Fisk Metallic Burial Cases and the Old Catholic Cemetery
It is, perhaps, one of the most popular photographs in the W.C. Brown Collection — especially this time of year, when ghouls and goblins are rumored to roam freely on the eve of All Saints Day.
“1896 — These iron coffins, resembling Egyptian mummy cases were found in the old Catholic cemetery near the old Reyman brewery. As Wheeling was an iron city, it is likely that they were made here. They were used in England and Germany during the 19th century.”
-W.C. Brown
Standing sentinel, high on a high hill, a mummified iron casket keeps watch over a fallen friend in the abandoned cemetery. Propped stiffly against empty burial vault walls, all that remains of what was once entombed inside is an empty black face that peers eerily out towards East Wheeling.
The Old Catholic Cemetery
The Old Catholic Cemetery, otherwise known as Manchester Cemetery, sat on the hillside above Rock Point Road near the intersection of Reymann Street.
According to a history of Wheeling cemeteries found in “History of Wheeling city and Ohio County, West Virginia and representative citizens,” edited and compiled by Hon. Gibson Lamb Cranmer, 1902: “Prior to the year 1850-51 the Roman Catholics of this city had no regular or rather no peculiar place for burying their dead, but disposed of them in the various graveyards of the city. When, however, the ordinance of council in regard to the removal of the Hempfield cemetery [current site of the library and former site of the B&O rail yards] was passed, they began to cast around for a site or place of interment that should be exclusively Catholic, and by and by, with the advice and consent of Bishop Whelan, purchased a portion of the ground at the base of the hill, northwest of Manchester. This piece of ground came off the Reilly estate. The Catholic dead were at once removed to the new cemetery from the Hempfield and other graveyards, and in a few years became quite full.”
When the Diocese opened Mt. Calvary Cemetery in 1872, bodies from the Old Catholic Cemetery were reinterred — and possibly re-reinterred — in the new cemetery on National Road.
Fisk’s Patented Metallic Burial Cases
“To all whom it might concern. Be it known that I, ALMOND D. FISK, of the city of New York, in the State of New York, have invented a new and useful manner of constructing an Air-Tight Coffin of Cast or Raised Metal; and I do hereby declare that the following’ is a full and exact description thereof.”
– U.S. Patent Application, November 14, 1848
Almond D. Fisk was granted his patent in 1848, and the “Fisk metallic burial cases” were born. Created so that the “air may be exhausted so completely as entirely to prevent the decay of the contained body on principles well understood; or, if preferred, the coffin may be filled with any gas or fluid having the property of preventing putrefaction,”
The mystery of our black face peering out into East Wheeling? A decorative iron plate covered a glass window which allowed mourners to “behold again the features of the bereaved.”
Creepy as that may sound, the Fisk caskets enjoyed popularity for many years and several dignitaries — including John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay, who was instrumental in bringing the National Road through Wheeling — were entombed in one of these patented iron coffins.
Indeed, the fashionable burial devices made their way to the Upper Ohio Valley in the mid-19th century, and Fisk caskets were sold by several merchants in Wheeling during the 1860s and 1870s.
The Demise of Manchester Cemetery
Following the reinterment of bodies from Old Catholic Cemetery to Mt. Calvary, the old cemetery on the hill above East Wheeling fell into disrepair. Vandalism soon followed.
A June 11th, 1890 article from the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer reported: “A man who was passing the old Catholic Cemetery in Manchester . . . was horrified to see a crowd of boys playing with a skull stuck on the end of a stick . . . A few days before boys were seen in the same cemetery kicking a skull for a foot-ball, and they varied the game by trying to kick the teeth out. Residents near the place say that it is not an uncommon thing for boys to play pitch and toss with skulls which they find on the ground there.”
Today, Manchester Cemetery is not much more than a few leaning tombstones in a wood. Protected by a “No Trespassing” sign by order of the Wheeling Police, the grave site remains relatively undisturbed.
To learn more about Fisk caskets and 19th century funerary customs, listen to an interesting interview with Jon N. Austin, Executive Director of the Museum of Funeral Customs in Springfield, Illinois. The interview was conducted by the Hidden Truths Project documenting The Chicago City Cemetery and Lincoln Park.
