouded corpse out of the grave. [Wellcome Library]

Previously I reported on the manufacture of shrouds and burial robes. Today we’ll look at some representative stories of the superstitions and ghosts associated with burial shrouds.

A good shroud was of the utmost importance for a “decent” burial. One benevolent English gentleman, seeing a young Irishwoman sewing what looked like a bridal gown, commented on the “finery.”  The young woman rather tartly set him straight: she was sewing her own shroud and whatever happened to her, at least she’d be properly dressed for burial.

Seeing the apparition of some relative or acquaintance in a shroud almost certainly meant doom for the shrouded person.

I will relate a double dream that occurred to two ladies, a mother and daughter, the latter of whom related it to me. They were sleeping in the same bed at Cheltenham, when the mother, Mrs. C , dreamt that her brother-in-law, then in Ireland, had sent for her; that she entered his room, and saw him in bed, apparently dying. He requested her to kiss him, but owing to his livid appearance, she shrank from doing so, and awoke with the horror of the scene upon her. The daughter awoke at the same moment, saying, “Oh, I have had such a frightful dream!” “Oh, so have I!” returned the mother; “I have been dreaming of my brother-in-law!” “My dream was about him, too,” replied Miss C . ” I thought I was sitting in the drawing room, and that he came in wearing a shroud, trimmed with black ribbons, and approaching me he said, ‘My dear niece, your mother has refused to kiss me, but I am sure you will not be so unkind.”‘

As these ladies were not in the habit of regular correspondence with their relative, they knew that the earliest intelligence likely to reach them, if he were actually dead, would be by means of the Irish papers; and they waited anxiously for the following Wednesday, which was the day these journals were received in Cheltenham. When that morning arrived, Miss C hastened at an early hour to the reading room, and there she learnt what the dreams had led them to expect: their friend was dead; and they afterwards ascertained that his decease had taken place on that night. They moreover observed, that neither one nor the other of them had been speaking or thinking of this gentleman for some time previously to the occurrence of the dreams; nor had they any reason whatever for uneasiness with regard to him. It is a remarkable peculiarity in this case, that the dream of the daughter appears to be a continuation of that of the mother. In the one he is seen alive, in the other the shroud and black ribbons seem to indicate that he is dead, and he complains of the refusal to give him a farewell kiss.

One is almost inevitably led here to the conclusion that the thoughts and wishes of the dying man were influencing the sleepers, or that the released spirit was hovering near them. Spirits Before Our Eyes, William Henry Harrison, 1879: p. 129

Pins and knots were forbidden on burial clothing or shrouds, according to Irish tradition. If they were inadvertently used, the ghost would come back to haunt the careless person until matters were remedied.

A STRANGE PROCEEDING

A Grave Exhumed in a Catholic Cemetery and the Shroud Carefully Unpinned.

Ansonia, Conn., Feb. 18. Yesterday morning four women, respectable in appearance and advanced in years, entered the side gate of the Roman Catholic cemetery, proceeded along one of the avenues and halted at a new made grave. Presently two men made their appearance and with shovels opened the grave. The women stood with bated breath, tears running down their faces. Presently the box which enclosed the casket and remains of a young girl was reached. One of the women gave a low scream. The strong arms of the men raised the box and placed it above ground. The lid was taken off the box and the casket opened. The features of a young, handsome, and beloved daughter of one of the women was exposed to view. The men looked on as if in wonder at what followed. None but the women understood it. Busy fingers went through the dead girl’s hair and shroud and all the pins that could be found were removed. The string which has placed around the feet after death was removed. A needle and thread were brought into use to supply the place of the pins in the hair and shroud. The lid was then placed on the casket and the remains lowered into the grave, which was filled once more.

This strange proceeding gave rise to many inquiries. Only a few could answer them.

It was learned that there is a strong superstition among the Irish people that if a corpse is buried tied or with pins or with even a knot at the end of a thread that sews the shroud the soul will be confined to the grave for all eternity, and that the persons guilty of the blunder will be disturbed by the restrained spirits while on earth. Thus it was, according to the testimony of the one of the women, who said she had been bothered for two nights previous by the ghost of the girl, now all were happy. This is not the first time that an incident of the kind has occurred in the same cemetery. New Haven [CT] Register 18 February 1886: p. 1

The drowned young woman in this next story returned to complain to her parents that the undertaker had buried her on the cheap, with a filthy piece of flannel instead of a proper shroud.

A RECENT REMARKABLE CIRCUMSTANCE,

WHICH OCCURRED IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT.

In the month of September, last year, the body of a young woman, dressed in black silk, with a watch, a ring, and a small sum of money, was found floating near Spithead, by a lieutenant of the impress, and conveyed to Ryde in the Isle of Wight. As no person owned it, a parish officer, who was also an undertaker, took upon himself to inter it, for the property that was attached to it, which was accordingly performed.

One evening, about a fortnight after the event, a poor man and woman were seen to come into the village, and on application to the undertaker for a view of the property which belonged to the unfortunate drowned person, they declared it to have been their daughter, who was overset in a boat as she was going to Spithead to see her husband. They also wished to pay whatever expence the undertaker had been at, and to receive the trinkets, &c. which had so lately been the property of one so dear to them; but this the undertaker would by no means consent to. They repaired, therefore, to the churchyard, where the woman, having prostrated herself on the grave of the deceased, continued some time in silent meditation or prayer; then crying, Pillilew! after the manner of the Irish at funerals*, she sorrowfully departed with her husband. The curiosity of the inhabitants of Ryde, excited by the first appearance and behaviour of this couple, was changed into wonder, when returning, in less than three weeks, they accused the undertaker of having buried their daughter without a shroud! Saying she had appeared in a dream, complaining of the mercenary and sacrilegious undertaker, and lamenting the indignity, which would not let her spirit rest!

