“One of the most frightful cases extant is that of Dr. Walker, of Dublin, who had so strong a presentiment on this subject, that he had actually written a treatise against the Irish custom of hasty burial. He, himself, subsequently died, as was believed, of a fever. His decease took place in the night, and on the following day he was interred. At this time, Mrs. Bellamy, the once-celebrated actress, was in Ireland; and as she had promised him, in the course of conversation, that she would take care he should not be laid in the earth till unequivocal signs of dissolution had appeared, she no sooner heard of what had happened than she took measures to have the grave reopened; but it was, unfortunately, too late. Dr. Walker had evidently revived, and had turned upon his side; but life was quite extinct.”
Mr. Horace Welby, in a chapter on “Premature Interment,” says that “the Rev. Owen Manning, the historian of Surrey, during his residence at Cambridge University, caught small-pox, and was reduced by the disorder to a state of insensibility and apparent death. The body was laid out and preparations were made for the funeral, when Mr. Manning’s father, going into the chamber to take a last look at his son, raised the imagined corpse from its recumbent position, saying, ‘I will give my poor boy another chance,’ upon which signs of vitality were apparent. He was therefore removed by his friend and fellow-student, Dr. Heberden, and ultimately restored to health.”—The Mysteries of Life and Death, pp. 115-116.
A most conspicuous and interesting monument in St. Giles’s Church, Cripplegate, London (where Cromwell was married and John Milton buried), is associated with a remarkable case of trance or catalepsy. In the chancel is a striking sculptured figure in memory of Constance Whitney, a lady of remarkable gifts, whose rare excellences are fully described in the tablet. She is represented as rising from her coffin. Welby, at p. 116, relates the story that she had been buried while in a state of suspended animation, but was restored to life through the cupidity of the sexton, which induced him to disinter the body to obtain possession of a valuable ring left upon her finger, which he concluded could be of no use to the wearer. A study of the facts of premature burial shows that the rifling of tombs and coffins to obtain valuables has in other instances revealed similar tragic occurrences.
The often-cited case of Mrs. Goodman, one of those recalled to life by the sexton’s attempt to remove a ring from the finger, is thus related in the “History of Bandon,” by George Bennett:—
Hannah, wife of Rev. Richard Goodman, vicar of Ballymodan, Bandon, from 1692 to 1737, fell into ill-health, and apparently died. Two or three days after her decease, the body was taken to Rosscarbery Cathedral, and there laid in the family vault of the Goodmans. The attempt of the sexton to recover a valuable diamond ring from the finger is said to have been made at an early hour the next morning. Much violence was used, so that the corpse moved, yawned, and sat up. The sexton having fled in terror, leaving his lantern behind and the church door open, the lady in her shroud made her way out of the vault and through the church to the residence of her brother-in-law, the Rev. Thomas Goodman, which was just outside the church-yard. Having been admitted after some delay and consternation, she was put to bed, and fell asleep soon after, her brother-in-law and his man-servant keeping watch over her until mid-day, when she awoke refreshed. She is said to have shown herself in the village in the afternoon, to have supped with the family in the evening, and to have set out for home on horseback next morning. She is said to have survived this episode for some years, and to have borne a son subsequent to it, who died at an advanced age at Innishannon, a village near Bandon.
In Smith’s “History of Cork,” vol. ii., p. 428, the same incident is thus mentioned:—“Mr. John Goodman, of Cork, died in January, 1747, aged about four score; but what is remarkable of him, his mother was interred while she lay in a trance, having been buried in a vault, etc.... This Mr. Goodman was born some time after.”
Mr. Peckard, Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge, in a work entitled “Further Observations on the Doctrine of an Intermediate State,” mentions that Mrs. Godfrey, Mistress of the Jewel Office, and sister of the great Duke of Marlborough, is stated to have lain in a trance, apparently dead, for seven days, and was declared by her medical attendants to have been dead. Colonel Godfrey, her husband, would not allow her to be interred, or the body to be treated in the manner of a corpse; and on the eighth day she awoke, without any consciousness of her long insensibility.
The daughter of Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, the first President of the American Congress during the Revolutionary War, died when young of small-pox. At all events a medical certificate pronounced her dead, and she was shrouded and coffined for interment. It was customary in those days to confine the patient amidst red curtains with closed windows. After the certificate of death had been duly made out, the curtains were thrown back and the windows opened. The fresh air revived the patient, who recovered and lived to a mature age. This circumstance occasioned on her father so powerful a dread of living interment, that he directed by will that his body should be burnt, and enjoined on his children the performance of this wish as a sacred duty.