Merriam-Webster defines fear as “an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation of awareness of danger.”1 When fear becomes exaggerated, inexplicable and illogical it escalates to the level of phobia. While it isn’t uncommon for human beings to fear death, Victorians had a decidedly good reason for a heightened sense of dread in regards to life’s inevitable conclusion.
A September 20, 1963 article in LIFE magazine suggested this peculiar phobia was perhaps inspired by the nineteenth century master of creepy stories, Edgar Allan Poe.2 Indeed, stories like “The Premature Burial” or “The Fall of the House of Usher” were themed with heightened paranoia.
In a time before embalming became standard practice the fear of being buried alive (taphephobia) seems to have been palpable. Why else would there be a need for “safety coffins” or “grave signals”? Was it rational? If so, why? Victorians began to address this particular dread via invention, but the fear of being buried alive had been around for quite sometime.
Some of the earliest newspaper accounts were published before the mid-eighteenth century:
A Milkwoman’s Daughter at Endfield was lately buried alive there. When she was going to be interr’d, some People at the Funeral, thought she looked fresh, and taking a Lookingglass, and applying it to her Lips, they fancied they perceived a Dew on it as from Breath; but the cruel Mother mock’d and reviled them, and swore she should be buried, and so she was; but this coming to the Ears of a near relation, he got the Grave dug up, and the Coffin open’d, when she was found with her Knees drawn up, and the Nosegay in her hand bitten to pieces, struggling for Life. A Surgeon was sent for to bleed her, but it was then too late.3
John Frohock, Esq., Counsellor at Law, who died last Week at Ipswich in Suffolk, having always had a terrible Apprehension of being buried alive, has ordered by his Will, that the Lid of the Coffin in which he is to be put, shall be made with Hinges to open easily; and that four Persons be appointed continually to attend his Corpse, not only before ‘tis bury’d, but for eight Days after Interrment in his Vault; in which time, if he should happen to come to Life, he intends to rap against the Coffin Lid, and his Attendants are in such case to furnish their proper Assistance.4
The story of someone almost being buried alive appeared in a Maryland newspaper in 1754:
Dublin, August 31. We have an Account from Cork, that a Gentlewoman swooned away, and to all Appearance seemed to be quite dead, insomuch that she was washed and stretched; but some Time after a Sprig of Holly, which had been hung up in the Room directly over where she lay, happening to fall upon her Face, brought her to Life. It is said, her Husband pays great Adoration to this Holly Bush, as the sole Means of preventing his Wife from being buried alive.5
A series of examples subsequently appeared in newspapers, some suggesting more time should be allowed before officially pronouncing some completely dead. Via the South-Carolina Gazette in 1755:
If you are of Opinion, that this Letter can in any Shape benefit Mankind, you will be pleased to publish it in the Gazette. It is intended to prevent the too precipitate Interments of the Dead. The Intention is laudable, however unequal I may be for the Subject, which is of Important enough to claim universal Attention. Men may flatter themselves, that they never shall have the Plague, Small-Pox, or any other particular Disease, and thereforce regard with Indifference those Writings that treat of them; but none are ignorant, that Death is inevitable to all, none need to be taught that Life is desirable, or to have it proved, that being buried alive is the greatest Misfortune to which human Nature can be subject.6
The correspondent included some examples from history which he hoped would “be sufficient to put all Persons on their Guard.” Romans kept their dead seven days before incinerating them. Might one pause to wonder whether the mid-eighteenth century practice of burying the dead within 24 hours should be questioned with one historical example of someone revived after lying under water for 16 hours? One man had (allegedly) lived to be 77 after being under water for seven weeks at the age of 17!
In 1768 one woman desired her death to be unquestioned:
A Lady in Holborn [a London district] made her Will a few Days ago, in which she left 50l. to her Surgeon, on Condition that he cuts her Throat as soon as she has been dead 12 hours; the Fear of being buried alive has occasioned this Legacy.7
An Englishman in the early nineteenth century proposed a rather unique (and sensual) way to ensure he wasn’t buried alive:
Mr. Fransham, of Norwich, who died lately, was so apprehensive of being buried alive, that repeatedly and earnestly before his decease, he requested that his body should be laid before a fire, that wine should be offered to his lips, and the arms of a young woman clasped round his neck, before he was given up as irrecoverable.8
A helpful suggestion for undertakers?
Undertakers should never neglect to ascertain, by plunging a knife into part of a corpse, whether life is extinct. This practice would prevent the horrible fear of being buried alive.9
Numerous references of “buried alive” or “coffined alive” can be found in nineteenth century newspapers. During epidemics of diseases such as cholera or yellow fever these types of stories would appear, a reminder yet again that one of life’s greatest fears wasn’t death itself, but the fear of being buried alive. Newspapers began providing detailed accounts, some quite horrifying and sounding like fiction.
BURIED ALIVE – ALMOST, NOT QUITE. The New Orleans Picayune says – A scene strange as any founded on fiction occurred in this city on Sunday last. We will give it in the words of the gentleman who furnished us with the fact. His veracity and its truth may be relied on.
It appears that a young Spaniard was lying in the last stages of yellow fever, next door to the printing office of Mr. G., in Chartres street. The physician, Dr. B., was sent for, but before his arrival, the young man had ceased to live, according to the opinions of those in the house, so that when he arrived he found his patient covered with a white linen, and reported as dead.