The undertaker stoutly denied the charge. But the woman having secretly purchased a shroud (trying it on herself), at Upper Ryde, was watched by the seller, and followed about twelve o’clock at night into the church-yard. After lying a short time on the grave, she began to remove the mould with her hands, and, incredible as it may seem, by two o’clock had uncovered the coffin, which with much difficulty, and the assistance of her husband, was lifted out of the grave.

On opening it, the stench was almost intolerable, and stopped the operation for some time; but, after taking a pinch of snuff) she gently, raised the head of the deceased, taking from the back of it, and the bottom of the coffin, not a shroud, but a dirty piece of flannel, with part of the hair sticking to it, and which the writer of this account saw lying on the hedge so lately as last month. Clothing the body with the shroud, every thing was carefully replaced; and, on a second application, the undertaker, overwhelmed with shame, restored the property. The woman (whose fingers were actually worn to the bone with the operation) retired with her husband, and has never been heard of since.  T.P. London Free Mason Magazine 1 June 1796: p. 406

*Keening was a well-known feature of Irish mourning—but can anyone tell me what “Pillilew!” means? The only meanings I can find are “quarrel” or “bother!”

Too much ostentation was as bad as too little for the Baltimore “old maid,” who haunted her old boarding house when she was not buried in the shroud she had wanted.

A Baltimore Ghost

An Old Maid’s Ghost has been sitting on a bridal bed in West Baltimore, and worrying all the lodgers in a boarding house. The old lady’s spirit was exercised over the grave-clothes. A short time before her death, she asked the lady with whom she was boarding not to bury her in any costly dress, but in a plain shroud, and threatened to haunt the house if her direction as not heeded. Her friends thought that it was only an old maid’s notion, and when she died buried her in an elegant silk and adorned the casket with beautiful flowers. About two weeks ago, a bridal couple engaged board at the house. Enter the ghost. The young wife awakened her husband, one night, with a startled exclamation. There was somebody in the room, she said; somebody was sitting on the bed. He heard a noise. Somebody was moving softly across the room, he said; somebody had been sitting on the bed. Whereupon he struck a light; the shade was not in sight. The next night a  gentleman in the next room was visited by the ghost, during the next fortnight, she paid visits to every sleeping-room in the house. All the boarders have left the house, and the landlady is talking of having the body exhumed, the silk dress taken off, and the plain shroud put on. It is just as well to let an old maid have her own way in matters of dress. St Alban’s [VT] Daily Messenger 12 October 1876: p. 2

More stories of shrouds and spirits The Victorian Book of the Dead, which can be purchased at Amazon and other online retailers. (Or ask your local bookstore or library to order
it.) It is also available in a Kindle edition.

See this link for an introduction to this collection about the popular culture of Victorian
mourning, featuring primary-source materials about corpses, crypts, crape, and
much more.

Chris Woodyard is the author of A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death, 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.

The Will and the Ghost: 1876

Death and the Lawyer

STORY OF A WILL.

I recently asked an old lawyer’s opinion of ghosts. The result was as follows:

“Do I believe in spirits? Well, yes, when they are contained in bottles and come from a well-known firm. But ghosts! Why! Do you think I am a Spiritualist? Nonsense!”

“So you don’t believe in ghosts and spooks? You have never had any remarkable experience?”
“Hold on there! Now that you seem determined that I shall commit myself, and probably having heard that I have a ghost story to tell, I will satisfy you; but let me remark before commencing that the story I am about to tell is God’s truth and as such must be received. Scoff at it but once, and I shall stop in the middle of my story.

“Yes, I do believe in ghosts, or, at least, in some strange natural phenomena that the world has called ghostly for the last eighteen hundred years or more. Now, listen:

“It was in the latter part of 1876 that I undertook a case for a young woman. It was for a divorce.

“She was the daughter of my aged client, Dr. Baxter, a man who could have raised $500,000 in hard cash inside of twenty-four hours.

“The case was somewhat remarkable. Annie Baxter had married a stockbroker, named Thomas Thorne, against her father’s wishes.

“Her husband, she soon discovered, had married her chiefly for what he could get out of her father, who, he hoped, would soon get over his displeasure and forgive his daughter’s disobedience; but the old doctor was stubborn and did not relent. He refused to see Annie and forbade the mention of her name by any of his household.

“Thorne, on finding that he could not get hold of any of the doctor’s money, soon tired of Annie; and Annie, who had been a spoiled and petted child, brought up in the lap of luxury, became miserable and in want. But she stood her sorrows with heroism, and not a complaint escaped her till Thorne began to drink and gamble, at times not returning for weeks to his home, and then under the influence of liquor.

“She was obliged to earn her own living, and when her child was born she had to go to one of our large free hospitals for care and attention. It is doubtful if her father would have let her go had he known her condition, for he still loved his daughter; but she did not let him know, and one day while making his rounds in the maternity ward of the B. Hospital, to which he was a physician, his attention was called to a woman who had fainted. He went to her bedside. It was Annie, his daughter, who, not expecting to see him, had been greatly shocked. She did not know of his connection with the hospital.

“The doctor’s kind heart was softened at once. He was greatly moved. He had her carried in an ambulance to her old home under his roof. He had forgiven her.

