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FREE TO BEADERS OF THU 
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VOL. II-WHOLE NO. 589. 
KEW YORK, MONDAY, JANUARY' J6, 1893-EIGHT PAGES. 
PRICE ONE CENT. 
GHOULS AT THEIR WORK! 
averse to giving the grave robbers a new 
customer. From him the reporter learned 
that the chief of the resurrectionists was a 
colored man named Marlowe, and that Mar- 
lowe lived in an old barracks out in the west 
part of town. 
Marlowe was found. His wagon and his 
grappling hook were seen. Several grave 
robbers working under him were also seen, 
fifteen years .if age. To equip their dissect- 
ing rooms the colleges have, therefore, 
bought annually 100 bodies stolen from the 
graves belonging to the lot owners in the 
cemeteries where the well-to-do and the 
wealthy bury their dead. 
thorities. Spasmodio efforts have been made 
now and then to suppress it, but they have 
not been made with a view to complete suc- 
cess. 
An officer in the Health Department is the 
Mobning Adverjiseb’s authority for the 
statement that there is not a public cemetery 
in the District that is not being robbed of its 
dead for the benefit of science, the professors 
and students of science, and that other class 
of scientists known in Washington as 
“ghouls.” There are fifty-two cemeteries in 
the District. Many of these are private or 
family burying grounds. They are carefully 
watched and the resurrectionists only attack 
them when the demand for dissecting ma- 
terial is imperative. Lately it has become 
imperative. 
The cemeteries upon which the Washing- 
ton resurrectionists prey are the Congres- 
sional, at E and Eighteenth jjstreets, S. E.; 
Glenwood, on Lincoln avenue; Mount Oli- 
vet, on Bladensburg Road; Good Hope, on 
Hamilton Road; National, Hare wood 
Itoafl; OalrHili, at the bc.e.<i - Thirtieth 
street, N. W.; Holyrood, on vrty-seconu 
street; Prospect Hill, on Lincoln avenue; St. 
Mary’s German Catholic; on Lincoln avenue; 
Harmonia, on Brentwood Raid; Graceland, 
Fifteenth and H streets, N. F.; the Baptist, 
Methodist and Presbyterian cemetries and 
Potter’s Field, Nine teeth street S. E. 
With the exception ot Potter’s Field all 
these cemeteries are more or less guarded 
against the visits of resurrectionists and other 
vandals. There is no pretense of a guard 
over Potter’s Field, although grave robbery 
there is as illegal as elsewhere. The other 
night the guards at the Harmonia Cemetery 
ness are over. Many men of former great- 
ness are to-day picked up in the gutters. 
They beg drinks and pennies where they 
once bestowed charity and hospitality with a 
lavish hand. To-morrow they may be in 
the almshouse, the day after to-morrow they 
may be in Potter’s Field, and on the third 
day they will most surely be on the dissect- 
ing table of a Washington medical college. 
Glenwood, one of the prettiest cemeteries 
in the dark looking for a grave that had 
been filled that day. Superintendent Zeller 
called his dogs, and when the resurrectionist 
saw what was coming he made quick tracks 
for the fence. He escaped. 
HABMONY A PBOLIFIC FIELD. 
Colored subjects are as desirable as white 
subjects, and the Columbian Harmony Cem- 
etery is a prolific field for the operations of 
the resurrectionists. This cemetery lies out 
on the Brentwood Road. There are twenty 
acres of ground in the cemetery, and since 
the dedication, in 1826, nearly fifteen thou- 
sand bodies have been buried there. 
Some of the prominent colored people 
buried in Harmony are the Rev. John F. 
Cook, Sr., pastor of the Fifteenth Street 
Presbyterian Church; Carter A. Stewart, 
Past Grand Master of the Most Worshipful 
Grand Lodge F. and A. M. for the Dis- 
trict of Columbia; James Wormley, pro- 
prietor of Wormley’s Hotel, Fifteenth and 
H streets, N. W., and William Syphax, Pub- 
lic School Trustee. 
On Dec. 12 last the three watchmen in 
Harmony Cemetery had a battle with fully 
half a dozen resurreewumoio. tu, 
were at work on a grave when surprised by 
the watchmen. They turned their flash 
lights upon the watchmen and fired their 
pistols. The watchmen returned the fire, 
and the ghouls retreated from the grave and 
escaped as they had come, through the woods 
leading from the Glenwood Road. One of 
the ghouls was wounded, but he was not 
Surprised with GRastly Booty in WasUngton Early This Morning; by 
Representatives of the “Mornii Advertiser” awl Evidence 
Furnished of a Monster Crime That Will Startle 
the Country from Maine to California. 
CHAPTEK III. 
A body snatcher’s outfit in Washington 
consists of a wagon, a spade, a crowbar and 
a grappling hook. The wagon used is nob 
unlike hundreds that are seen on the streets 
of Washington every week day, and its pres- 
BOM HITCHERS BUSY IN THE CAPITAL GITY. 
Historic Burial Places Desecrated by Ruffians Whose 
Audacity Has No Parallel Even in the Records of the 
Loathsome Calling Which They Have Adopted. 
DB. WILLIAM P. CABB, 
Drmonstrator of Anatomy. 
WILLIAM W. COBCOBAN. 
PBOSPECT HILL CEMETEBY. 
but it did not suit the reporter’s purpose to 
interview any of the resurrectionists at that 
time. 
