A Grave Warning About Iron Coffins

September 13, 2018

https://thevictorianbookofthedead.wordpress.com/2018/09/13/a-grave-warning-about-iron-
coffins/

On 14 November 1848, Almond D. Fisk patented his “air-

tight coffin of cast or raised metal.” The patent contained
the further suggestion that “the air may be exhaused so
completely as entirely to prevent the decay of the
contained body…or…the coffin may be filled with any
gas or fluid having the property of preventing
putrefaction.”

Retailers of Fisk Burial Cases rhapsodized over their

ability to preserve the body and their aesthetic qualities:

The idea of preserving the features of the dead

unchanged—of staying the execution of the
sentence, “dust to dust,” is a beautiful one, and
had its origin in the gentlest affections of our
nature.

The hand that cherishes the flower above the low

bed of the dreamless, and bedews its leaves with
tears, would, if it could, preserve the form from mingling with the elements, that
the share of the ploughman might not rend it—that the winds of heaven might not
strew it.

We love to think that the Corinthian column sprung from the tribute of memory to
the dead—that the votive basket wreathed with Acanthus, and placed upon the
grave of some dear lost one, suggested to the sculptor, that most elegant of all the
orders that grace the temples of the world.

But the houses that shall “last till dooms day,” aside from the associated pall, and
knell and tear, and clod and silence, offend the eye from their want of all symmetry
and beauty. No matter of what material composed, how richly lined or how rarely
adorned, they are repulsive still. A sense of oppression comes over us, as we look
at them—those windowless apartments—those cold and gloomy boxes for the dead
to lie in.
Fisk’s Metallic Burial Cases are not liable to these objections. While they preserve
the forms we love, in something more like a pulseless slumber than a dread decay,
they have the appearance of rich and heavy folds of drapery, thrown over the form,
adapted to the shape, and realizing the line of “Thanatopsis.”

“Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”

Many a heart, whose kindred heart beat, but afar from home, will bless him who
has thus devised and disposed a mantle beneath which that heart may be borne by
ship and shore, to sleep amid the dust that once throbbed symphonious with its
own.

Specimens of these Burial Cases may be seen at W.T. Woodson and Co’s, 232
Lake Street. To those who admire beauty of proportion and elegance of design, so
far from there being anything chilling or repulsive, one of them might
appropriately enter into the imagery of a morning dream from which we grieve to
wake.

Chicago [IL] Daily Journal 29 May 1851

To my critical eye they look grotesquely like diving suits, but they obviously struck a throbbing,
symphonious chord with the bereaved.  Sometimes they even did what it says on the tin:  there
are reports of bodies shipped long distances arriving in excellent condition and the faces of the
dead, unearthed a century after burial and seen to be incorrupt through the coffins’ plate-glass
windows, testify to the Fisk’s effectiveness. Iron coffins were also advertised as a deterrent to
body-snatchers:

A Ypsilanti burial case company propose to beat the resurrectionists, by means of armor plated
coffins. Jackson [MI] Citizen 22 February 1876: p. 6 

Obviously a sealed iron coffin was more difficult to open and it was impossible to follow the
usual protocol of the resurrectionist of digging down to the head of the wooden coffin, breaking
it open, and dragging out the corpse by the neck. Their use as a kind of personal, rather than
parish, mort-safe was yet another of the advantages touted for the metallic burial case, but there
was a darker side to the cast-iron coffin.  Human decomposition did not always follow the
predictable, desired path, particularly when a dead loved one had to be shipped a long distance.
Air often needed to be pumped out of the Fisk or a corpse might need to be embalmed to ensure
a better outcome. Even so, I’ve seen reports from, for example, a man called in to paint the
blackened face of an iron-coffined corpse, so it would look presentable for a few hours through
the little window. Ideally the cast-iron coffin would protect the body from decay and grave
robbers. The reality might be rather different and horrifically inaccurate conclusions might be
drawn from that reality, as we will shortly see.
By way of introduction to the article issuing a grave warning about iron coffins, here is the back-
story of the burial alive in New Orleans mentioned in that article’s first paragraph. This
particular, heart-rending article had a huge circulation over several years and the way it spread
and changed, suggests an urban legend. True or not, it is a reflection of the horrified fascination
that premature burial held for the public.

I have just heard of one of the most horrible, heart-rending, and yet, perhaps, unavoidable affairs
which it has ever been my lot, as a newspaper correspondent, to record. It is nothing more nor
less than the frightful reality of being buried alive. A most estimable lady, named Mrs. Crane,
whose husband is a book-keeper in Flemming & Co.’s drug store, on Magazine Street, in this
city [New Orleans, LA], died very suddenly last July, of what was pronounced sun-stroke. She
was a school teacher in one of our most popular public schools, and resided, if I am not
mistaken, on Dryades Street. It was in the afternoon, after school was out, that she went to visit a
neighbor on Felicity Street and just as she entered her friend’s house, she fell insensible to the
floor and expired, to all appearance, in about two minutes, a doctor pronouncing it sun-stroke.
Her body was interred the next day, at ten o’clock, and her mother, an old lady about fifty years
of age, and her husband and one little son, went home almost broken-hearted and have since
been nearly distracted, being at times unable to sleep, and, in fact, leading a most miserable and
disconsolate life; and well they might, as the sequel will show, had they known what they had
done. Well, one night last week the mother, after passing a most distressing day, fell asleep late
at night and dreamed that her daughter had been buried alive. She jumped up in a frantic state
and rushed to her son-in-law’s chamber crying, “My daughter is buried alive! Oh, my daughter is
buried alive! What shall I do!” To sleep any more that night was out of the question; she still
crying that her daughter was buried alive, whenever her son-in-law would try to quiet her. At
length the proposition was made to have the body disinterred just to satisfy her. So, early the
next morning the grave was opened and the coffin raised. Oh, what a horrible sight met their
view. Pen is powerless to portray the scene which followed. The body, which had been placed in
a metallic coffin, was turned over, the glass covering the face was broken to atoms, the ends of
her fingers being beaten and battered all to pieces; her hair torn out in handfuls and her shroud
torn in many places—all presenting the appearance of one of the most desperate struggles to free
herself from her terrible misfortune.