“Just about this time Thorne was arrested in a bad house, where he was raising a row, and sent to prison for six weeks. Annie then placed her petition for divorce in my hands, and my connection with the case commenced.

“The divorce was obtained with ease, as Thorne made no answer to the complaint and the case was perfectly clear in our favor.

“Now begins the ghostly part. Dr. Baxter owned a small yacht, in which he was accustomed to make short excursions about New York Bay and Long Island Sound. On the last excursion of any kind he ever made the yacht capsized in a squall, and the doctor was drowned, everyone else being rescued alive.

“After the funeral the doctor’s will was looked for. It was known that he had made a will at the time of Annie’s marriage, leaving all his property to his sister on the condition that Annie could have $600 a year from the estate during her life.

“After father and daughter became reconciled he told me he intended to make a new will and leave his property chiefly to her, but the only will that could be found after his death was the former, and his sister, Mrs. J., refused to waive her rights under the will in the least. By my advice, Annie asked her to make her a proper compromise, but she refused to do anything more than stand by the will.

“Almost a year passed away, when one day I received a note from Annie asking me to call on her at the Gilsey House, where she was staying a few days, on business of the utmost importance. On going there she told me a strange story, so strange that I feared she had lost her mental balance, but I saw she was perfectly earnest about it.

“’A few nights ago,’ said she, ‘while I was sitting with my little boy by the fire in my room, at about 10 o’clock in the evening, there being no other light than that of the fire in the room, I heard a strange noise. Then the door opened—and closed. I looked around, much surprised at receiving such a late visitor, especially as he came without knocking. But my first surprise was lost in the terror and dismay that came over me as I saw enter and approach my chair—who do you think? My father! Or his ghost!

“’As I knew he had been dead over a year, you may imagine my feelings. He came direct towards me, casting his ulster overcoat off on a chair, as he used to do when he came home late.

“ ‘”Annie,” said he, putting his hand on my head and stroking my hair, “I have come to see you righted. You are suffering from a most unnatural fraud and crime. Your aunt stole my last will. As I had promised you, I made you my heir—and my only heir—and the will was drawn by my own hand, and executed three months before I died.

“’”Your aunt, in whom I firmly believed, was one of the witnesses. Dr. R., who went to China before my death, and is there still, was another. I am determined to see you have your rights, though I am no longer in the flesh, and be assured that I can see you through.

“’”The lost will is in your aunt’s bureau drawer in her bedroom, on the second floor of our old house. The ebony bureau. You will find the will under the paper on the bottom of the drawer. And this is the way for you to obtain it.

“’”Go to your lawyer and tell him what I have told you. Ask him to go with you to call on your aunt. As usual she will receive you kindly. She will be in the library. Go at about dusk on Wednesday evening, the 10^th, and while she is talking to you I will appear and carry out the rest of the plan.”

“’Then the doctor put on his coat again and kissed my baby and myself in the most affectionate manner—quite as though he were alive—and started to go, but before he had reached the door his form melted into air and shadow. He had disappeared.’

“On hearing this strange ghost story I sat still for a few moments and reflected; then I resolved to see it through.

“Accordingly, on Wednesday, at the time indicated I found myself sitting with Annie Thorne in her aunt’s library. Her aunt was very kind and genial, but did not offer to have the gas lighted—perhaps she thought we would stay longer. We talked about having the $600 annuity cashed; such we pretended was the object of our visit. At last the old lady said:

“’We may as well have a light; don’t you think so?’

“’No, I don’t!’ said a solemn and familiar voice, and a dusky form crossed the room and stood before the grate fire; remarkable to say, the firelight shone sheer through his legs. I felt my hair raise. I was greatly frightened.

“As to the old lady, she gave a wild shriek and sank back in her chair. ‘Della,’ said the ghost, for such it surely was, ‘stop your nonsense! Are you not ashamed to treat my child as you have done? Here you have disturbed my rest in my grave by your dishonesty.’

“By this time the ghost had walked out into the middle of the room, where he could be seen pretty well by the firelight. The form and face were perfect. It was Dr. Baxter, beyond doubt.

“’Woman,’ said he, continuing his speech, and now, pointing his long, bony finger at the old lady, ‘had you not gold enough without taking Annie’s birthright? Get up and come with us!’

“So saying, he motioned me to open the door, which I did. Then leading, he made us all follow him upstairs; or, rather, he drew us along by some strange, magnetic force until we reached the door of the chamber occupied by the old lady.

“Here he stopped and, addressing her, said:

“’Della, open that door!’  She obeyed at once. We all entered.

“’Now, get that lost will of mine out of your drawer at once and give it to the lawyer, Mr. C.’

“Strange to say, she went at once to her bureau drawer, and, after raising things about a little, brought out the will and handed it to me.

“’Now, Mr. C.’ said the ghost, ‘make out an affidavit that this will, having been mislaid, has just by chance been found.’

“I did so as best I could in the semi-darkness.

“’Della, sign that paper,’ said the ghost, ‘and to-morrow you will swear before a notary that it is true, or I will go there with you and make you do so later on. That is all for the present,’ said the ghost, and we all returned to the library.

“When we reached there the ghost was gone, no one knew where. The old lady was so much horrified that she fainted, and we left her in the care of her servants. We had recovered the lost will.

“To establish the validity of the will was not difficult, and Mrs. Thorne was soon in possession of her rights.

“Such is my story and I again affirm that it is true. The names are changed to avoid offense to the persons who figured in the story, which is the only change made.

