Stephen H. Branch's Alligator, Vol. 1 no. 15, July 31, 1858

by Unknown

Does Mayor Tiemann know what became of the Lime Kiln Man? Most horrible disclosures! In God’s name, where are the People?

William O. Webb, now Superintendent of Potter’s Field, who was appointed by the Ten Governors, sold and delivered last winter, five hundred corpses to the body snatchers, and has sold about the same number for several winters past, for which he and others received $17 for each corpse, forming an aggregate of $8,500 that was received each winter. The bodies are disinterred in the night, during the favorable tides, and carried from Potter’s Field to the Dead House, on the shore of Ward’s Island,—sometimes in a sleigh, and sometimes in a wheelbarrow,—and delivered to the body snatchers, awaiting their arrival at the Dead House. William O. Webb directs the grave diggers to give no corpses to the body snatchers, who died of small pox, or other contagious diseases, nor badly mutilated bodies. Michael Gilmore was an Assistant Grave Digger, and is now a clerk of the Superintendent of Potter’s Field. Wm. O. Webb’s salary is $800 per annum—a house free of rent—a farm—fuel, and provisions, from the Ten Governors—and four paupers and a servant to manage his farm. Sometimes he has fifteen paupers to work his farm. Webb’s clerk receives $400 a year, and his wife $200, and they have a large house and extensive grounds, and a servant and fuel and provisions from the Ten Governors. Webb employs a boy, about sixteen years old, who buries the dead, and who has $300 per annum. This boy receives the dead bodies, and selects such as the Doctors desire, immediately on their reception at Potter’s Field. Sometimes an arm or a leg is dissevered, and sold to the Doctors. After the bodies are removed, the coffins are sawed and chopped, and packed in bags, and taken to Harlem, and used as fire wood. The bodies are stripped of their dead clothes, and the best part sold in the city, as apparel, and the residue as rags, which constantly exposes the city to contagion. The Ten Governors are familiar with these facts, and have some knowledge of what is done with the money that is received for the dead bodies. William O. Webb has long been the warm personal and political friend of Governor Daniel F. Tiemann, whose mutual relations have been of such a peculiar nature that, although Gov. Tiemann has often been apprised of Webb’s monstrous proceedings, yet he dared not advance a step towards his removal. Webb’s expenses as Superintendent of Potter’s Field are $5,000 per annum. A respectable man, with the best security, proposed to Mayor Tiemann, when he was Governor, to assume the management of Potter’s Field, for $1,000 per annum, without the salaries, houses, farms, paupers, and servants, fuel, and provisions that the Superintendent and Clerk, and their wives then and now receive, forming an aggregate of $5,000 per annum, exclusive of the $8,500 received by the Superintendent and others for dead bodies. And yet, such were the peculiar relations subsisting between Gov. Tiemann and Mr. Webb, that the former dared not accept a proposition so favorable to the Treasury of the City, for whose economical disbursements Gov. Tiemann professes such anxious regard. One of the grave diggers refused to sell the body snatchers any more bodies, and informed Gov. Tiemann of his determination, who exclaimed, with much levity: “If you interfere with their business, there will be no inquest held over your body.” Webb sold the corpse of his wife’s uncle, whose name was Brown, a builder, and when Brown’s relatives desired his body for respectable interment, Webb placed another corpse in the coffin, and sent it to them, which they interred as their dear relative. The Lime Kiln Man was borne to Potter’s Field, and when his friends heard the sad intelligence of his death and pauper interment, they raised funds, which they gave to Webb, with directions to exhume and respectably inter him. But Webb could not find the Lime Kiln Man, and placed another corpse in a coffin, and buried it, and when the friends of the Lime Kiln Man came to Potter’s Field, Mr. Webb led them to a grave, which he assured them was the Lime Kiln Man’s. At my trial, on the first Monday in August, I shall summon the Doctor, and the body snatchers connected with him, and the superintendent, clerk, grave diggers, and all others engaged in this awful sacrilege, to unmask the scoundrels connected with our public institutions.