Visiting the Health Office in quest of vital 
statistics, much information was gleaned 
from Statistician W. B. Moore. It was 
learned that at one time and another 
almost every cemetery in the District of 
in Washington, and covering ninety acres of 
ground at the head of Lincoln avenue,one and 
a quarter miles north of the Capitol, was 
dedicated in August, 1854. There are to-day 
supposed to be over twelve thousand bodies 
interred there. 
Among the dead believed to be reposing in 
Glenwood Cemetery are John F. Douglass, 
James M. Edmunds, Gertrude E. Garrison, 
Westley M. White, James E. Sprague, Esther 
Case Packard, Henry Clay Stevens, Mary A. 
D. Grant, Uriah G. Bowen, Edward C. Inger- 
soll, Louisa Chandler, of Michigan; Mary A. 
Logan, of Virgina; Louise Ann Grant and 
Lucy Elizabeth Hilton. But few public 
characters are buried in Glenwood. The 
lot owners are mostly old Washington fam- 
ilies. 
Superintendent Alexander McKerichar ad- 
mits to two grave robberies in Glenwood 
cemetery. These occurred during the same 
week, nearly four years ago. 
Mr. Jennie I. Teasdale, wife of the pastor 
of Queen’s Baptist Church, Washington, was 
buried Feb. 1, 1888, in Section D of the 
Cemetery. On the following day the hus- 
band visited the grave to water the flowers 
that had been laid in the soil. 
Among the flowers on top of the grave he 
noticed a white rose that he had himself 
placed on his wife’s breast as she lay in her 
coffin before the funeral. He at once ordered 
that the grave be reopened. When the coffin 
ence on any thoroughfare, even after mid* 
night, does not excite suspicion. 
The king ghoul of this city of desecrated 
graves has a small wagon, with a box just 
long enough to carry the body of a full- 
grown man without doubling it up. It has a 
cover of dingy white canvas, not unlike 
that which tops a gypsy’s caravan. The 
seat is some distance within the box of the 
wagon, so that the body snatchers have to sit 
over the head or feet of their dead passen- 
ger. Marlowe’s wagon is a one-horse affair. 
Even when he expects to secure two or three 
subjects of a night he does not take out more 
than one horse. 
Recently Marlowe lost a horse said to have 
been worth $150. He replaced it with one he 
drives now. It would be dear at $25. Dur- 
ing the day Marlowe puts this horse to use 
hauling refuse for the Street Cleaning De- 
partment. 
A spade is a spade and a crowbar is a crow- 
bar. Those handled by Marlowe and his 
fellow body snatchers for opening the grave 
and smashing the coffin differ in no way 
from the regulation spade and crowbar. 
But the resurrection hook is something 
unique. One of these hooks is in possession of 
FULL LIST OF THE MANY VIOLATED CEMETERIES. 
Potter’s Field Is the Main Source of Supply, but the Demahds 
of Science Are Urgent and the Student’s Scalpel 
Knows No Favorites. 
THREE COLLEGES SUPPLIED BY THE ROBBERS. 
Defiance of All Law, Almost Within, the Shadow of the Capitol Build- 
ing—Desultory and Partial Exposures in the Past, but ‘the Whole 
Horrible Truth Told for the First Time in the “Morning Adver- 
tiser” of This Issue—Graveyards Where Many Eminent Men from 
All Parts of the Country Have Been Laid to Rest During the Past 
Century—Revolting Tools of a Revolting Trade—How the Cautious 
Methods of the Ghouls Have Avoided Detection Up to the Presen| 
Time—Oblique Holes Dug So as to Leave Earth Directly Over Graves 
Undisturbed—Coffin Heads Knocked In and Cadavers Drawn Out 
with a Hook Fastened in the Neck or Eye-Socket. 
Vr •' / ' <■ -’V', . 
DAN CONNOR, 
Janitor of National Department Columbia 
University. 
taken. The grave they had been at work 
upon was that of a young colored girl buried 
that afternoon. It had been opened half 
way to the coffin. 
Early one morning two policemen who 
were chatting together on New York avenue, 
in Eckington, saw two colored men walking 
along the street, and over the back of one of 
the men was slung a bag. The colored men, 
on finding that they were detected, started 
on a run, the one carrying the bag dropping 
it. The policemen gave chase, but were 
ouU'- 'u Returning examined th;- bag. 
It contained the body of a colored woman, 
doubled up so that the feet and head were 
together. 
Investigation showed that the body had 
been stolen from Harmony Cemetery. The 
grave was in the northwest part of the 
cemetery, and not far from the one dese- 
crated Dec. 12. 
The authorities at Harmony Cemetery 
only know of desecrations where the ghouls 
were discovered at their work or after it had 
been accomplished. A general reopening 
of the graves in this cemetery would prob- 
ably reveal hundreds of empty coffins. 
OAK HILL CEMETEBY SECURE. 
When William W. Corcoran gave ten acres 
of ground to the Oak Hill Cemetery Com- 
pany in 1848 and became the Company’s 
first President, one of the iron-clad regula- 
tions made was that every grave should be 
bricked in and cemented on all sides and at 
the top. The great philanthropist did not 
mean that the resurrection scandal so fla- 
VIEW IN CONGRESSIONAL CEMETEBY. 
Washington;-'!?. C., Jan. 16, 2 A, M. 
- ■ Brortal to the Mobbing Advertises. 
vVhen a representative of the Mobning 
\ .vino *,a otwe to the National Capital 
two s'ceka ago commissioned to make in- 
qra.-y concerning the unlawful spoliation of 
graves in. Re interests of surgical science 
the task a; peared a most difficult one. 