Evansville [IN] Courier and Press 25 December 1889: p. 3

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Mrs Daffodil does so enjoy a happy ending. Where there is a will, there is a way.  And we are all grateful to the author for sharing this  salutary example of the fundamental errors made by an amateur for whom the kindliest adjective would be “bungling.”  The will should have been destroyed without delay; preferably burnt without a trace and the ashes beaten to pieces with the poker. If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. One really cannot fathom what Mrs J. was thinking to leave the will at the bottom of the drawer—and just beneath the lining paper where a child could have discovered it.  Most discreditable. Mrs J. should carefully reconsider her ambitions for a criminal career.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Killed by a Corpse

L0014659 Credit: Wellcome Library, London. images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Drawing by T. Rowlandson, 1775.

In my post on the occupational hazards of the bodysnatcher, I told of a Resurrectionist strangled by the corpse he was trying to get over a fence–an age-old story, sometimes told with animals substituted for a human corpse, but still, a cautionary tale of the biter bit. That story got me thinking about other examples of humans killed by corpses, a surprisingly underrepresented category in the annals of strange deaths.  Possibly if I expanded my search to stories of persons infected by diseased cadavers, whether weaponized and hurled over the walls of a besieged city, or tainting the scalpel that pricked the medical student, this collection would be larger. Instead I concentrate on what we might call the personal touch. Let’s start this unpleasant necrology with a few near-misses.

A MAN ALMOST KILLED BY A CORPSE

A gentleman recently visited the hospital in Downieville, California, to witness a post-mortem examination. He consented to assist the steward to bring the subject downstairs. He took the feet, and holding them one in each hand, started down the stairs, the steward following with the head end. The man stumbled and his hands came down. The legs of the dead man spread and shut again, clamping his neck, and he fell to the bottom of the stairs, fainting, bestridden by the corpse. It required all the restoratives to bring him to. Philadelphia [PA] Inquirer 2 January 1861: p. 5 

I don’t mind stretching a point to include coffins containing corpses, as they could also be lethal. See  this wonderful post from Strange Company  for a full complement of people crushed by corpse-filled coffins. I will just add one more.

Nearly Killed by a Corpse.

Carlisle, Pa. Dec. 18 While Alexander Ewing, an undertaker of this city, was lowering the body of Mrs. Margaretta Gibson McClure, daughter of Chief Justice Gibson, to the grave, the crossbar over the grave broke while the body was resting, throwing Mr. Ewing into the grave, the casket falling upon him and inflicting slight injuries. He was unconscious for an hour. Great excitement prevailed at the graveyard among the large body of mourners. The Newark [OH] Advocate 18 December 1893: p. 2

There are numerous reports of floors collapsing at wakes and funerals. The fall was usually blamed for the deaths of any victims, but in this case the fall guy was an already dead woman. 

An extraordinary occurrence at Corunna is reported by the Madrid correspondent of the “Telegraph.” In the upper story of a house in that town lay the dead body of an old woman. Suddenly the floor of the room collapsed, and the corpse fell on a group of men in the room below. One of the men died from the injuries caused by the falling corpse, and the others were severely hurt. A curious coincidence is that the man who was killed had gone to the house to present an outstanding account, not knowing that his debtor had died. Ellesmere Guardian 16 April 1913: p. 2

Of course simple shock at seeing a dead body might do in the observer. (See this post about being scared to death.) There seems to be something missing from this story. Mrs All versions of this story are as short as this, and as succinct.

Knoxville, Tenn., Dec. 22. A special to The Sentinel from Kingston, Tenn., says Mrs. Martha Jackson went to the home of a neighbor, where lay the dead body of Charles Hood, a youth. She gazed upon the body and fainted, and in a short time was pronounced dead. Montgomery [AL] Advertiser 23 December 1906: p. 5 

Jackson’s maiden name was Hood; what was her relation to the youth? Or was there something particularly gruesome about his body? And when the dead body proved not really dead, an ex-corpse could still trigger disaster:

RISES FROM COFFIN

Shock Causes Death of Aged Grandmother.

Butte, Cal., April. 28. While members of the family and relatives were grouped about the open coffin of Mrs. J.R. Burney’s three-year-old son yesterday, listening ot the funeral service, the body moved and presented the child, clad in its shroud, sat up and gazed about the room. His wondering eyes sought those of his grandmother, Mrs. L.P. Smith, 81 years old. The aged woman stared at the child, as if hypnotized. Then she sank into a chair, dead.

As she fell, the child dropped back into his coffin, from which it was quickly snatched by the frantic mother.

A physician, hastily summoned, said there was no hope for the boy and death came a few hours later.

Today there were two coffins in the Burney home. Double services were held and the child and its grandmother were buried side by side. Idaho Register [Idaho Falls, ID] 29 April 1913: p. 2

We have all seen those stories of hunting dogs who paw the trigger, shooting their masters, sometimes fatally. This tale is in a similar vein, but its wide syndication, foreign location, and unnamed victim suggest an urban legend.

Guardsman Killed by Corpse

Geneva, Friday. 4. Killed by a corpse was the fate of a gendarme in a forest near the village of Wildegg. Coming upon the body of a man who had committed suicide, the gendarme found that the right hand still tightly clasped a revolver. When he attempted to release the dead man’s finger from the trigger the weapon was discharged and the bullet pierced his chest. He died in a hospital a few hours later. Greensboro [NC] Record 4 September 1914: p. 1

This next tragic story has unfortunately been echoed by contemporary news stories of wives or children being trapped beneath a loved one’s dead body.

SMOTHERED SLEEPING BABE

Stricken With Apoplexy, Aged Woman Caused Niece’s Death.

