Epitaphs Magazine
Issue #9, June 2011 - continued

Contents
Main EM page
Body Snatching in Victorian America - by Sarah Emily Gath
Poem: "Cemeteries #1" - by Mark Flotow
Grave Decorations - by Alzi Clanton

Body Snatching in Victorian America Tweet
by Sarah Emily Gath

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in body snatching, in part because of modern mass media television shows aimed at entertaining history subjects. Understandably the theft of corpses from cemeteries received a great deal of attention in the Victorian era when scientists and medical students lacked enough legally-received bodies to fulfill their needs and resorted to paying for stolen ones. While much is known about the body shortages in medical schools during Victorian times, and to a lesser extent the lengths people went to protect their loved ones’ remains, not as much historical research has been done to-date dealing with the subject of how these body snatchers operated. There is a plethora of evidence that indicates that American body snatching in this period followed relatively consistent trends covering everything from which types of graves were targeted, to the involvement of government & cemetery officials, to the responses of the medical schools that purchased stolen bodies.

In Historical Sketches and Reminiscences of Madison County, Indiana John Forkner and Bryon Dyson recalled a body snatching case that took place in Madison County some twenty-one years earlier. As Forkner and Dyson explained, on January 14th 1876 the corpse of Abner Brothers was stolen from her grave in Whetstone Cemetery near Anderson. According to Forkner and Dyson “Mrs. Brothers was a very highly respected lady, good looking, and had a host of friends” who was not the corpse the body snatchers had set out to steal. The intended target was a pauper who had been interred by the township trustee in the same cemetery around the same time as Mrs. Brothers. Two young men on their way home from a party spotted the two body snatchers as they were moving the nude Mrs. Brothers, enlisted the help of a near by resident, and quickly sounded the alarm. Forkner and Dyson explained that an investigation headed by relatives of the deceased was triggered and discovered that the horses and buggy used in the crime were owned by Dr. Zimri Hockett; that it was known that they were used for body snatching from time to time; that a medical student fit the descriptions of one of the criminals; this medical student had a few days earlier stolen the corpse of an elderly black man named Joshua Moore from Epperly Graveyard near Anderson; and that the same medical student had met with the town trustee to seek the location of the latest pauper’s burial site while remarking that the school was dangerously short of the necessary corpses. The facts of the case show that the body snatchers were choosing graves of people who in life had been in the poor underclass, and probably would have avoided higher-class socialites such as Mrs. Brothers to avoid strong reactions from the community.

It can be deduced that no investigation would have occurred into the body snatching near Anderson if not for the fact that the criminals mistakenly stole the body of a socialite. For no remarkable investigation was triggered by the theft of Joshua Moore’s corpse, and no investigation was triggered when a medical student came into town to talk to the town trustee about body shortages at the school while inquiring the location of recently buried paupers. This should have sounded very suspicious at once. One has to wonder whether or not the town trustee was involved with the crime. Forkner and Dyson do point out that the trustee told the medical student that the pauper might have been buried in a cemetery south of the town. If the trustee knew the medical student’s intention he acted as an accomplice whether he was bribed or not. If he did not know the medical student’s intention, he could have contacted law enforcement upon hearing the medical student lament about his school’s severe body shortage since it was clear that the student was in town to steal corpses. However there is nothing to suggest the trustee was held accountable in any way for the theft of Mrs. Brothers.

There was a practical benefit from targeting lower-class graves for body snatching. In 1882 George Sala wrote, “From the negro portion of the cemetery in this fair city of Richmond scores and scores of cloured corpses have lately been filched.” In explaining why this was, Sala stated that the poor are “…easily removable from its plain pine-wood shell; and the remains are naturally in a better state of preservation, and fitter for the dissecting table…” Those with the money for more expensive burials had come to use sealed caskets which were much more difficult to steal from since the entire coffin would have to be removed from the earth in order to remove the body (and also accelerated the rate of decay).