That very evening they washed and cleansed the young man, and having put on his burial dress, they laid him on his bed until the morning. In the morning a coffin was got, and all the necessary preparations were made. He was then taken and put into his coffin, but no sooner was he dropped in it than he jumped up and asked where they were going to place him. They then conducted him in a carriage to a colored nurse woman’s house. He is yet very sick, but may perhaps live. It appears that he was in a state of lethargy.10
This incident apparently drove a man’s sister into a sort of catatonic state:
COFFINED ALIVE
Supposed Death of a Young Man of
Forest, Ohio – He Recovers and His
Sister Loses Her Reason
In January 1877 twenty-two year-old Charles Hueston “with a disease supposed be a congestion of the lungs” was pronounced dead after remaining unconscious for approximately two hours. Of course, his family was devastated as they hadn’t arrived in time to see him before his untimely death.
Charles’ body was laid out to begin preparations for burial. While the barber was shaving the corpse the razor slipped and brought forth “a jet of deep colored blood”. Some bystanders proposed that perhaps he wasn’t dead after all, “but little heed was paid to these speculations”.
Preparations continued as he was dressed and placed in the coffin, “but as a precautionary measure the lid was not screwed down.”
The coffin was placed on a passenger train, accompanied by his family. His sister, however, determined to remain with his coffin while her parents rode in the passenger coach. About an hour from their destination “a loud, unearthly shriek was heard, and in a second the young girl was prostrate upon the floor in a swoon.”
Several people rushed to the scene and were also “nearly paralyzed” by what they witnessed. “The supposed corpse of Charles Hueston was living, moving, breathing. The head was thrust above the coffin, and the face, with its deathly pallor, presented a weird and ghastly spectacle. The young man was evidently amazed at his surroundings, and the first returning gleams of consciousness found him in a position of bewilderment. Loving hands and kind hearts devoted themselves to the care of the man who had, as it were, so suddenly risen from the dead, and of the young girl who so suddenly had been brought to the very portals of the grave.”
Charles was expected to fully recover, but his sister had “not had one moment of consciousness since the wild shriek which she gave in the car at the dreadful spectacle which met her eyes. It is feared, indeed, that her reason is permanent dethroned.”11
The most disturbing stories, of course, were instances of a coffin being opened after someone either heard a noise (and ignored it) or a family member fearing their loved one had been mistakenly buried alive, only to find evidence of an escape attempt.
In 1877 a man who had gone to California for his health had died and was being shipped back East in a metallic coffin. In Ogden, Utah the corpse was signed over to the care of express messenger Frank Burgess. In western Nebraska Burgess heard sounds coming from the coffin, leading him to believe the dead man had come back to life.
Again the noise was heard, and the attention of the messenger was riveted to the coffin, and the horrible possibility that the dead might be alive thrust itself upon the messenger so forcibly that he called the attention of other employees to it, but, after listening a moment, they merely laughed at him. The convictions of the express messenger, however, were so strong that he had heard moans from the coffin that he had the case opened when the train made its next halt. The weather was very cold, and upon the inside of the glass plate of the coffin there had accumulated a thin film of frost, such as might have been deposited by the breath of a person confined in such narrow quarters. The face was also drawn up against the glass plate, and other disturbances indicated life. While Burgess had no doubt the man, though dead then, had been alive in the coffin, the other employees explained an accumulation of frost on the glasses the natural exhalations of the dead body, and the disturbances of the corpse as due to the movements in shipping.
Once the coffin arrived at its destination it was opened, revealing “unmistakable proofs of the terrible truth”. The now for-certain deceased man’s “hands were clinched, the lips bitten, and the mouth filled with bloody froth.”12
Stop by next week for Part 2. Necessity being the mother of invention, a number of innovative devices were conceived. One of the hallmarks of the 1800s – the “century of acceleration” – was an explosion of innovation, invention and medical advancements. Faced with challenges, Victorians sought ways to circumvent them, although some of their inventions were more than a bit ill-conceived. Such was the case with devices like safety coffins, life detectors and grave signals.
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Footnotes:
- Merriam-Wesbter Dictionary, accessed at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fear
on September 13, 2019. - Patricia Blake, “How the U.S. Funeral Has Grown”, LIFE, September 20, 1963, 107 (accessed at https://books.google.com/books/about/LIFE.html?id=T1IEAAAAMBAJ on September 13, 2019).
- The Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), February 24, 1729, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 4.
- Weekly Miscellany (London), April 28, 1733, accessed at www.newspaperarchive.com on
September 13, 2019, 3. - The Maryland Gazette (Annapolis), November 21, 1754, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 1.
- The Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), March 4, 1755, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 1.
- The Derby Mercury (Derby, Derbyshire, England), July 29, 1768, accessed at
www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 2. - The Leeds Mercury (Leeds, West Yorkshire, England), August 31, 1811, accessed at
www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 3. - New York Daily Herald, April 27, 1837, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 2.
- The Jeffersonian (Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania), October 20, 1841, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 2.
- The Beloit Gazette (Beloit, Kansas), January 11, 1877, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 2.
- Ashtabula Weekly Telegraph (Ashtabula, Ohio), February 23, 1877, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 14, 2019, 4.