Wilmington, Del., June 11. During the night Mrs. Rebecca G. Vandegrift, of Middletown, the step-mother of United States District Attorney Lewis C. Vandegrift, was stricken with apoplexy and fell across the bed where her little niece, Ruth Vandegrift Wood, was sleeping, smothering the child.

No one was in that portion of the house at the time and some time this afternoon the members of the family who went to look for Mrs. Vandegrift found that she was dead and the child had also died from suffocation, caused by her aunt falling upon her. Medical aid was summoned, but all in vain. 

Mrs. Vandegrift was 73 years old, while the child was but 4. Philadelphia [PA] Inquirer 12 June 1899: p. 3

Even more horrifying is this story of a true death grip:

KILLED BY A CORPSE.

The Death Grip of a Woman Strangles Her Mother.

Strange Affair that Occurred in a Western Hamlet

An Aged and Feeble Woman’s Terrible Fate

The Awful Discovery Made by Her Elderly Son.

Cincinnati, Dec. 10 One of the strangest affairs occurred last night at Elizabethtown, an insignificant hamlet on the Ohio river, ten miles below this city. The McDole family has lived for years in the most abject poverty. The mother is past 80. Besides her, the family consists of son and daughter, each about 60 years of age. The son [Charles] is a veteran, and greatly enfeebled by wounds received in the war and aggravated by insufficient and indifferent food.

Mother and daughter slept tighter, the mother being very feeble. The daughter was the most robust of the three. The family retired as usual, last night, and the son noticed nothing out of the ordinary, until early this morning, when groans from his mother’s room called him there to witness a blood curdling sight.

During the night the sister had been taken mortally ill. In her despair she had caught her aged mother in her arms and pinioned her tight against her breast. At the same time the mother’s head had been pulled down under the covers and partly bent downward, causing partial suffocation. The horror of the situation had caused her to faint, and while thus unconscious the daughter had died, hugging the mother.

The icy arms had stiffened and the aged victim was held as if in a vise. Help was summoned, but it required the united strength of two men to remove the dead woman’s arms and release the mother, who is so low from the shock and choking she received that it is scarcely probable she can recover. Pittsburgh [PA] Dispatch 11 December 1891: p. 1

As for the pinioned woman, I could find nothing more definitive than “she will live but a few hours.” However, the Cincinnati Post, in an article emphasizing the family’s eccentricity and filth, said that the victim was Mrs. Hetty McDole, age 81, and not the daughter, Martha McKinney, age 60. The coroner announced his intention to investigate the cause of death. [The Cincinnati [OH] Post 10 December 1891: p. 1] 

Can anyone verify whether it was mother or daughter who became the killer corpse? Or is the whole thing one of those imaginatively lurid tales so beloved of the nineteenth-century journalist?

chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com who realizes that that last sentence is probably the pot calling the kettle black.

Chris Woodyard is the author of A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death, 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.

A Few Uses for a Dead Tombstone

Recently there were two stories in the news about tombstones being reused in inappropriate ways: children’s grave markers used to “decorate” a country mansion and United States veterans’ headstones built into a patio. This is, of course, nothing new: the ruins of churches and monasteries, including tombs and headstones, have long been mined for useable stone to repair cottages or build walls. It was only in 2013 that a town in the Ukraine announced that it would stop using Jewish headstones as paving materials. 

In most countries—the U.S. being a notable exception—the dead have only a short-term lease on their final resting places. After a certain length of time: perhaps 5 to 20 years—it varies depending on where you are—the presumably skeletal remains will be exhumed and either burned or placed in an ossuary, making room for the next generation of corpses. (The poor very often went directly to the ossuary stage, as in this previous post about composting the dead in Naples.) And when the bodies are removed, the tombstones are removed as well. What is done with this perfectly good material?

This squib gives an example of the practicalities of Italian law regarding graves:

[Milan] City law requires that a certain number of the oldest tomb markers be carted away each year to make room for new graves. The discarded markers were gathered for years by the Capuchin friars and saved to build the church. St Petersburg [FL] Times 24 September 1953: p. 2

Street repair and pavements were by far the most common uses for dead tombstones.

TOMBSTONES

Sold By an Undertaker and Used For Street Paving.

[Philadelphia, North American.]

John A. Fitzpatrick, undertaker, of 2570 Frankford avenue, secured permits for, and has just completed the removal of 706 bodies from the old burial ground behind the Third Baptist Church, in Second street, above Catharine, to Arlington Cemetery. Lewis Good, Chief of the Bureau of Public Health, is a large stockholder in Arlington Cemetery.

The Baptist Cemetery was opened in 1800 and burials have been made there as late as 1893. Many of the bodies are those of persons who died of contagious diseases. When they were dug up it was found that most of the boxes had rotted away, leaving the remains exposed to view. A factory, in which about 50 men and girls are employed, faces the church yard. One of the girls said that the scene was ghastly in the extreme, and that the odor was nauseating.

A remarkable feature of this churchyard “flitting” is that the tombstones and headstones were sold to the Alcatraz Paving Company, and by the firm used in paving League street, between Front and Second streets. Mr. Gibb admitted that the contracting undertaker had received permission to do what he pleased with the stones, but he was apparently somewhat abashed when he learned of the use they had been put to.

Whole headstones bearing the cross or “Sacred to the memory of __ ___,” or “In memory of my beloved wife, __,” or “In fond remembrance of __ __,” were dumped into the street and broken into the proper size by the ruthless laborers, while the neighbors looked on in horror. At night the children collected samples of the stone, and there is scarcely a house in League street which does not contain a piece of some lettered tombstone.