Even the superintendents of Victorian cemeteries were known to be suspect to bribes. In an 1899 article in Granite, a traveling monument drummer explained how salesmen went about peddling headstones on the road. This salesman remarked that upon arriving at a town his first important task would be to make a list of the people in the area who would be in the market for a headstone. Cemetery superintendents would have this information, but since they sometimes had business relationships he could “…size up his man and by making his little contribution will almost invariably get what he wants.” The superintendents susceptible to bribes would not keep their word with local dealers they had existing understandings with. The question then becomes; If a cemetery superintendent is willing to go back on his word because of a bribe, would he also be willing to tell medical students about recent burials for an appropriately high bribe as well?

The most famous case where a cemetery superintendent had arrangements with body snatchers was at Lebanon Cemetery. In 1882 the superintendent of Lebanon Cemetery (A rural cemetery in Philadelphia) was arrested for getting kickbacks from body snatchers. According to the Medical Times and Gazette “He admitted that he was paid three dollars for every body taken from the cemetery… He had been in the office at the cemetery for eleven years, and the body-snatching had been going on for nine years.” The Lebanon Cemetery case quickly became a national sensation and was quickly featured in major newspapers like the New York Times. What is interesting about this story is that, like Anderson, the targeted graves were belonging to underclass families (Lebanon Cemetery was at this time a coloured cemetery). According to the New York Times the perpetrators were Frank McNamee, Dutch Pillet and Levi Chew, all of which were career resurrectionists who had built up a highly organized system under which they would steal fresh bodies from the cemetery (whose superintendent was Robert Chew) and deliver them to the school using a wagon while Frank McNamee used it to deliver mail under contract with the government. The police had to fight off a mob set on lynching the criminals because the reaction was so strong within the community. According to Thomas Keels the body snatching problems at Lebanon Cemetery were so severe that the entire cemetery was eventually closed by the city in 1899 and all the existing graves relocated to Eden Cemetery. Jefferson Medical College had to have known what was going on to some extent since according to the New York Times McNamee even had the keys to the school’s dissection room on him at the time when he was caught. The school was not held legally liable for the crimes, but one of the school’s doctors (Dr. W. S. Forbes) was charged for his role in the crimes, and then acquitted.

When doctors were implicated in cases of body snatching instead of medical students or career criminals, sometimes the schools would come to their aid and pay for their legal costs. In early 1890 three doctors from the Kentucky School of Medicine and two black men they had hired to help with the crime were caught stealing corpses from the New Albany Cemetery in Indiana. According to The American Lancet one of the doctors managed to escape before being identified, and one of the two black laborers was shot dead while the group was being arrested. The article explained, “As the work was done for the College, the College is announced as ready to pay all the expenses necessary to clear these men from the legal penalty of their deed” and “It is said that the same graveyard has frequently been subjected to similar depredations.” The doctors were not individuals trying to supplement their income by selling bodies to anyone who would buy them. Instead these doctors were acting as agents of the school in an illegal capacity, got caught in that capacity, and the school openly admitted it. It would not be surprising if a significant portion of the body snatchings in this cemetery were all part of an elaborate, organized criminal scheme being run by the school.