Within forty-eight hours the difficulties 
began to clear away. On the fourth day 
sufficient evidence had been secured to 
startle even a community, where the viola- 
tion of sepulture is almost as common as 
house rdbbery tn New York. The details of 
how the evidence was secured, and how 
easily it was secured, are given herewith: 
During the Christmas holidays, the usual 
vacation was observed. On J an. 2, the dis- 
secting rooms of the three medical colleges 
in Washington were comparatively bare of 
material, and it became necessary to pro- 
vide a supply with as little delay as possible. 
This the investigator learned and on this he 
based his hopes for ocular evidence of what 
he already knew circumstantially. 
It was expected that on Sunday night, 
Jan. 8, the demand would be supplied, and a 
watch was put upon three cemeteries that 
were likely to be visited. Owing to the 
frozen condition of the ground, covered as 
it was with a mantle of snow, no despolia- 
tion took place, at least that is the belief. 
If it did the watchers failed to detect it. 
Between last Sunday and yesterday three 
colleges were under constant surveillance. 
No bodies were delivered to any one of the 
three. There must have been a great pau- 
city of material, for yesterday it was learned 
from employes in two of the three colleges 
that 'something was expected yesterday, not- 
withstanding the hard frost. “Harder,”in- 
deed, than that ot last Sunday. 
Acting thi c achcston t'uab the urgent 
demands of science, backed by a temporary 
pecan iary increase in the market price of 
* u’ /acta” would result in an attempt to 
give the colleges what they required, the 
watch was resumed. One man was sent at 
11 last night to a favorable point over- 
looking Congressional Cemetery, one man 
to Glenwood and one man to Potter’s Field. 
A watcher was placed where he could ob- 
serve any entry to the Columbian Univer- 
sity Medical College and another in a simi- 
lar position near the Georgetown College. 
These were the institutions that were greatly 
in need of subjects. 
It was bitterly cold, and the vigil was not 
only tedious but distressing. Hands and 
legs became numb, and before an hour had 
passed the inactivity threatened freezing. 
At the risk of discovery, feet were stamped 
and arms were threshed about. 
In the absolute quiet of the night the 
sounds seemed to echo and re-echo, and ap- 
peared in the neighborhood of Congressional 
Cemetery to reach the ears of what appeared 
to be hundreds of dogs. Their sharp barks 
and yelps were borne' on the frosty air until 
the chorus sounded, as it grew in volume, 
not unlike to snarl of a pack of hungry 
•wolves. 
At 12:30 A. M. the watchers at Potter’s 
Field saw a canvas-covered wagon box or. 
runners, occupied by three, and possibly 
four, men drive up to the gully alongside 
the paupers’ burial ground. 
Afc.rbr-qi 1 Ap,J% two n -m o’lt : >pc 
carried what looked like a pickax. He 
crawled through an opening in the fence. 
He was followed by another who carried 
an indistinguishable object. No lights were 
displayed. 
Whatever they secured will probably be 
delivered at the Washington Medical College 
before daylight. 
At this hour (2 A. M.) no report has been 
received from the college under surveil- 
lance, or from the other cemeteries. 
The story of what led up to the exposure 
is as follows: 
Columbia had been desecrated by resur- 
rectionists. He learned from Mr. Moore of 
the introduction of a bill in Congress giving 
medical colleges the right to dissect the 
pauper dead. From William P. Pollock, 
Clerk of the Comm Hr/'of the 7-h i. at , et 
Columbia, the probable fate of that bill was 
ascertained. 
Superintendent O’Neil, of the Congres- 
sional Cemetery; Superintendent McKeri- 
char, of Glenwood Cemetery; Superintend- 
ent Zeller, of Prospect Hill Cemetery, and 
Assistant Superintendent Wright, of Har- 
mony Cemetery, were pleased to give 
histories of their several cemeteries, and in 
a drifting talk told of their experiences with 
body snatchers. 
From one of these superintendents it was 
learned that a well-known practicing physi- 
fired at a coaple yf b< ly snatchers in 
the act of robbing a grave. Both ghouls es- 
caped, but one of thorn was hit with a bullet, 
for he left a trail of blood behind him, 
Resurrectionists have for s robbed the 
Sa.'i v ts-YM >? «i6.».» mo- 
lestation by the police. Potter’s Field is 
known by the qblleges, by the authorities 
and by the resmrrectioniSts as “Scientific 
Ground.” 
It3 location is a beautiful one. The Field 
itself is bleak and dreary, with i 3 unkept 
mound3, monum6ntless, and at this time of 
year overrun with withered veget.tion. It 
lies to the east and between the United 
States Jail and thepesthouse of tie District. 
It is on a knoll that overlooks the east branch 
of the Anacostia River, and the view is a 
picture. Even now, with the Anacostia a 
Slack banks, 
Janitor Georgetown Medical College. 
was reached the husband’s fears were real- 
ized. The head of the coffin had been 
crushed in, and instead of the dead wife the 
husband found within the casket a shapeless 
heap of burial clothes. 
The Rev. Mr. Teasdale was a rich man, 
Director in the Metropolitan Railroad, and a 
bank officer. The cemetery Trustees employed 
detectives to search the medical colleges. 
On a dissecting table in the National Medical 
Department of Columbian University the 
desecrated remains of this lady were found. 
Already the scalpel had been used. Beneath 
the chin of the corpse was the jagged wound 
made by the grappling hook. 