If any of your readers could have seen the relatives of this unfortunate lady, when the condition
of what they supposed was the perpetually silent tomb had been brought to light, it would have
forced  a tear from the most stolid and adamantine heart. It was one of the most distressing
affairs ever recorded in this State and I sincerely hope it will be the last I am ever called upon to
record.

I have not seen this affair mentioned in any of our city papers, but as far as the truth of the matter
is concerned, I can vouch for it having occurred, as I have it from parties intimately connected
with the unfortunate family and whose veracity I cannot doubt. The husband and mother, it is
now said, are almost entirely bereft of their reason, and it is feared they will go permanently
deranged; and, indeed, they have sufficient reason.

This should be another warning to all who read this of the uncertainty of death until the body
begins to decay. It is generally conceded by physicians that as long as there is a possibility of
returning life the body will not show any signs of decomposition. Therefore, in warm weather,
when a body does not commence to decompose immediately it is a sure sign that the life has not
left it, and the body should not be buried. Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 3 December 1868: p. 2

The motif of the glass window being broken outward, as well as the distortion and damage to the
body appear in many stories of premature burial. Given the clearance in the form-fitting Fisk,
there does not seem room for a revived corpse to break out a window, which also was made of
quite thick glass. But is there a logical explanation?

IRON COFFINS

Their Effect Upon Dead Bodies

Correspondence of the Cincinnati Commercial

Washington, D.C., January 11. I read in the Intelligencer—it will be in the Chronicle next week
—a frightful statement of burying alive that is said to have occurred in New Orleans, and is now
going the rounds of the press, to the intense horror of all sensitive people.

The mother of the unfortunate, it is claimed, was informed of the horrible event, through a
dream, and insisted upon having the body disinterred, for investigation. On opening the grave the
horrible fact was manifested. The glass over the face was broken, the face was mutilated, and the
fingers wounded.

Now, it would be well to let this pass as a warning to the thoughtless who hurry dead bodies into
their graves, before positive assurance that life is extinct. But the case is so horrible that it is
better to know the truth. The corpse had been encased in an iron coffin—called casket—made
iron-tight. The consequent is that the gases generated by the decaying body produce the most
frightful disfiguration, and in some instances shiver the glass over the face.

I know all about this, for I had a case come under my immediate observation—the death of a
friend, in the country, caused by an accident, so sudden and unexpected that few of the friends
and relatives could be called to the funeral within the ordinary time incident to such occasions.
An iron coffin was procured, the body placed in it, and the lid sealed and screwed down in the
usual manner with a thick glass plate over the head. To those who watched the loved face
through tears, there soon appeared a singular change; the veins of the forehead began to swell,
and soon stood out like cords. Then the face began to swell and soon the eyes partly opened and
the lips fell apart, giving to the face a wrathful, horrifying expression that was painful to look
upon. These changes continued until the dead seemed to be striving to breathe and speak, and
strange noises were heard inside. Women shrieked and fainted, and at last a cloth was thrown
over the glass, and persons were forbid looking in. During the night of the second day (if I
remember correctly), an explosion occurred, accompanied by the sound of broken glass, and it
was found that the plate, over the face, was shivered, and the room filled with the most sickening
stench. The dead body was horrible to look at, and it required no active stretch of the imagination
to believe that life had returned and a struggle ensued.
I doubt whether one could return to life from the counterfeit condition that had been mistaken for
death, while sealed up in one of these iron cases. Such return must, of course, be slow, uncertain,
and feeble. How long the air of the coffin would continue pure enough to strengthen the lungs, so
as to start the circulation, I am not prepared to say, but I should think not long—certainly not a
sufficient length of time to enable the subject buried alive to make much of a struggle.

Memphis [TN] Daily Appeal 20 January

1869:  p. 1

One doesn’t know whether to be

reassured or appalled at the idea that
burial alive was unlikely if interred in a
cast-iron coffin. The author makes a
convincing case for the sealed case
producing all the dreadful signs of
premature burial. Similar stories that I’ve
collected contain many of the same
details as above; this was a far from
isolated incident. It was said that sextons
who noticed a swelling lead coffin would
tap it and burn off the gases.

Do you have a personal favorite exploding coffin/corpse story? Break the glass window to
relieve the pressure and notify Chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com

For more stories of coffins, both eccentric and exploding, see The Victorian Book of the Dead.

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.