By the 1890s many states had begun to introduce anatomy laws, under which medical schools can freely obtain unclaimed corpses from morgues and hospitals if no friend or family member of the deceased steps forward during a set amount of time. This increased the supply of bodies to the point where it was no longer profitable enough for the trade to continue in some places. In 1898 the assistant superintendent of Graceland Cemetery in Chicago told a reporter “Body Snatching is a lost art so far as the large cemeteries are concerned.” However this wasn’t true for the west where the “art” of body snatching was flourishing at this time. Dr. Henry Roby wrote in 1896 that a “…Resurrectionists’ epidemic seems to have broken out in the west, as it has sometimes done farther east. Des Moines, Iowa, and Topeka Kansas, are having each a merry round with grave robbers.” The public was totally unaware of it until one day when someone noticed that a near by graveyard was disturbed and a search warrant found it in the medical school’s dissecting room. More bodies found at the school were identified as stolen and quickly the people formed an angry mob like the Lebanon Cemetery incident of 1882 in Philadelphia. Roby said this angry mob was so violent that the faculty of the Kansas Medical College went into hiding and “…the Governor of the State called out two companies of militia to protect the college and faculty.” Violence was averted and the school was not held liable, although some of the students were eventually charged. According to the Museum of the Kansas National Guard one student was convicted only to have his conviction overturned on appeal, and one laborer was convicted and later pardoned. In an interesting twist of fate one of the students at the college would later receive a commission as a military surgeon by the Governor and was court-martialed for grave thefts while training in Virginia during the Spanish-American War.

Body-snatching slowly died off as better anatomy laws, social attitudes towards medical research improved, and technological improvements swept through both the medical community and mortuary sciences. Illegal disinterment today is extremely rare, now being the product of psychological or sociological deficiencies. The threats facing graves today consists primarily of vandalism and neglect rather than greed.

Works Cited:
John L. Forkner and Bryon H. Dyson, Historical Sketches and Reminiscences of Madison County, Indiana (Anderson: 1897), 484.
John L. Forkner and Bryon H. Dyson, Historical Sketches and Reminiscences of Madison County, Indiana (Anderson: 1897), 485-486.
John L. Forkner and Bryon H. Dyson, Historical Sketches and Reminiscences of Madison County, Indiana (Anderson: 1897), 486.
George A. Sala, America Revisited (London: Vizetelly & Co, 1882), 241.
George A. Sala, America Revisited (London: Vizetelly & Co, 1882), 241.
“A Monument Salesman’s Story,” Granite, Vol. 9 No. 11 (Nov. 1, 1899), 12.
“Body-Snatching,” Medical Times and Gazette, Vol. 2 (Dec. 30 1882), 795.
“Robbing A Cemetery,” New York Times, Dec. 6, 1882.
Thomas H. Keels, Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing Company 2004), 84.
“Robbing A Cemetery,” New York Times, Dec. 6, 1882.
“Body Snatching and It’s Remedy,” The American Lancet, Vol. 14 (1890), 145.
“Body Snatching and It’s Remedy,” The American Lancet, Vol. 14 (1890), 145.
“Body Snatching,” Valentine Democrat, Jan. 6, 1898.
Dr. Henry W. Roby, “Editor Medical Current” Medical Current, Vol. 12, No. 3 (March 1896), 145.
Dr. Henry W. Roby, “Editor Medical Current” Medical Current, Vol. 12, No. 3 (March 1896), 146.
Museum of the Kansas National Guard, “The Cadaver Campaign,” accessed Dec. 13th 2010, http://www.kansasguardmuseum.org/cadaver.html.
Museum of the Kansas National Guard, “The Cadaver Campaign,” accessed Dec. 13th 2010, http://www.kansasguardmuseum.org/cadaver.html.

Poem: "Cemeteries #1" Tweet
by Mark Flotow

Compact towns across the landscape
Without through roads, infrastructure,
Only the sparest superstructure;

Open-gated communities
Where visitors are expected
Yet are never anticipated.

All welcomed during daylight hours,
Yet often the fox and horned owl
Seek there the serenity they crave.

Occasional fresh-cut flowers,
Miniature flags appear next
To shaped stones and solemn-shared green space.

Full names and scant demographics
Etched in mute granites and marbles,
Simple summations of complex lives

In a garden of index cards:
Filed, never out of order;
A deck expanding, never shrinking;

With no births or out-migration,
No town mayor, just citizens
Returning to the clay of Adam.