Possession was taken of the body and it 
was being driven back to the cemetery when 
a police officer interfered. He arrested 
Daniel Heinmann, the driver, for carrying a 
d«ad body through the streets without a per- 
mit. The driver was fined $25, which the 
cemetery authorities required the college 
people to pay. 
A few days later a grave in the 
single-lot section of the cemetery showed 
signs of having been tampered with. 
It was opened and found to be empty. 
Search discovered the stolen body in the 
same college. It was recovered and re- 
buried. This was the body of Francis Gres- 
wold Dake, fifty-eight years of age, and a 
prominent citizen of Washington, residing 
at No. 2110 Sixteenth street, N. W. Mr. 
Dake’s remains had been in the era™ a 
week when they wore stolen. 
DOGS GUABD PROSPECT HILL. 
Pros pect Hill Cemetery is within a stone’s 
throw of Glenwood. It is on Lincoln ave- 
nue and North Capitol street. It covers 
CHAPTEK I. 
It was necessary that the work should be 
carried on with rigid secrecy. Intelligence 
and not ignorance had to be coped with. 
Men of learning and science were involved 
as well as men of mere animal strength and 
cunning. The Morning Advebtiser man 
first gained the acquaintance of several 
medical students in Washington. To them 
he bore letters of introduction representing 
him as connected with a medical college at 
Richmond, Va. He attended leotures at the 
colleges with these students, visited the 
theaters with them, and spent hours with 
them in their rooms. 
In this way it was learned that all the four 
medical colleges in Washington secured their 
“subjects” from graveyard resurrectionists. 
From the students it was learned what they 
paid for subjects and what the resurrec- 
tionists received from the colleges. On 
Invitation of his student friends the reporter 
visited the college dissecting rooms. There 
the Police Department to-day. The hook 1ft 
made of iron, and is not over eight inches 
long. It is about an inch in diameter. At 
the upper end it is in the form of a ring, 
while the lower end comes to a sharp point. 
A rope long enough to reach from the top 
of the grave to the coffin is attached to the 
ring end of the hook. The hook is lowered 
into the coffin when the head of the subject 
is exposed, and by a dexterous jerk the point 
of the hook is fastened firmly in the neck 
just under the jaw. Then the body, by a 
steady movement, is hauled out of the coffin 
by the jaw. 
Probably in no other city in the world ar« 
the prominent cemeteries desecrated by 
body snatchers as frequently as in Washing, 
ton. 
The Congressional Cemetery was laid out 
in 1807 as the Washington Parish Burial 
Ground. A few years later Congress took 
control of the cemetery and removed thereto 
all the bodies of members of Congress in- 
terred in other cemeteries in the District. 
To-day the cemetery covers thirty-two acres, 
lying between Seventeenth and Twenty-sec- 
ond streets, E street and the Anacostia River. 
There have been 43,000 burials in this ceme- 
tery. 
Here are supposed to rest the remains of 
Vice-President George Clinton, Edwin M. 
Stanton, General Jacob Brown, the Revolu- 
tionary hero; Attorney-General William 
Wirt, Judge Philip Barbour, Senator Lemuel 
Bowdin, of Virginia; Vice-President El- 
bridge Gerry, Congressmen Richard Stan- 
ford, George Munford, David Walker, J. H, 
Purbin, Nathaniel Hazzard and Jesse Slo- 
cum, Commodore Hugh G. Campbell, of 
Revolutionary fame, and hundreds of other 
distinguished citizens of the United States. 
For two months the remains of President 
Taylor reposed in a vault in the Congres- 
sional Cemetery, prior to their removal to 
his native State. 
The last known resurrection in the Con- 
gressional Cemetery occurred three years 
resurrectionist's hook. 
DISSECTING BOOM, NATIONAL MEDICAL COT.LEOB. 
cian in Washington is virtually at the head 
of Marlowe and his gang of ghouls. This 
doctor, it was said, enjoys the protection of 
the police. 
Daniel Tyndall, clerk in the Washington 
Asylum, gave valuable information leading 
fo Uiit; /juuclusiuii 'iuWv Vuu iun <ji UU0 1U,U00 
bodies once buried in Potter’s Field are now 
there. 
Dr. G. L. Magruder, Dean of the George- 
town Medical College; Dr. Charles B. Pur- 
vis, Treasurer of the Howard Medical Col- 
lege, and Dr. Howard H. Barker, Dean of the 
frozen plain and the trees onits bank capped 
with snow, the picture must stir an artist’s 
soul. The scone is too beautiful for such 
a hideous desecration. 
There were 503 dead, burieu in Potter’s 
Field last year. Durins, ast twenty- 
five years an average of 400 has been 
buried there per year. There should to-day 
be 10,000 tombs in Potter’s Field. There are 
fewer than 400 there. Wj-?t has be- 
come of the buried dead of a qv*.cer of a 
century? The resurrectionists and the 
medical colleges of Washington can tell. 
There are probably not a dozen adult bodies 
in Potter’s Field to-day. 
Last Summer the relatives of a white 
woman buried in Potter’s Field, desired to 
remove her remains to the new cemetery, 
Graceland. The number of the grave was 
obtained from W. H. Stoutenburgh, the In- 
tendant of Washington Asylum, and the' 
coffin was removed. Before being reinterred 
in Graceland the coffin was opened by di- 
rection of the relatives. It was found to 
contain the body of a newly buried colored 
man. The grave in Potter’s Field was re- 
. searched, but no other coffin was found. 