Even in the church itself the stones have been used to material advantage. In one place a footstone which originally belonged to “J.M.,” is now doing duty for a doorstep, and at another door a footstone marked “At rest” answers the same purpose.The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 13 August 1900: p. 4

This distasteful desecration, no matter how technically legal it was, could be spun into a heart-rending piece for the papers.

A TOMBSTONE FOR FLAGGING

A Curious Relic on Park Row and Its Effect on Passers-by.

[New York Evening Sun.]

A piece of the flagging in the sidewalk on Park row, near Broadway, is broken. Some stone to repair it was left at the curb yesterday. One piece, which looked older than the others, was covered with sand. A workman brushed away the sand, and was astonished to find graven deep in the surface of the stone these words:

SARAH,

Daughter of

William and Caroline Kirkland,

Died March 8, 1837

Aged 3 years 2 months.

CHARLES PINCKNEY

Son of W. and C.M. Kirkland

Died December 8, 1840,

Aged 8 months.

The piece of flagging had once been a tombstone. The workman turned its face toward the sidewalk, chiselled off its rough edges, and there is lies to-day, a reminder of the busy throng passing by of the mutability of human affairs. No one seemed to know from whence it came or where now are the graves of the two children that it marked.

It was curious to watch the effect of a view of the stone upon persons who stopped to read its inscription. A sad-faced woman, dressed in mourning, paused to look at it. Tears came into her eyes as she thought of the little, carefully attended grave of her children in Greenwood, and her face seemed to mirror the thought. “What if my baby’s grave should be desecrated like that, and is headstone carried away for a flagging?”

A young mother leading a golden-haired boy glanced at the inscription, shuddered and hurried away as if pursued by the phantom of fear. A boy smoking a cigarette and wearing the bravado air born of the fearlessness of youth spelled out the words of the epitaph and then turned to another boy and asked, “I wonder, Jim, where de kids was planted?” The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 20 August 1887: p. 14

I have threatened my family with a dreadful post-mortem vengeance if they bury me in one of those detestable fields of grave-markers flattened, not for aesthetic simplicity, but for convenience in mowing. Apparently this has long been a problem.

TOMBSTONES CARRIED AWAY

Cemetery at Toledo, O., Said to Have Been Desecrated by Trustees in Charge.

Charles Barash and Adam Geokle are terribly wrought up over the discovery that the old Fort Meigs cemetery at Toledo, O., has been desecrated and the tombstones of their dead friends have been spirited away. The men say the stones were removed by the trustees in charge of the ground because they interfered with the cropping of the grass with a lawn mower. It is understood about 200 stones have been disturbed from time to time, and the matter was passed unnoticed until a few days ago, when relatives of the dead were informed of the condition of affairs.

An investigation was instituted and many of the stones were found around at the neighboring farmhouses, where they were doing duty as paving blocks. In one instance the foundation of a corn crib was found to be built out of the purest marble bearing the date of the death of a sleeper in the old cemetery.

When the men who had removed the stones learned an investigation was about to be made they brought the slabs back and deposited them in a heap on the burial place. Many ex-soldiers repose in the beautiful ex-cemetery, and the desecration has reached the ears of the local Grand Army men, and they propose visiting the cemetery and making a thorough inquiry into the matter. Daily Herald [Biloxi MS] 27 July 1900: p. 3

The local Perrysburg newspaper went on the offensive with a lengthy article about the charms of graveyards and old epitaphs. Then they testily addressed the question of the tombstone removals.

As to the removal of head stones the explanation is that many friends of the dead have removed the stones themselves to replace them with more substantial monuments, and have left the stones in the cemetery or disposed of them to the parties furnishing monuments or have taken them to their own homes to use as they saw fit. It is claimed that no stones with anything more than initial letters of parties names have been removed by trustees, and not even then except when monuments giving the facts have bene standing over the graves.

Those implicated declare that no one has ever done anything with the intention of showing any want of proper respect for the dead or for the feelings of those who have friends buried here, and no purpose injuring in any way any person in his or her rights in the matter. It is not claimed that no mistakes have been made. There have been mistakes, but when known a fair and honourable correction has been made as far as possible and use of any stones belonging to patrons of the cemetery has never been tolerated or practiced. The people of Perrysburg cherish great pride in their beautiful cemetery and it is the one sacred spot in all the town for all the people, and they will not tolerate anything like desecration of its precincts. They wish their good name to be protected and will do all that is possible to keep it worthy of regard and respect by everybody, and desire that anyone having a grievance, to report the same to the proper authorities for settlement and not to rush into print for mere sensation to the hindrance of a just and equitable satisfaction of all concerned.

The present trustees are giving careful and prolonged attention to all matters pertaining to complaints that have been made and hope that all will soon be entirely satisfactory. The Perrysburg [OH] Journal 20 July 1900: p. 1

One of the more ingenious uses for tombstones was that of an “imposing stone,” used in print shops. This was a stone set in a wooden frame, aptly called a “coffin,” and used as a table to set up type for page forms. It needed to be perfectly hard and flat to keep the type level and even. This editor seemed to have no scruples about purloining a tombstone to keep the presses running. In an amusing reversal of the custom, I’ve seen references to editors who asked that the office imposing stone be reused as their grave marker.

He Stole a Tombstone.

Pocatello Tribune.

There is an editor in Idaho who bears the enviable reputation of being a graveyard nocturnal visitor and who sails under the euphonious title of “Tombstone Brown.”

