Warding Off Grave Robbers

Fairfield

2nd Lieutenant
Joined
Dec 5, 2019
Today's BillionGraves newsletter contains an interesting article on grave robbing as well as the measures taken to prevent them.

Apparently there were two major reasons for this macabre practice: first, there was money to be made by selling cadavers to medical schools and second, there was gain from holding bodies for ransom (apparently there were several serious attempts made on the body of Abraham Lincoln).

As a result, families employed a variety of ways to deter robbers. IMO the most inventive was in 1878 when someone came up with a "torpedo coffin"--that is, a coffin that was booby-trapped with explosives.

The full piece is here: https://blog.billiongraves.com/grave-robbers-in-the-victorian-era/
 
Today's BillionGraves newsletter contains an interesting article on grave robbing as well as the measures taken to prevent them.

Apparently there were two major reasons for this macabre practice: first, there was money to be made by selling cadavers to medical schools and second, there was gain from holding bodies for ransom (apparently there were several serious attempts made on the body of Abraham Lincoln).
It's not strictly an occurrence from distant History. Within the past 50 years, Charlie Chaplain's body was dug up and held for ransom, which his widow declined to pay. Police eventually recovered the body (now buried under a layer of concrete) and arrested the "kidnappers."

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/grave-robbers-steal-charlie-chaplins-body
 
Today's BillionGraves newsletter contains an interesting article on grave robbing as well as the measures taken to prevent them.

Apparently there were two major reasons for this macabre practice: first, there was money to be made by selling cadavers to medical schools and second, there was gain from holding bodies for ransom (apparently there were several serious attempts made on the body of Abraham Lincoln).

As a result, families employed a variety of ways to deter robbers. IMO the most inventive was in 1878 when someone came up with a "torpedo coffin"--that is, a coffin that was booby-trapped with explosives.

The full piece is here: https://blog.billiongraves.com/grave-robbers-in-the-victorian-era/
All I can say is that grave robbers must have had no darn sense of smell at all! *gack* We had a large rodent die in the bathroom wall at my folks cabin. Could not get into the wall easily to extract..the odor was horrendous..like open the windows even if it is 35 degrees outside!
 
All I can say is that grave robbers must have had no darn sense of smell at all! *gack* We had a large rodent die in the bathroom wall at my folks cabin. Could not get into the wall easily to extract..the odor was horrendous..like open the windows even if it is 35 degrees outside!
I can sympathize. I had a rodent die in the wall when I lived in Florida. Ugh...horrendous is putting it mildly!
 
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