The Topeka state journal., 1897-10-25
GHOULS CAN'T GET HIM
Pullman's Body is Encased il
Solid Rock.

Chicago, Ill, Oct. 25.-Learning wisdom
from the pages of history wherein it is
related that the body of Millionaire A t
Stewart was stolen from the grave and
held for ransom. together with the frus-
trated attempts of ghouls to secure pos
session of the body of the martyr presi-
dent, Lincoln, the family of George NJ
Pullman decided to protect his remains
and all Saturday night while the world
slept men were engaged in the work of
encasing the mahogany casket holding
the remains of the dead millionaire in
the heart of a solid rock, banded by bars
of steel, and impregnable to the attack of
vandals with picks or even dynamite it.
self.
A great rectangular pit was dug thir
teen feet long, nine feet wide and eight
feet deep. A flooring of concrete was
laid, strengthened and made solid by
bands of expanded metal. The work was
done with the utmost care and when COM
pleted there was a mass of concrete eigh-
teen inches thick at the bottom of the
excavation.
After the services at the grave and the
casket and it's contents, inclosed in the
heavy lead-lined mahogany box, had been
let below the surface, the workmen de-
scended into the sepulcher and moved the
lowered burden until it was equidistant to
a fraction of inch from the four sus-
tanning walls. Then they wrapped the
polished mahogany box in tar paper and
laid on, about and under it, an inch coat
ing of asphaltum, which hardened quick
ly. This coating will prevent the ingress
of air, and, except in the case of some
extraordinary disturbing event, will pre-
serve the body and the enclosing casket
for ages to come.
This work of asphalting the enclosing
wood being completed, the labor of fill
ing in great spaces at the head and sides
was begun. The surface of the concrete
floor was reheated and the fresher sub
stance was laid on it, the two masses CO.
alescing and forming one homogeneous
bulk. This process encased the asphalted
box in a stone-li1e mass to a level with
its upper lid.
The men worked until the enclosing
walls were half an inch above the as
phaltum coating. Then eight heavy steel
''IV' rails were brought and laid trans
versely across the top of the box, their
ends resting on the concrete walls at
either side and their lower surfaces clear
ing the asphaltum covering by just one
half an inch the distance to which the
side walls of concrete had been built
above the asphaltum. This space was
left to make an allowance for possible
settling, and to prevent the steel bars
with the weight of concrete above them
from crushing in the top of the envelop-
ing mahogany case.
AS soon as the rails were in place they
were bolted together with two strong iron
rods which passed through an orifice in
each rail and ran parallel to the side of
the lid of the coffin. More tar paper was
then called into use to prevent the flow of
the concrete into the half space between
the rails and the asphaltum, and the
work of walling in begun again.
Soon the ends of the rails were firmly
fmbedded in concrete and the same ma
terial rapidly rose under the quick work
of the men until the steel bars and their
rod connections were hidden from view,
and the remains of the palace car man
had fnterposed between them and an at
tack from above wall of stone and
steel.
Earth will be thrown on top the stony
mass. and the sods placed and the myrtle
planted when the grave Of George NJ
Pullman will differ in no outward respect
from the thousands of others under the
shadows of the trees of Graceland-