There could be but one conclusion. Ghouls 
had stolen the body of the white woman, 
and the official gravedigger, believing this 
to be the case, had reopened the grave and 
placed in the desecrated coffin the body 
of the colored man. His body was intended 
for the dissecting table that same night. Of 
the 505 bodies buried in 1892 not more than 
seventy were buried from the penal and 
charitable institutions. The remaining 436 
were the remains of men, women and 
children, who. while paupers, were not, in 
most cases, without friends. 
In the way of paupers there is no such cos- 
mopolitan city in America as Washington. 
It has paupers who have seen all sorts of 
days. Senators, Congressmen, diplomats 
and Government officials of all kinds cling 
to Washington when their days of: useful. 
YABD OF NATIONAL MEDICAL COLLEGE. 
A A—Where bodies were seen, 
grant in the District should attach to Oak Hill 
Cemetery. There are now thirty acres in 
the cemeierv. and over 8.000 dead are buried 
there. The cemetery is at the head oi 
Thirtieth street, Georgetown. 
Some of the distinguished dead buried in 
Oak Hill are William W. Corcoran, John 
Howard Payne, author of “Home, Sweet 
Home”; Lorenzo Dow, Secretaries W. H. 
Hunt, Edwin M. Stanton and John H. 
Eaton; 'Major-Generals J, S. Reno, Charles 
H. Griffin, E. O. C. Ora, Joseph Casey, T. S. 
Jessup and Henry F. Clark; Brigadier- 
General St. John B. Skinner, Admiral John 
R. Beaumont and Commodore J. H. Up- 
shur; a son of Jefferson Davis, a son of 
General Longstreet and several members of 
the Washington family. 
Superintendent J. T. Motler says Oak Hill 
is the only cemetery in the District of Co- 
lumbia that has not been desecrated by 
body snatchers. He says it is the only ceme- 
tery in the United States where the bricking 
in of graves is obligatory. 
VIEW IN CONGBESSIONAL CEMETEBY. 
he saw many human bodies and parts of 
bodies laid out on tables. In the fresh sub- 
jects he saw evidences of the grappling 
hook’s unerring grip, the instrument now 
used to drag bodies from their tomb. 
But the students could not tell from what 
cemeteries the subjects were stolen; neither 
did they know the ghouls. The reporter 
made the friendship of Dan Connor, the 
colored janitor at the National Medical De- 
partment of the Columbian University. The 
investigator was interested, he said to Dan, 
in finding out how the Washington colleges 
secured their subjects. As with the students, 
he was one of the staff of a new medical 
college at Richmond. Dan was most ob- 
liging. He likes to talk, especially to mem- 
bers of the profession. Knowingly he would 
not betray his employers. 
Dan recounted with zest the discovery of 
two nude bodies in the college yard. He 
told of their removal to the dissecting room. 
It is customary in all colleges for the dem- 
onstrator of anatomy to arrange for the sup- 
ply of dissecting material. Dan did not 
know the ghouls, he said. 
The doctor from Richmond being particu- 
larly anxious to secure subjects at once, Dan 
referred him to “Black” Banks, janitor of 
the Georgetown Medical College, who, Dan 
said, received the subjects from the resurrec- 
ionists themselves. “Black” Banks was not 
Washington has four medical colleges. 
They are the colleges connected with the 
Columbian University, the Howard Univer- 
sity, the Georgetown University and the 
National University. Annually over five 
hundred students attend these four medical 
colleges. To instruct these students in the 
science of anatomy 800 “subjects” are 
necessary per year. During the three years’ 
course each student must dissect four sub- 
jects, two during each of the the first two 
years. The students pay for their own sub- 
jects, and to reduce the price they form 
classes of from four to six members. 
Bodies under fifteen years of age are not 
regarded as desirable for dissection and are 
not marketable. Statistics show that of the 
number of persons buried annually in Pot- 
tor's Field less than two hundred were over 
National University Medical College, un- 
guardedly betrayed some secrets in their 
zeal to stand high as a college in a mythical 
work to be published soon on “Medical Col- 
leges in the United States.” 
Artists from the Mobning Advebtisee had 
already secured photographs of the medical 
colleges, the implements used in grave rob- 
bery and several of the persons involved. Ail 
that remained was the capture. 
besuebectionist’s wagon. 
seventeen and a half acres and contains 
4,815 dead. The lot owners are mainly 
Washington’s wealthy German citizens, and 
among the dead interred here are Carl 
Eisenbers, the rich brewer; Andrew Sprass, 
proprietor of the Germania Hotel; Charles 
Graff, proprietor of Myer3’ Hotel, in Penn- 
sylvania avenue; Christian and Georgo 
Gochler, wealthy business men and real 
estate owners. 
Superintendent Noah Zeller lives with his 
family in a cozy little house at the side of 
the cemetery. He keeps several savage dogs 
and says he would like to see any resurrec- 
tionists in Prospect Hill Cemetery. 
But less than two months ago he did see 
one there. The fellow was prowling around 
COLUMBIAN UNIVERSITY. 
All the News for One Cent. 
The Daily Mercury, out to-morrow morning, 
price one cent, will be specially devoted to 
news of New York and its vicinity. 
It will be the only distinctively Democratic 
morning newspaper of this city, and will also 
give special attention to home and social 
features.* 
“Admiral” 
Cigarettes without question the one high grade 
brand in the market. This accounts for the 
contemptible methods used to influence deal- 
ers from selling them.* 
CHAPXElt it. 
