Many thanks to June for sending this to me--I feel the listers would be interested in this too. http://www.indianagazette.com/ Real-life 1850s grave robbing revealed to mother in dream Written by Dorrie Leathers Saturday, 27 October 2007 EDITOR’S NOTE: Dorie Leathers is the editor of the Clark House News, the newsletter written for the Indiana Historical and Genealogical Society. While scanning microfilmed newspapers, this author was intrigued by a brief article that appeared in the Jan. 31, 1860, issue of the Indiana Register. Titled “Disturbing the Dead,” the article reported the death and burial of a child of Levi Fry, the ensuing dreams experienced by the child’s mother and the resulting exhumation intended to calm the mother’s fears. Only seven sentences long, the article concluded “the presentiment of the mother was too true — the child was gone — the grave robbed of its dead.” I was now overwhelmed by curiosity and had to know more. The household of Levi and Mary Fry was located in Cherryhill Township, where the father and sons labored on their farm. They were members of the Manor Congregation of German Baptists, to which Levi was elected to the ministry in 1847. In 1860 their family included five children. The older sons, Joshua and Moses, were 16- and 14-years-old, respectively. The twins, Hezekiah and Priscilla, were 10-years-old, and the youngest, John, was 3. An astute genealogist would notice the seven-year gap in the birth order between the twins and their younger brother. The researcher might also suspect that there was another child — a child welcomed into and then lost from this family between the time span of the 1850 and 1860 census enumerations. Without available birth, Bible, death or burial records, these children often remain lost in time. In this case however, through a series of somewhat unusual events, the short life of this particular child will be remembered. In 1854 a daughter was born to Levi and Mary Fry. Five years later in the spring of 1859 the little girl, whose given name remains unknown, became ill. Her affliction was described as an “anomalous” one and her condition baffled the skill and knowledge of the physicians who were called to attend her. The disease continued on its unabated course for nine months and the little sufferer, who had been confined to her bed, finally succumbed on Dec. 7. The child was buried the following day in a grave on the farm of Adam Helman in White Township. Helman was a fellow minister of the same congregation served by Levi Fry and may perhaps have set aside land on his farm for the burial of their members. The dreams began the second night after the child was laid to rest. Mary Fry awakened from a fitful sleep, believing that her deceased daughter was no longer in her grave. The dreams persisted for several nights in succession until the mother became convinced that her child had not only been taken from her grave, but that the tiny body had been removed to Indiana Borough. Mary was said to be “so deeply impressed with the truth of this dream that she gave her husband no rest either day or night.” In an attempt to bring comfort to his wife by satisfying her that all was well, the father, with the help of several neighbors, opened the child’s grave. The shroud was found in its proper place, among broken fragments of the coffin, but the remains of the child were gone. It is not known how Levi learned the name of the responsible party, but after this remarkable discovery he came to town and “made information before Esquire Reed against Dr. St. Clair, of this borough.” Mr. Fry also let it be known that, rather than prosecuting and convicting any man or group of men of this crime, “he would be better satisfied if he could obtain the body of the child to take home to the distressed mother.” The child’s body was returned to her father. It was described as “only slightly mutilated, having been opened for the purpose of ascertaining the disease of which it died.” Levi took his daughter home to his wife, the child was returned to her proper resting place, and the charges against Dr. St. Clair were dropped. An 1847 graduate of Jefferson Medical College, in Philadelphia, Dr. Thomas St. Clair was one of the founding members of the Indiana County Medical Society. The society, organized in 1858, was comprised of 20 physicians, all of whom were graduates of authorized medical colleges. But even the best-educated medical practitioners of the time often did not know how to deal with disease. The society’s notes make reference to frequent bloodletting, purging, blistering and the specific treatment of scarlet fever with whiskey and eggnog. Knowledge of anatomy was also quite limited because dissection of human bodies was frowned upon. Dr. St. Clair would go on to serve in the Volunteer Surgical Corps and attend the wounded after the Battle of Gettysburg. In 1864 he was elected to serve his district in the state Senate. As a surgeon he was reputed to have had few equals in his time and, on his death, it was reported that no doctor in the country had been so long in continuous practice. We will never know what the doctor may have learned from his clandestine autopsy or if other of his fellow practitioners were also involved in the incident. And perhaps the practice of grave robbing to further advance the early physicians’ medical skill and knowledge was a more common practice than we would like to believe. But we do know that this narrative would never have been written were it not for the prophetic dreams of Mary Fry ... and therein lies the real mystery. Annie Whiteman PABlair List administrator Annie Whiteman/Steve Patz Blair County Coordinators http://www.rootsweb.com/~pablair