He is the proprietor of the Moscow Democrat and following is the story they (those who know him best) tell on him: “It seems that Mr. Brown was running a small weekly paper in Missouri, or some other seaport town, and the plank he was using for the imposing stone, warped so badly one night as to “pie” a couple of forms. [“Pie” refers to jumbled or broken type. Presumably the plank warped the form out of place.] This temporarily stopped the wheels of progress and Brown’s paper; but, nothing daunted, he started out in search of another board. On his way to the lumber yard he passed the village church yard, where reposed the ashes of a number of his friends and many of his enemies; a happy thought struck him. History tells us that he never fully recovered the effects of the blow. That night accompanied by an express wagon and a blind boy he entered the silent city of the dead, and appropriated the most highly artistically finished tombstone, which he placed in his office, a substitute for the pine board. He then went to work resuscitating the remains of the forms, merrily whistling, “I’m going home to ‘pie’ no more.” [Parodies a line from “I’m Going Home (to die no more),” a popular sacred song.] In a short time the paper was ready for press and the world moved once again.

It is further alleged that the man whose grave is now unmarked and forgotten was, when living, a bitter enemy of the editor, and a veteran of the late war. We will not vouch for this tale; but, if true, it shows the relentless enterprise of a western editor, and we predict that he will “get there Eli,” though his path be strewn with libel suits and delinquent subscribers, galore. The Caldwell [ID] Tribune 23 January 1892: p. 5

One of the proprietors of the Petersburg, Va., Index, in going over the office recently, discovered that a slab used as an imposing stone was the tombstone of a near relation, who had died about forty years ago. The engraved side of the stone was downward, and how it came into use in the office is unexplained. That was rough, but not so bad as the baker who stole a tombstone for the bottom of his oven, and the next morning found that every loaf of bread had “Sacred to the Memory” on the bottom of it. The Emporia [KS] News 17 October 1873: p. 2

Larcenous bakers got slated in this next, widely circulated joke. Of course, marble has long been recommended as the best surface for working pastry.

 A baker in New York stole a tombstone for the hearth of his oven. One of his customers, finding a death’s head on the bottom of his loaf of bread, ran in dismay to his deacon, fearing the end of the world was approaching. The latter was in equal trepidation, when, on examining his own loaf, he found the marrow-bones. In their alarm they had recourse to the parson, who could afford them no consolation, inasmuch as “Resurgam” was legibly set forth in bold relief upon his own loaf. Bruce Herald, 9 July 1875: p. 3

A festive use for second-hand tombstones is found in the following story. Curiously, in the view of those of us who enjoy horror novels and films, few of the desecrated stones wreaked psychic vengeance on their callous users. This is one of the rare cases where any connection is implied between reused tombstones and bad luck.

I’ve condensed the article, but it tells the story of a fellow named John Ryan who ran saloons and “variety halls” in 19^th-century Cincinnati, Ohio. When he went bankrupt, the brewery that had loaned him money confiscated his saloon fixtures.

GRAVESTONES

Made the Bar Counter

Over Which For Years Beer Was Served

For the Patrons of the “White House Varieties.”

Ill Luck Ever Followed Owner of This Grim Furniture

Strange Story Recalling the Checkered Old-Time Career and Tragic End of John Ryan

Among the effects taken by the Jackson Brewery some years ago were four marble grave stones each one six feet in length and three feet in width, the rounded ends sawed neatly off. The inscriptions were, by the time the brewery secured the stones, nearly illegible, and showed plainly that some effort had been made to erase them. There is an interesting and grewsome tale in connection with these headstones. Many residents of the city remember Johnny Ryan and the notorious White House Theater he operated for some years on the lower side of Fifth street, between John and Central avenue…

The bar counter at the White House Varieties was about 25 feet in length, of highly polished marble. Over this bar for some years hundreds of kegs of beer and barrels of the vilest liquor were sold to persons who undoubtedly, drunk as they were, would have hesitated before drinking had they known for what use the highly polished marble had originally been intended.

ON “NASTY” CORNER

In 1892 John Ryan blossomed out as a saloon keeper, on Vine street, just below Fifth, in one of the ramshackle frame shanties then occupying the present site of the Carew Building. A new order of things had come—the White House Varieties had been closed by the police. The new place was an attractive one for hoboes and others of like ilk, for an enormous schooner of beer was sold for five cents. John Ryan stood behind the bar as at the White House of yore, his hard face wreathed in smiles as he raked in the nickels. The counter was of marble, four slabs laid lengthwise, and so closely did these slabs fit to one another that a searching eye was required to discover the minute cracks at the points where they joined.

Ill-fortune, however, followed Ryan like a Nemesis. He was doing a good business at the Nasty Corner when he received orders to move. The unsightly buildings were to be torn down and a magnificent office building erected. He then removed to Pearl and Pike streets, opened a saloon on the northwest corner, and fell dead in the place early in the spring of 1893, three days after he had started his new venture. Mr. Ed Cogan was then employed by the Jackson Brewery as a collector. The brewery held a mortgage on the saloon fixtures in the place and Cogan and a bookkeeper named Adam Ritter were sent down to make an inventory of the effects. The only thing of any value Cogan was able to find was the polished marble counter top. Examining it, and finding that it was of sections, he exerted his strength and turned one of the slabs over. Gazing at it with staring eyes he ejaculated:

“My God! Adam, look at this!”

A STRANGE DISCOVERY

Mr. Ritter looked at the inverse side of the stone, and at the top saw a roughly carved weeping willow. Underneath were the words:

Sacred

To the

Memory of

JAMES ____

Died March 19, 18__

May He Rest in Peace.