There is no other city in the Union where, 
in proportion to its size, grave robbery is 
carried on so extensively as it is in the Capi- 
tal of the Nation. The crime is fostered by 
men of science and winked at by the au- 
Perfect roadbed, four tracks, line cars, quick 
time and Grand Central Station—all by New 
York Central.* THE MORNING- ADVERTISER, MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 1893. 
ago. The grave robber effected 411 entrance 
to the cemetery from the southeast end, just 
above the Anacostia River. 
He opened a newly made mound, the 
nearest to the fence. In that mound ha 
found the corpse of a beautiful woman, and, 
with its head on her breast, lay the mother’s 1 
new-born babe. With his grappling hook 
the ghoul dragged the mother from the cof- 
fin. He tore the white burial robe from the 
body and flung it down into the grave be- 
side the infant. Then he tossed the dirt back 
into the grave and left the spot my banged to 
even an observant eye. 
The robber carried h .1 • over the 
fence, placed it, doubled ftp, - -• Juggy and 
got in beside it. He started for town. He 
had to drive cross lots and a policeman saw 
him. Finding he was detected the man 
leaped from his buggy and dashed down 
Eighteenth street. The officer mrsued and 
caught him. Grave robber, buggy, grappling 
hook and the resurrected dead were taken to 
the police station. The grave robber proved 
to be Dr. W. W. Beall, of Sixth street, be- 
tween A and B streets, S E. The woman 
whose grave he had desecrated was Mrs. 
Alvina Cheeke, the wife of a well-known 
citizen. 
Dr. Beall was tried. The jury disagreed. 
Soon afterward the doctor found it healthy 
to leave town. He is now practicing in Bal- 
timore. 
Another noted resurrection at the Con- 
gressional Cemetery was that of Webster, 
the prominent Mason :. ington. Web- 
ster was Senior Ward m iv, the Lodge. He 
was of. magnificent phy • pit. In the same 
Lodge was George Christian, famous for a ; 
1 zen years as ‘lamnE" — wuu. 
ot the District. Christian attended the 1 
funeral and accompanied the remains of his i 
fellow member to the grave. That night, 
accompanied by Percy Brown, another 
expert resurrectionist, he revisited the grave. 
The tomb was reopened, and Webster’s body 
soon lay on the grass beside it. The clothes 
were stripped off, and all save the Masonic 
regalia were thrown back into the coffin. 
When about to escape with the body a 
sound startled the ghouls. They dropped 
• the cadaver and fled. They did not stop 
running until they reached the Capitol. On 
the stone steps they held a council of war. 
They determined that the securing of such a 
choice subject was worth the risk of return- 
ing. They did return. The alarm had been 
a groundless one. No one was in sight, and 
the corpse of Webster was where they had 
dropped it. Before daylight Webster’s body 
had been dissected by five of his friends in 
life. 
Percy Brown is still in Washington, but is 
said to be out of the resurrection business. 
Last October the Fourth Street Methodist 
Episcopal Cemetery, just across E street 
from the Congressional Cemetery, was de- 
populated, all the bodies being removed to 
the Congressional. There were 4,000 tombs, 
and in over one hundred of them body 
snatchers had been at their work of desecra- 
tion. The number of graves that have been 
robbed in the Congressional Cemetery can 
never be told unless an examination is made 
of each grave. 
suddenly died, the body shall not be sr> de- 
livered, but shall be buried. 
Sec. 2. That before the bodies of such c* 
ceased persons as are mentioned in the first 
section shall be delivered to the authorized 
agents of any medical college in the District of 
Columbia notice shall be given to the relative 
or friend of the deceased, if known, by the per- 
sons having lawful charge of said bodies, and, 
if not known, the death of the deceased shall 
be published once in a daily paper of the City of 
Washington,in which publication the full name 
of the deceased person shall be given if possible, 
and, if not, a description of his person, with in- 
formation of the place where the body may be 
seen. Provided, that the persons named in the 
first section shall not deliver the body of the 
deceased, as provided in this act, until twenty- 
four hours after the giving of said notice or 
the publication of the same. And provided 
further, That any costs attending the publica- 
tion of the notice herein required shall be paid 
by the agent to whom, under the provisions of 
this act, the body of the deceased is authorized 
to be delivered. 
Sec. 3. That every person who shall have 
been duly authorized by the Facu ty of any 
medical college in the District of Columbia to 
receive such dead bodies shall, before so re- 
ceiving them, give to the health officer of said 
District a bond in the sum of $200, with surety 
satisfactory to said health officer, and condi- 
tioned that each dead body shall be used only 
for the promotion of anatomical and surgical 
knowledge within the said District of Colum- 
bia, and that after having been so used the re- 
mains thereof shall be decently buried; 
and whosoever shall use such body or bodies 
for any purpose other than that aforesaid, or 
shall remove the same beyond the lirai is of the 
District of Columbia, and whosoever shall sell 
or buy such body or bodies, or in any way 
traffic in the same, or who shall disturb or re- 
more m wnicb they have 
been buried, shall be deemed guilty of a mis 
demeanor, and shall on conviction be impris- 
oned for a term not Jess than two nor more than 
three years, at hard labor, in the jail of said 
District. 
The bill went to a second reading in the 
House, and was referred to the Sub-Com- 
mittee on Judiciary—Mr. Hemphill, of South 
Carolina; Mr. Abbott, of Texas, and Mr. 
