The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1892-01-05
ALIVE IN THEIR GRAVES,
A Young Girl Who Was Found Lying
on Her Side, With Ribbons
Torn to Shreds.

SAAA4~N
when they regain consciousness. Very
queer, incredible and strangely peculiar
are the stories related regarding these
incidents, but few of them are true.
The further they travel the better and
stranger stories they become.
Many incidents are on record of peo-
pie being buried alive, but during the
past fifty years not over eight people
are known to have met such horrible
fates. Every medical college has a
record Of such cases, and for the We
racity of the statements the physicians
who investigated the different cases,
had appearances only to guide them.
Twenty years ago." as Hazel
Kirke's old father exclaimed so many
times a night in the play, Minnie
Davis, a girl, young, beautiful, fasci-
mating and accomplished, died in the
little town of Asheville, N. @. 1t was
but few days before the day set for
her wedding that her death occurred,
the story goes. Before she died she
requested that the ring which her ex-
pected husband was to place upon her
finger when they were pronounced
man and wife he tied about her neck
with a ribbon. Needless to say her
wish was carefully carried out.
The physicians who attended were
puzzled by her illness, and when she
ceased to live they rather reluctantly
stated that heart disease was the
cause.
Two months after she was buried the
young man to whom she was to have
been married died. He begged that
the body of Minnie Davis be exhumed
and buried in the same grave with
him. His friends and the girls mother
promised to carry out his dying re-
quest.
When the coffin containing the dead
girl was raised from the grave the
mother asked to be allowed to gaze
once more on her dear ones face.
When the coffin cover was lifted a
horrible sight presented itself.
The mothers shrieks broke the
silence of the graveyard, and the grave
diggers, used to CHASTITY sights, stood
seemingly petrif1ed, gazing with hor-
r~or-stricken faces upon the sight that
the bright sunbeamsmade all the more
horrible.
The body was lying upon it's side in
stead of the back, and the blue ribbon
which held the wedding ring around
the neck was torn to countless shreds.
The features of the girl were contorted
and strangely %discolored, and the
muscles of the hands and arms were
drawn up in bunchesa as hard as iron.
Upon closer observation a startling
fact presented itself. The wedding
ring had been torn from the ribbon
and placed upon the fourth finger of
the left hand. The right hand was
tightly closed over it, as if to shield it
from envious eyes.
The town physicians made a careful
examination of the remains, and, al
though the body had been buried two
months, they declared that the girl
had not been dead over three weeks.
Imagine ones thoughts on awakening
and finding they are in the grave,
coffned and entombed alive. 1t is al
most too horrible to think of; but what
must it be to experienced
Another case where a man was
buried alive occurred in May, 1879, in
Rochester, N. Y. Henry Garlin was
the unfortunate mans name, and he
was one of the most prosperous and
respected men in the community.
Early one morning he vas found
lying in a stall beside a horse in his
barn. He had gone there but a few
minutes before to feed the cattle, and
the loud neighins of the horse attracted
the members of the family.
The unconscious man was carried
into the house and physicians hastily
summoned. After working owe him
for more than an hourthey pronounced
him dead, giving heart disease as the
cause.
He had always expressed a wish to
be buried in Albany, N, Y, where he
was born, but his wife being too i'll to
leave her home, they decided to place
his body in a vault and carry out his
wish at some later period.
Three weeks afterward a grave was
prepared in a cemetery in Albany, and
| Mrs. Garlin went to the tomb to take a
last look at her dead husband
The coffin was raised, a figure clothed
in black stole tremblingly up and a
pale face peered within the rosewood
case. There was a shrek, a heavy