Antoine Wiertz painting entitled Premature Burial. Image credit: Wikipedia
Taphophobia (taphos meaning grave and phobos meaning fear) is the fear of being buried alive and it permeated Europe and America in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was especially bad during cholera and small pox epidemics because people believed some illnesses could leave them in a state that mimicked death. Americans and Europeans even purchased safety (or security) coffins and used waiting mortuaries to avoid being buried alive.
Taphophobia was reinforced by fictional stories like Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Premature Burial” and newspaper articles that were purportedly true. Even doctors reported that they had exhumed graves of people who had been buried alive because it looked like the bodies had moved in the coffins, but this was before forensic scientists understood what happens to a corpse during decomposition.
Most of the newspaper accounts ended in tragedy, but in some stories people survived premature burial because grave robbers played unwitting heroes – probably one of the few times grave robbers were portrayed in a positive light. Nearly all of these supposedly factual reports were based on local urban legends and unverifiable rumors from other countries.
Below are some extraordinary “true” stories of people who were buried alive, starting with one of the earliest I could find.
The Pennsylvania Gazette February 24, 1729
A Milkwoman’s Daughter at Endfield was
lately buried alive there: When she was going
to be interred, some People at the Funeral,
thought she looked fresh, and taking a Looking-
glass, and applying it to her Lips, they fancied
they perceived a Dew on it as from Breath;
but the cruel Mother mock’d and reviled them,
and swore she should be buried, and so she was;
but this coming to the Ears of a near Relation,
he got the Grave dug up, and the Coffin open’d,
when she was found with her Knees drawn up,
and the Nosegay in her Hand bitten to pieces,
struggling for Life. A Surgeon was sent for to
bleed her, but it was then too late.
Newbern Sentinel April 3, 1819
Extraordinary Occurrence.
Extract of a letter from Bavaria
“We have witnessed a superb funeral of
the Baron Hornstein, a Courtier; but the
result is what induces me to mention it in
my letter. Two days after, the workmen
entered the mausoleum, when they wit-
nessed an object which petrified them!
At the door of the sepulcher lay a body
covered with blood—it was the mortal
remains of this favorite of courts and prin-
ces. The Baron was buried alive! On
recovering from his trance he had forced
the lid of the coffin, and endeavoured to
escape from a charnel house—it was im-
possible! and therefore, in a fit of desper-
ation, as it is supposed, he dashed his
brains out against the wall. The royal
family, and indeed the whole city, are
plunged in grief at the horrid catastro-
phe.”
Vermont Phoenix January 27, 1837
Terrible.— A foreign paper gives an
account of a melancholy case of premature
internment, which, we hear, lately took place
in Hermannstadt in Transylvania…
Lieutenant Colonel Elsas-
ser, Auditor General of that city, was attack-
ed with cholera, which apparently proved
fatal, and the body was soon after deposited
in a tomb, without any particular examina-
tion having taken place. On succeeding to
his estate, his heirs missed from his person-
al effects, a valuable ring, which had been
an heir loom in the family for several gener-
ations, and accused a favorite servant of hav-
ing obtained possession of it. The servant
denied the theft, and said that his master al-
ways wore it on his finger, and that it was
undoubtedly buried with him. They there-
fore determined to open the tomb, to assure
themselves of the fact, but their astonishment
and horror may be imagined, when they as-
certained from the strongest evidence that the
Colonel had been buried alive; he having
afterwards turned himself in his coffin, and
had actually devoured the flesh from his
arms, through hunger, before he died a dread-
ful death!
The New Bloomfield, PA Times March 15, 1881
Buried Alive.
From Bucharist there comes a remarka-
ble story illustrating an assurance which,
it is to be feared is too often the case, and
for which there is no remedy except legis-
lation of a proper character. A young
lady died of small-pox, and according to
the sanitary laws of Roumania she was
buried at once. As she had been recently
betrothed the presents of her lover were
buried with her, according to the Rou-
manian custom. These presents consisted
of jewels and they excited the cupidity of
three robbers, who went to the grave at
night and dug up the coffin. When it
was opened one of the robbers was afraid
to touch the corpse, whereat his fellows
jeered at him. At this he gave the head
of the corpse a sound cuffing and let it drop.
At the next instant the dead woman arose
and said, “Don’t kill me, I beg you.”
Naturally the robbers fled and the unfor-
tunate girl arose and, crawling from her
grave, went home and was received with
mingled terror and joy.
The Wichita Beacon January 2, 1904
WAS BURIED ALIVE
Experiences of Man Supposed To Have Died
Independence, Mo. Jan. 2.— George
Hayword, a manufacturing jeweler,
died here recently. He was 82 years of
age. Until two weeks ago he was strong
and worked every day at his trade.
Mr. Hayward when a young man in
England was buried alive.
This is the story of his startling ex-
perience as told by Mr. Hayward:
“It was in Marshville, County of
Gloucester, England, where I was
buried. While helping to haul straw one
day by accident I was struck in the
head with a pitchfork. It penetrated
my skull and made me feel faint and
dizzy. Two doctors were called. One
of them insisted that my condition
was due to a blow on the head and the
other that I had pleurisy…
two weeks elapsed and my eyes closed
in supposed death…
Yet I was painfully conscious of
every movement going around…
As soon as the undertaker arrived I
knew I was to be buried alive…
Well the time for the funeral ar-
rived and then the burial.
Suddenly the shoveling ceased and the
silence of the tomb was complete. I
did not seem to have the fear then that
a person would naturally expect under
such circumstances. All I remember is
that the grave is a lonely place and the
silence of the tomb was horribly op-
pressive. A dreamy sensation came
over me and a sense of suffocation be-
came apparent.
How long I remained in this condi-
tion I do not know. The first sense of
returning to life came over me when I
heard scraping of a spade on my
coffin lid. I felt myself raised and
borne away. I was taken out of my
coffin, not to my home, but to a phy-
sician’s office. I beheld the doctors who
had waited upon me at my home, dress-
ed in white aprons. In their hands
they had knives…Both
approached the table and opened my
mouth, when by superhuman effort, my
eyelids were slightly raised. The next
thing I hear was, ‘Look out, you fool,
he is alive.’
“ ‘He’s dead,’ rejoined the other doc-
tor.
“‘ See, he opened his eyes,’ continued
the first doctor. The other physician
let the knife drop and a short time
after that I commenced to recover rap-
idly. Instead of cutting me up they
took me home…I owed my
life to the doctors’ dispute as to what
ailed me during my illness.”
San Francisco Chronicle January 1, 1906
GHASTLY FIND IN CEMETERY
Bodies of Soldiers Exhumed at
Old Fort Hayes Indicate That
Men Were Buried Alive
Hayes City (Kas.), December 31.
—From Disclosures made this week
in the old burying ground of old Fort
Hayes it is evident that many soldiers
were buried alive there in a cholera
epidemic. The bodies were now being
moved to Leavenworth, and the fort
is being abandoned as a military re-
serve.
Coffins were dug up that give evi-
dences of the frightful struggles of
the inmates for life. Some of the
bodies had turned over; others had
the legs drawn up to the neck; others
were grasping the hair. In the epi-
demic the health laws required thee
immediate burial of victims, and this
ghastly evidence indicates that a large
number of cholera patients were alive
when buried.
Categories: History
My late grandfather was Police Surgeon of Nottinghamshire in the last century; he retired in around 1958 iirc. In that capacity, he attended any exhumations: he recounted that on at least two occasions there was evidence from damage to the hands in particular that the buried person had frantically tried to claw off the lid of the coffin. He always recommended that people insist on having an artery severed after death, before their corpse was buried, to avoid such a fate.