Cogswell, of Massachusetts. The Sub-Com- 
mittee has not yet made a report. In fact, 
the bill has not been considered by the Sub- 
Committee, and the reason given is that no 
one is pushing the measure. The Commis- 
sioners of the District of Columbia, G. W. 
Douglass, Chairman, to whom the proposed 
law was sent for a recommendation, notified 
the Committee on the District of Columbia 
Feb. 26 that they were not prepared to make 
a report. 
And since Feb. 26 this bill has been in its 
pigeon hole. And why? Simply because 
the medical colleges, in whose interest it was 
alleged to have been drafted, do not want it 
passed. Were it to become a law the busi- 
ness of grave robbery in Washington would 
go to the wall. And the colleges feel that 
they cannot exist without the aid of the 
grave robbers. At best, counting out the 
pauper dead under fifteen years of age and 
those whose friends would insist on proper 
burial, the colleges could not secure in a 
legal way more than 150 bodies a year. 
They would still be 150 bodies short, and 
would have to depend on the resurrection- 
ists as they do now. 
But with their business cut off, their ready 
material lessened and a three years’ impris- 
onment threatening at the hands of Con- 
gress, the resurrectionists would either seek 
ether employment or raise the tariff on the 
subjects to an exorbitant rate. The medical 
colleges know they have nothing to gain 
and a great deal to lose by the passage of 
this bill, but they VAa.de the bluff just the 
l same. . 
college is called the'"stable,’ but -neither 
horse not vehicle i ever kept there. It is 
used solely for the reception of “subjects,” 
and opens directly into the rear of the col- 
lege. The body snatchers carry a key to the 
outside door of the stable and deposit their 
cargo inside without notifying any one con- 
nected with the college. 
On this particular morning the resurrec- 
tionists broke the key in the lock and 
couldn’t open the door. The subjects were 
a special order. To cart them about town 
until the stable door could be opened was 
too dangerous to think of, so they tossed the 
dead people over the fence. 
Dr. Carr was formerly the Professor of 
Anatomy, but he delivered a paper reflecting 
on the Faculty and their management of the 
college and was requested to resign. He 
came back later on as Demonstrator. 
Posted conspicuously on the walls of the 
dissecting room of the college are the fol- 
lowing rules: 
“Each student of medicine is required to 
dissect at least two ‘parts’ of a subject dur- 
ing his first session, and two ‘parts’ during 
his second session. Those who fail to com- 
ply with this requirement will not be allowed' 
to present themselves for examination at the 
end of their second session, unless such fail- 
ure be due to inability on the part of the 
college to furnish material. 
“The dissecting room will be open daily 
from 9 A. M. to IIP-M. * * *” 
At the National Medical College each sub- 
ject is divided into three ’‘parts”—the head 
and neck, the arm and thorax, and the le» 
and ahdom.m. 
Different methods prevail in the differeir 
colleges as to the reception of subjects from 
the resurrectionists. As stated , the arrival of 
a subject at the National Medical College is 
not discovered until the following morning. 
On his arrival at the college Janitor Dan 
Connor visits the “stable” to see if any sub- 
jects have come in during the night. 
The same method prevails in some of the 
other colleges. At the Georgetown College 
the janitor, “Black Banks,” as he is known, 
has a bell in his sleeping room, and gets up 
to receive the grave robber when notified by 
a tinkle. 
When Dr. Adams was Demonstrator of 
Anatomy at the National Medical College 
half a dozen years ago, the resurrectionists 
made so bold as to bring subjects in the 
front door on H street. One morning a 
“fresh” policeman, as Dr. Adams then 
designated him, interfered, and the subject 
was removed to the morgue. 
The following afternoon Dr. Adams called 
upon Major McKee Dye, then Superin- 
tendent of Police, and complained against 
the officer. They talked of the subject as a 
‘•manikin” and on the Major’s orders the 
“manikin” was restored to the college. 
Since that time the reception of subjects at 
the National Medical College has not been 
interfered with. Major Dye is now General 
of the Army of Corea, and is referred to 
by his Washington friends as “The Paaha.” 
chapter it. 
In many cities the law gives the penal 
dead to medical science. There is no such 
law in the District of Columbia. Science 
has no legal right to any ot the District's 
dead. A/i must be given a proper burial, 
and a statutory law says the desecration of a 
grave shall be unlawful. There is no law in 
the District especially applicable to grave 
robbery; the existing law forbids the de- 
facing of cemeteries, specifying the grounds, 
tombs and fencing. 
Here is Section 1187of Chapter36 (Crimes 
and Offenses) of the Revised Statutes of the 
District of Columbia: 
“If any person shall willfully or maliciously 
cut down, break down, level, demolish or 
otherwise destroy or injure or damage any 
railing, fence, or inciosure around or upon 
any land conveyed to any cemetery associa- 
tion or to the District under tne provisions 
of Sections 595 and 604 as a burial place for 
the interment of the dead, or any gate or 
post thereon, or shall remove, break, injure 
or deface any tomb or other stone, plank 
or board or any inscription theroon, or 
shall cut down,destroy, injure or remove any 
tree or shrub standing or growing upon 
such land, he shall be liable to indictment, 
and upon conviction be fined not less than 
$10 nor more than $100i” 
The above section palpably does not con- 
template grave robbery. There have, there- 
fore, been occasions—very rare occasions— 
when the old common law of England has 
been appealed to.. In years gone by, when 
the discovery had been made that body- 
snatchers had rifled the grave of some prom- 
inent person, the authorities would find it 
policy to bestir themselves. Cemeteries 
would be watched with greater care and an 
arrest would quickly follow. 
