Grave Digging: Resting in Peace?


Background Information:

 It was a principle in English common law that a dead human being was not property.  Therefore "grave robbing," as  commonly applied to the taking bodies from the ground, was not a severe crime when referring to the corpse.   It was only considered a misdemeanor offense with legislation in 1788 (Marks and Beatty 82).   Grave robbing in America was not large enough problem in the seventeenth-century to need legislation.  The Body of Liberties, the Connecticut code of 1659, nor the New Hampshire code of 1679 made no references to stolen bodies.  The only legal source of bodies for dissection was at the discretion of judges who might order that the body of a convicted murderer be delivered to a physician.  Executions were rare but dissection as additional punishment was even rarer.(Marks and Beatty 83).



Introduction:


The body of Levi Ames was prounced dead.  The body was to be delivered by the Sheriff to a person who carried it to a cart to the water side.  The boat with twelve of Stillmen's crew was heading to Dorchester Point.  When we see the boat land at Dorchester Point, Norwood, David, Allen, and myself take the rode round to the Point. After over coming many obstacles it was eleven o'clock.  We searched, hunted, and waded; but alas, in vain!  There was no corpse to be found (Marks and Beatty 84).  This is the typical hunt for a body by young medical students.  They would steal buried bodies for the advancement of knowledge and to gain experience of working on the human body.  Unfortunately, this act was considered a transgression against most religious beliefs.  The stealing of bodies brought increased legislation, unity between groups, and even riots.


Social Activists:


School groups or societies may have increased the amount of grave digging in Colonial time, which comes from the fact that they were trying to gain experience and medical knowledge.  The dangerous task of taking bodies was more appealing with larger numbers; for instance, Harvard undergraduates founded an anatomical society called Spunks or Spunkers. The Spunkers take the body of deceased derelicts, which authors Marks and Beatty both comment on,
"The [Spunkers'] game was a dangerous one.  The students might be beaten (or even killed) by friends of the deceased, by rival hijackers, or the guards whose duty it was to dispose of the body, but to the Spunkers it was an adventure." (Marks and Beatty 84)


The common identification values and necessity for learning the human anatomy first hand brought these classmates together.  The support of professors helped fuel these groups and in some instances give them leadership.  Sometimes it was even the master  rather than the student who took bodies.  During the Colonial period the Chief Professor of anatomy in almost every medical school in America had to face charges, usually verbal, of being a resurrectionist or grave digger.  Armed mobs sometimes would attack these schools in search for the professors and the bodies used in classroom dissections. One such incident that the authors Marks and Beatty involves William Shippen, Jr., on January 11, 1770, denying one such event
 

"Sundry wicked and malicious Reports of my taking up Bodies... I never have had, directly or indirectly, one Subject from the Burying-grounds belonging to any Denominations of Christians whatever."(Mark and Beatty 85)

The Armed mobs wouldn't always be so peaceful in their reponse, by limiting contension with verbal attacks, sometimes they used physical force.  In the case for two men in Cincinnati the mob had an intent to hang them on the spot.  The authors Marks and Beatty relay the gruesome account,
 
"The disconnected parts of about twenty bodies, some destitute of flesh, others as they were in life," the authors continue on saying, "When the infuriated mob descended on the place, the proprietor and another man made their escape in a horse drwn carriage.  It was their good fortune to be arrested for fast driving by two police officers... It was subsequently learned that the bodies had been legally procured and that the skeletons were being prepared for scientific purposes."  (Marks and Beatty 92)




Riots:


The normal response to grave digging was anger.  Anger from the local church, for their burial grounds being dug up,and the families of the victims.  Many of these angery people manifested into Armed mobs.  With these Armed mobs increased activities, they soon were attacking in the larger cities of Colonial America.  In 1788, New York experienced a severe riot.  The riot started off peacefully, with the petition of Negroes and slaves on February 4.  The petition recognizes dissections importance but provides the illegal means and enproachment on decency of  the family.  This was followed by a rebuttal from a Student of Physic in the Daily Advertiser defending grave robber stating that medicines advancement is dependent on their activites with the bodies.  An eyewitness was Colonel William Heth of the Army of Virginia who writes to the governor.  He remarks on a human limb hanging out of a window.  With curiosity the arm was prodded with a stick, next the limb falls out of the window.  Following a mob is raised and begins ransacking the hospital, finding three fresh bodies.  The ransacking of the hospital and breaking of windows in town forces the mob to face the militia.  After two days, the militia had dispersed the rioters keeping casualties to a minimum (Marks and Beatty 88).   The Resurrection War was incited when the students of Worthington Reformed Medical College stole the body of a women from her grave in Potter's Field.



Legislation:


Only after mobs started riots, most notable the Doctors' Riots of 1788 and less violent one in Connecticut did legislation begin to be passed.  Massachusetts was the first to alleviate the growing tensions.  The House of Representives for Massachusetts set a committee to consider and follow the rise and progress of anatomical science.  Starting at three members, the committee prepared to petition to the legislation.  They hoped to modify laws already enforced which restricted the availablity of getting subjects for medical dissection.  The committee found that it was vital to all classes of the populous, that dissection was essential and deserved public encouragement.  With the recognition of Anatomical Science's importance, the State Legislature changed the law to provide anatomical societies, medical schools, with legalized body, but also increased the penalties for grave robbing.  The law as stated by Marks and Beatty states,
 
"To deliver to any physician...such dead bodies as may be required to be buried at public expense and which shall not be claimed...within twenty-four hours from and after death."  (Marks and Beatty 96)


Statutes were later added to such laws to provide body donations, allowed through a will, deed, or another written mean.  These statutes were created to alleviate the recent raise in body-snatchings or grave robbings for medical schools (Benard 45).  Legislation came later in Pennsylvannia, only when the major supporter Senator William James McKnight, a former physician and grave robber, found an organized gang of resurrectionists in Philadelphia.    In 1831, the Ohio General Assembly made a statute providing for a fine not exceeding $1000 and/ or imprisonment of up to thirty days in jail for exhuming a corpse from any cemetery or burial ground (Marks and Beatty 91).  As a result of The Resurrection War, a bill was proposed into state legislation to increase the penalty of prison term to one to three years.  Comments by thirty physicians' attacks the bill and it fails to pass the Senate.



Conclusion:


With the increase in stolen bodies an increase in legislation, unity between groups, and even riots occurs.  Grave digging provides the fuel to increase the togetherness between those achieving the same goals, while they also increase the negative sediment between those opposed and those supporting body snatching.  With the animosities between each growing the physical chances for conflict increase until it cultivates into the riots.  With the increase in legislature and increased legal means for medical programs to ensure bodies for their students, grave digging began to decline.  With reduction of student supported grave robbings by the twentith century, grave robbings had become eliminated as a major factor for disention in America.


Works Cited:


1.  Benard, Hugh Y.  The Law of Death and Disposal of the Dead.  NewYork:  Oceana Publications, Inc., 1966.
2. Marks, Geoffrey, and William K. Beatty. The Story of Medicine in America.  New York:  Charles Scribner's Sons,1973.