Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1892-12-01
HEWAs BURIED ALIVE,

HEWAs BURIED ALIVE,
Sensations of a Man Who Lay
for Three Hours IN His Grave.
.I'1l wager tie vine there is not
q gentleme; present Who can
guess with 20 years of my age,"
said Calvir s. Freeman who sat
talking with some fellow travelE
ing men. The guesses ran all the
way from 48 to IS.
81 am just "a years DID," said
Mr.. Freeman. "I was born in 1853
i grew old in day. I have passed
through the most terrible ordeal to
which a mortal was subjectedI
was buried alive and lay in the,
grave, with six feet Of earth on
top of me- for nearly three hours.
That was at Edinburg, Scotland,
nine years ago. I was born in that
city. At5the age Of q I married 9
girl who had been my playmate in
childhood. Ayear later I was taken
sick, and, after an illness of but
two days, WIS pronounced dead,
and preparations was made for my
burial.
~ was as consiousa as at this mo-
ment, but unable to speak or move
a muscle. A great weight seemed
to lie on my chest and eyelids. All
that night and until 10 o'clock
next day=sI lay with a cloth over
my face, listening to the
preparations fer my interment. At
that hour I was placed in coffin,
the fureral sevices were read, and
| I was eonsifned to the grave.
There was no sitting sensation,
Ifor I had ceased to breathe, but
the black loneliness of those hours
haunt me day and night. l felt
THAT I could come out of the trance
state before death ensued, would
slowly smother to death, and the
1 Thought added horror to my situ-
alton.
81 had read Of graves being
opened where people had been
buried alive and how they had
torn their flesh with their nails
and turned oyor in their coffins in
"a mad struggle for air. / wondered
LIE there was any way by which /
@could quickly destroy mysels when
mature asterted its sway, Every.
Ihour seemed to me as days. It
twas Tuesday when / was buried.
!. Isfancied I could hear the Sunday
Ichimesof the church which stood
lafew yards distant, / wondered
lIWho my neigh bori was on the right
4 and who on the left, and if they,
too, were buried alive. l wondered
1ifthere really was such a thing as
death, or if / was doomed to lie
4 fconseious in, that prison forever.
ssnded dynlY ] felta muscle
sItwitch. sIt is coming now. ]
1 thought. a minute more and ]
twill be struggling for breath IL
q Ifelta faint futter at the heart. ]
Shgayes q little gasp, and the ali
,Jsesmed freighted with lead 4
:: drawing fetid water into my lungs
1 had resolved not to move a
muscle, to die with my hands
folded on my breast, SO that if my
body was ever taken up my friends
, would not suspect the awful trnth
but / could not lie still. The
, struggle began, and I fought in my
, narrow prison house as a man only
! fights for lie. Horrible assit was
l seemed to hear my wife's voice
ringing in my ears. I was cry
, of agony. Itried to answer it, bur
, could not.
"Asuccession of thunder peall
shook my prison house. 1t was the
: heavy blows of axes breaking oper
! the box which contained the coffin
!. A moment later I was lying on the
churchyard sward in my wife's
!, arms. After my interment she
conceived the notion that I hac
3 been buried alive, and to quiet hel
fears, the grave young man, anc
came out aged, as you see me
now.-[St. Louis Globe Democrat.
' Don't fail to buy your bill ot
E Shoes from j: M. Cobb while at
tending Court. Edgefeld's Head