A notorious body snatcher named Jenson, 
said to have died later on in New York, was 
arrested and under the common law was 
sentenced to eleven months and twenty-nine 
days in the United States jail. He served 
his sentence and so did Tom Bowie, another 
expert resurrectionist. But it is a number 
of years now since grave robbery has been 
punished in the District of Columbia. It is j 
permitted to flourish now os it never flour- j 
ii-hod before. Medical science tids 
more subject*' now than ever before. 
About a year ago the Washington medical j 
colleges conceived a plan by which they 
hoped to throw the odium attachod to 1 .-ody- 
snatching off themselves. They had a bill 
introduced in Congress which was entitled 
“A bill for the promotion of anatomical 
science and to prevent the desecration of 
graves in the District of Columbia.” 
This bill, a piece of bluff on the part of the 
medical colleges, was introduced in the 
House Feb. 1, 1892, by Mr. Hemphill, of 
South Carolina, Chairman of the House 
Committee on the District of Columbia. Mr. 
Hemphill is probably unaware even now of 
the true intent of the measure. The bill 
reads: 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of 
Representatives of the United States of 
America in Congress assembled. That any public 
officer or officers, whether directors, trustees, 
superintendents, warders, keepers or mana- 
gers, having lawful charge or control over any 
hospital, prison, almshouse, jail, morgue or 
asylum within the District of Columbia, may, 
with the approval of the health officer of said 
District, deliver to the duly authorized agent 
of any medical colloge or colleges in the said 
District of Columbia the bodies of such de- 
ceased persons as are required to be buried at 
the public expense, said bodies to bo distributed 
among the several colleges in proportion to the 
number of students in each, the number as- 
signed to each being proportioned to that of its 
students; • 
Provided, however, That if the deceased per- 
son during his last illness requested to be 
buried, or if, within forty-eight hours after his 
death, any jxerson claiming to be, and satisfy- 
ing the health officer that he is, a relative by 
blood or marriage, or friend of the deceased, 
asks to have the body buried, or.if such de- 
ceased person was a or traveler who 
CHAPTER V. 
Hundreds of Washington's citizens. had a 
recentocular demonstration that the robbery 
of graves and the traffic in human bodies 
was being carried on with extraordinary 
audacity. 
On H street, N. W., just west of Thirteenth 
street, stands the National Medical College, 
the medical department of the Columbian 
University. It is a three-story red brick 
building of plain, old time architecture. 
Its number on H street is 1325. Running 
along the easterly side of the college is a 
public alley and on the west side is a nar- 
row alley belonging to the college. On the 
opposite side of the public alleyway stands 
the fashionable family hotel, the Fredonia. 
The upper windows of the hotel overlook the 
college fence, within which for half the 
depth of the college is a narrow court, say 
about three feet wide. 
Looking from the upper windows of the 
hotel on, the morning of Saturday, Oct. 29 
last, the guests saw two nude bodies lying in 
the narrow court at the east of the college. 
The news spread. The waiters, bellboys 
and chambermaids thronged into the alley 
and peered through the cracks of the fence. 
Passersby, seeing the curious crowd, stopped 
and looked in their turn. Small boys climbed 
to the top of the fence and gazed in awed 
silence at the scene below. Straining necks 
were at all the upper windows of the Fre- 
donia Hotel. Little girls looked in terror 
and flei. 
What the crowd saw was the body of a 
well-built negro, five feet eight inches in 
height, weighing about one hundred and 
sixty-five pounds, the age in the neighbor- 
hood of forty years, and beside the man the 
nude body of a mulatto woman, weighing 
140 pounds, and the age about y-flve 
years. 
At the wes> of the college it, a li ■ tablo 
kept by F. W. Widdicotnbe, He took in the 
situation at once and telephoned from his 
stab!c to No. 1315 Massachusetts avenue, the 
residence of the Dean of the Faculty, Dr. A. 
F. A. King. Dr. King telephoned to Dr. 
William P. Carr, the Demonstrator in 
Anatomy, at the latter’s home, No. 1103 
Thirteenth street, N. W. Dr. Carr set off at 
a run for the'college. 
Meanwhile a policeman in citizen’s clothes 
happened along. He saw what the crowd 
was looking at and started off to call a 
patrol wagon. During his absence Dr. 
Carr, panting for breath, entered the col- 
lege. He hurried through the main lecture 
room, down a corridor and into the court- 
yard where the corpses were lying. Regard- 
less of the 10d spectators Dr. Carr caught up 
each body in turn and dragged it into the cor- 
ridor, thence out into the private alleyway 
at the west and down a flight of stairs bo 
the cellar. 
There the cadavers were injected with a 
preserving fluid, and the officer not yet hav- 
ing returned, they were carried to the dis- 
secting room on the third floor and cut with 
scalpels, so that they became “subjects” and 
the property of the college. When the po- 
liceman came back with the patrol wagon he 
made a search of the college and grounds, 
but could find no trace of what he had seen 
thirty minutes before, and went his way. 
Science was triumphant. 
The discovery and Dr. Carr’s ready action 
occurred between 8 and 9 o’clock in the 
morning. It seems that the body snatchers 
arrived with their burden about 3 o'clock in 
the morning. They drove their chi ' down, 
the public alley to the “stable’ adjoining 
the colloge at the north, This unuex to the