Grave Decorations Tweet
photos and article by Alzi Clanton

As taphophiles enter a cemetery, they become one with the world around them. They gaze at the stones, names, dates and the beauty of nature around us. This is not always the case for many living humans. Some find cemeteries cold, uncomfortable and quite frightening. The first time they “have” to enter a cemetery is usually upon the loss of a loved one. They stand around an open grave, hoping they don’t accidentally fall in, holding what appears to be a bunch of store bought flowers. You know that bunch of flowers that you grab by the check out stand. They have been told all of their lives that “you have to take flowers if you visit a cemetery.”

Next time you enter a cemetery, take a different look around. Notice what is left behind by the people who have come to visit. Some are the same people who were frightened the first time they had to come to a cemetery. Now that they come, on a regular basis, to visit their loved ones they look beyond the immediate. They might even get to know the neighbors. I am sure they have looked around to see what other people bring and leave.
Most cemeteries have established rules regarding decorations. However, the contrast in the rules is astonishing. Most rules were established to ease the mowing obstructions. Regarding more traditional decorations, artificial flowers are the only decorations allowed. Even then, they must be placed in a container that coincides with the grave marker. Other familiar artificial arrangements such as wreaths can be hung on the tombstone itself or on a wire easel.

In contrast to that rule, some cemeteries only allow natural foliage in the form of cut flowers, plants, bushes or even trees. Either way, florists have reached out to the booming business of creating arrangements and delivering them to the grave site. That way if you live on the other side of the world from Aunt Sally or Uncle Joe, you can still have an arrangement delivered to honor them.

Another floral decoration that is very popular is the grave blanket. Usually seen during the holiday season in December, the arrangement of greenery is placed on the full length of the grave.

Nowadays, decorations can be found that are both traditional and nontraditional. Becoming more and more popular are wind chimes, twirling ornaments, statues, toys and solar-powered lights. Even monuments can be ordered to have solar-powered lights placed in the monument decorations.

Speaking of wind chimes, some believe that if you connect with the spirits of the cemetery you are in, wind chimes can help you locate a grave. One day I was looking for my great grandparents' graves in a cemetery in Wellston, Oklahoma. My mother, husband and I each took a third of the cemetery to search. We could not locate the grave. All of a sudden, I heard wind chimes and started heading towards them. I was thinking, “They have got to be here somewhere.” Just as the wind chimes stopped, I stopped. I looked down, and I was standing on their grave. Upon telling my aunt this story, she said that the wind chimes represented great grandma banging her wash pans together. It worked!

People have traditional customs regarding decorations. The origin of placing a pebble on the tombstone is not completely clear. However, many have explained that the symbolic reason is to show that a visitor has been here. Fruit and other foods are left to symbolize nourishment for the deceased in the after life.
Many countries/cultures set aside days for grave decorating and maintenance. On the Gregorian calendar, April 5 is Ching Ming, a Chinese Festival, is the annual grave clearing and paying honor to the deceased. Also Double Ninth Festival, on the ninth day of the ninth month in the Chinese calendar, is for the same purpose. Memorial Day is always the last Monday in May. The day was originally called Decoration Day. Families honor those who have given their life for our country. Many families go to the cemetery to visit their loved ones, clean up the grave site and have a picnic. Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead is celebrated on November 1 and 2. This is in connection with the Catholic holy days of All Saints Day and All Souls’ Day, which falls on the same dates. These days are for the living to pray and honor all of the souls of the dearly departed. Sugar skulls, marigolds, favorite food and beverages are usually left on the graves.

The Bon festival is a Japanese Buddhist holiday to honor the departed spirits. This holiday occurs three days in August. In Korea, Chuseok is the major traditional holiday for going to where the spirits of one’s ancestors are enshrined and perform ancestral worship in the morning. After they visit the tombs to trim trees and clean.

The Nepali holiday of Gai Jatra is celebrated during the Nepalese month of Bhadra (which translates into August/September). It is the festival of cows and humor, and it is also a time to remember those who have died throughout the year.

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