The remaining head stones were hurriedly lifted from the bar top and placed in an upright position against the counter, and each one bore an inscription to the memory of some one, showing plainly that the bar top had been composed of marble headstones taken from some grave yard, but by whom and when and where the stones were obtained no one knew. For years these silent mementoes of the dead, rudely torn from the heads of graves, had graced the bar of the White House Varieties; ribald songs had floated through the air and drunken men had laid their aching heads upon the cool marble to ease the throbbing pain. The stones, Mr. Cogan stated yesterday, were sent up to the brewery with a wagon load of other fixtures, and are no doubt stored away and forgotten. The names on the tombstones were all of natives of Ireland or of Irish Americans. The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 25 March 1900: p. 12

Ryan changed his name and tried to open another saloon/variety hall to recoup his losses. In the course of this he sued another brewery for defrauding him of some money.

The case was continued until the next day, and Ryan went home to his saloon at the corner of Pearl and Pike streets. A short while after reaching home he gasped, clutched at his throat and fell dead in the barroom. The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 25 March 1900: p. 12

Scarcely satisfying. We’d like to have seen him crushed mysteriously under his own marble bar counter….

Oddly enough there are few stories about tombstones being reused to mark graves. Some thieves recut stolen grave markers, although it seems a hard way to make a living.

STOLE AND SOLD TOMBSTONES

A unique swindler is operating in Susquehanna and Wyoming Counties as the reputed agent of a large granite firm. He sold tombstones at Hallstead, Great Bend and Nicholson. Some days after several stones were missing from the cemeteries and it was found that the agent had taken the stones from graves, changed the lettering, polished the granite so that it looked like new and palmed the tombstones on inspecting victims. Warrants have been issued and officers are in pursuit of the swindler. The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 9 November 1901: p. 4

The majority of tomb robbers seemed to have a personal use in mind.

Stole Tombstone for Child’s Grave.

Macon, Ga., Feb. 2. A tombstone was stolen from a marble yard here last night.

The tombstone, an artistic production, surmounted by a lamb, was found to-day in a cemetery at the head of a grave where rests the body of Henry Sike’s only child, who died recently. So the police are looking for Sikes, a middle-aged white man. They have discovered that he hired a horse and wagon last night and the wagon wheel tracks are plainly traceable from the marble yard to the grave yard.

But the police have not found that Sikes had accomplices in the theft laid to him and they cannot understand how he accomplished it unless his parental grief and his yearning to mark his child’s grave lent him the strength of a dozen men. The Bamberg [SC] Herald 8 February 1912: p. 8

A Timaru man (says the Catholic Times) stole a tombstone, obliterated the inscription, and has erected it to himself in the local churchyard. As the man from whom he stole it has discovered the theft, it is probable that a corpse will soon be ready. Oamaru Mail 13 August 1889: p. 1

Boy Steals Stone For Mother’s Grave.

Jacksonville, Fla., Aug. 11 An 11-year-old orphan boy was lodged in the juvenile detention quarters Thursday because he stole a tombstone to mark the grave of his mother. “Mother didn’t have a tombstone over her grave,” the lad told officers, “and ever since she was buried I wanted to have one. I was trying to work and buy one.” Macon [GA] Telegraph 12 August 1932: p. 12

We have to admire this husband’s dedication to his late wife, but were there extradition treaties covering the transportation of stolen tombstones across state lines?

A Sorrowing Widower

A fellow living on the Indiana shore of the Ohio river, near Vevay, Indiana, having recently lost his wife, crossed in a boat to the Kentucky side, visited a grave yard there and stole a tombstone, which he placed over the remains of his lamented better half. Public Ledger [Philadelphia, PA] 19 June 1860: p. 1

The chaos of war lent itself to tombstone recycling. The Allied press framed this practical solution to a wartime engineering problem as a “Hun” desecration. One suspects the unsentimental allied troops would have used tombstones to shore up their trenches if they could get them.

A GERMAN TRENCH

Tombstones Used by the Hun to Make His Trenches

Star 3 August 1915: p. 1

Finally, we find tombstones reused for the benefit of the young. From the cradle to the grave….

ROCKERY OF TOMBSTONES

Old English Churchyard Turned Into Playground

Monuments Made Use Of.

London. The cry of the Londoner is always for more open spaces, more parks, more playgrounds for the children of the great city’s poorer members. Recently, in order to create a playground for the neighboring juveniles, old St. Pancrass churchyard was converted into a species of recreation ground.

The place formerly tenanted with the remains of deceased citizens of St. Pancras now rings with the merry laughter of their descendants.

It was decided to form an ornamental rockery with the superannuated monuments. The work has been very tastefully carried out and the eye of the stranger and sojourner dwells approvingly on this little rockery, composed of tombstones, once the pride of the local monument mason. Washington [DC] Bee 26 May 1906: p. 6

Frankly, the illustration suggests neither “ornamental” nor “playground,” but rather “attractive nuisance lawsuit.”

This next stone at least had some educational merit as a kind of grave primer.

UTILISING TOMBSTONES

Not long ago a cottager in a village in Kyle applied to the landlord for a new hearthstone. The landlord declined to give him one, but told him there were a lot of old tombstones piled up in the churchyard, and that he ought to go and take one.

A few days later he called on the cottager, and found that he had taken the hint and also the tombstone, but that he had put it down with the lettering uppermost.

“Why did you put it down that way?” he asked rather angrily.

“Oh!” was the reply, “it does fine to teach the bairns the alphabet.” Waimate Daily Advertiser, 18 August 1900: p. 1

Other uses for a dead tombstone? Chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com

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.