The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1877-08-03
CREMATION.
As Performed at Salt Lake City--The
Remains of DR.. C. F. Winslow
Reduced to Ashes in 4 Hours,
as Minutes.

The cremation of the body of the late
DR.. Charles F. Winslow took place at
Salt Lake last Tuesday evening, as the
telegraph has already announced. The
furnace had been fired up early in the
afternoon, and an hour before the cere-
mony commenced alarge number of
quite orderly citizens was upon the
grounds, awaiting events. At $50 the
body was brought from the sexton's
office and taken from the hearse by six
pail bearers who rested the casket con-
tanning it on two trestles near the rear
end of the furnace. Then a number of
ladies advanced through the crowd and
deposited upon it wreaths of flowers
and evergreens. In the meantime the
yard had been cleared of spectators save
a few of the deceased's friends and the
members of the medical profession.
After appropriate remarks by
prominent gentlemen, the face of the
dead, which was in an excellent state
of preservation, was exposed to view,
and was looked upon by a large crowd
who pressed into the Enclosure, and
afterwards somewhat retarded the ac-
tions of those conducting the ceremony.
The body, which had been wrapped
in a simple white shroud, was
lifted carefully from the casket and
placed on a sheet-iron tray, and just
large enough to hold it, and upon this
was carried by the pail bearers to the
door of the furnace, where it wa rest
ed on a platform erected exactly on a
level with the floor of the incarceration
chamber, the head toward the door.
The smoke and flames in the furnace
were then shut off by n damper in the
smaller smoke stack, and the door to
the receptacle for the body was swung
down, and at 600 O'Clock p. m. the
mortal remains of DIR. Winslow were
in the furnace, enveloped i'll a sheet of
fire, and the door quickly closed after
them.
For the first twenty-five minutes the
body could not be seen on account of
the density of the smoke and flames
which surrounded it, but a cracking
noise was quite distinct. BY the ex-
piration of the first half hour only the
roar of the fire was heard, and the
bones of the lower eXtremities became
visible, the flesh having entirely disap-
peared. At 7:20 the door to the incin-
Grafton chamber was opened, exposing
to full view the white and perfect skel-
eton. 1t was quickly closed, however,
and a constant watch through an aper-
ture in the furnace revealed the gradu-
al falling down of the small bones until
at the end of the second hour, when
the door was again opened, there was
only to be seen a shapeless mass of
crumbling bits of very white bone.
An artificial blast was put on the
furnace, and in thirty-fve minutes
longer, or in five minutes over two and
Il half hours in all, the body had en-
tirely been reduced to ashes. The
fires we're eXtinguished and the fur
mace was then allowed three-quarters
of an hour to cool, after which the dust
of the late DR.. Winslow was gathered
up, weighing four pounds eleven ounces
and q quarter. The ash is clean, and
after being removed was reduced in
bulk in a mortar. 1t will be preserved
in a case, as directed in the DOCTORS
will, and sent east to be placed in his
wife's coffin.
During the burning a most offensive
odor escaped from the flues and was OBJ
served by people fifty or sixty rods dis
tant from the furnace.
This is the third cremation ever per-
formed in the United States.