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| Death at Home |
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| Fisk's Patent |
Almond
Dunbar Fisk patented a product in 1848 to alley all three fears with his “air-tight coffin of cast or raised metal.”
With a Fisk Iron Coffin, the deceased was visible for viewing (and making sure
they didn’t move.) The remains would be well preserved, continuing to look exactly
as they did when they died, and iron coffins were almost impossible to break into.
The
Fisk Metallic Burial Case was shown at the New York State Agricultural Society
Fair in 1849, along with the American Institute Exhibition in New York City
later that year. Orders were taken and production began.
The
coffin was form fitting, resembling an Egyptian sarcophagus with the face and
feet higher than the body. A small glass window was fit above the face for
viewing. |
| Robbing the Grave |
There
were several benefits to using an iron coffin including the smell of decay was
trapped in the iron case much better than a wooden coffin. Resurrectionists
were not able to “bash and grab,” (Bust open a wooden coffin and pull the
deceased out by their neck for the purpose of selling bodies to anatomy
schools.) and they looked secure.
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| John C. Calhoun |
But
security was not cheap; the price of a Fisk coffin was between $50 and $100. (A
wooden casket cost $2.) Former U.S. Vice-President and Secretary of State John
C. Calhoun was buried in a Fisk coffin in April 1850, and after that, demand grew.
But
Almond Fisk was not doing well; he had become ill while fighting a fire that
destroyed his foundry in 1849 and had never recovered. In October of 1850, Fisk
died. His investors, John G. Forbes and Horace White continued on with the
company.
An
1851 ad for the Fisk’s Metallic Burial Case touted how “they preserve the forms we love, in something more like a pulseless
slumber than a dread decay, they have the appearance of rich and heavy folds of
drapery, thrown over the form, adapted to the shape, and realizing the line of
“Thanatopsis.”
Soon
after Crane, Breed and Company of Cincinnati obtained a license to
produce Fisk coffins and several modified versions were introduced to
the public. W.M.
Raymond and Company of New York also produced several different versions
of
Fisk’s original iron coffin.
The
form fitting shape gave way to sleeker, more box-like shape with a window over
the face and another over the hands of the deceased. The size of the windows
increased and soon the top was all glass except for a dividing bar across the
middle. |
| Vladimir Lenin |
Glass coffins became very popular in the late 1800s in Germany, especially when used for royalty
and revered leaders. Vladimir Lenin is one of the most famous leaders who lies in state
in a glass coffin in Red Square in Moscow. Others who rest eternally in a glass
casket include Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, China's Mao Zedong, Vietnam's
Ho Chi Minh, and North Korea's founding leader, Kim Il Sung.
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| Casket with Glass Cover |
While
all-glass coffins are favored for viewing, they are not usable as a burial case
because they are too fragile to have earth heaped on top of them and maintain
their form.
Today, glass caskets are still available, although not in the form you might expect.
A
glass casket is now a glass top that is placed over the deceased to
deter
mourners from touching the corpse. This also helps deter mourners from
clipping hair, or pieces of clothing from the deceased to keep or sell
as a
memento.
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| Fisk Coffin at Berry Funeral Home |
To
view one of these “insightful” coffins, visit the Berry Funeral Home in
Knoxville, Tennessee; Herr Funeral Home in Collinsville, Illinois; and the Pink
Palace Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.
~
Joy
