No-Body's...

Ohio Grave Robbers…

When I wrote a few days ago about British Grave Robbers, I did not mean to infer that the US did not also have their own share. However, instead of relatives and friends holding a vigil around the deceased’s grave, the Americans went to great lengths to prevent the bodies being stolen.

Ohio seems to have had a very active school of thieves who used to keep the students and teachers at the Ohio Medical College in Cincinnati fully supplied. No body – literally – was immune from stealing.

John Scott Harrison was the son of President William Henry Harrison and the father of President Benjamin Harrison. When he died he was buried in Congress Green Cemetery in North Bend, Ohio. Shortly after the funeral, relatives discovered that the grave had been ‘robbed’ and poor old John Scott was missing. The relatives and police went straight to the Medical College and recovered the body before it had been cut up. It was taken and interred in the Harrison Tomb with his parent’s remains.

Such grave robbing had a much more horrifying effect on the Americans. Whereas in Britain the stealing of corpses was frowned upon, it was however only a ‘misdemeanour’ and not a ‘felony’. The punishment was a fine or short prison sentence. However, the grave robbers were careful to leave any jewellery or clothing of the deceased in the coffin, as the stealing of such would be punishable by transportation or at worst, hanging.

In America it was a great deal more dangerous occupation. You see patents had been granted for several devices, which had been devised to prevent the theft of the body. One was known as the ‘coffin torpedo’. In this case if the coffin were disturbed, several lead balls would be shot at the thief with the intention of killing or maiming him. The next was even more lethal. An exploding shell was buried underground above the coffin so that if someone tried to move it, it would explode with the intent to kill or injure the thief.

The grave robbing became a thing of the past when Ohio’s State government allowed people to donate or sell family corpses to the medical schools. They also increased the penalties for grave robbing – provided the robber survived the ‘coffin torpedo’ or the ‘exploding shell’.

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