My maternal 3rd Great
Grandfather’s distant grave has intrigued me for years. Nestled in a family lot within
a small cemetery where lilacs once bloomed, Titus Dort’s unique burial plot is
unlike any other I had ever seen.
Although the old
headstone is deeply-weathered, broken from its base and almost illegible after standing
guard over his final resting place for nigh unto one hundred and fifty years,
it serves as a traditional marker over a rather untraditional grave.
Originally, the large headstone
and small footstone (now detached from their bases) were anchor-points, securing
the ends of a grave that was inexplicably covered with a metal sheet specially
designed for that purpose.
But…for what purpose?
That was my question four years
ago when I found two photographs of Titus Dort’s grave that a fellow ancestrydotcom
contributor had posted as a tree hint. I have since discovered that the
originals were uploaded by a dedicated Find-a-Grave volunteer who has supplied
thousands of images and information for the website’s memorials. And, had it
not been for the cooperation and interest of such generous family historians, I
might never have found myself in such a grave conundrum.
In recent attempts to solve the
mystery of my ancestor’s grave covering, I found myself being led down some interesting, but largely unrelated, rabbit holes of discovery. For instance,
while searching for “late 19th century metal grave covers,” I found
an online article written by Alan Finn for mentalflossdotcom in which he
introduces a list of “7 Weird Graveyard Inventions”:
“If
necessity is the mother of invention, death is its eccentric aunt. For
centuries, humankind has been preoccupied with what happens to our bodies after
we die. The result has been a grim procession of inventions intended to make
our graves safer, sturdier, and in some cases, easier to flee. Some of these
grave innovations are practical, but others border on the bizarre and downright
creepy.” (Finn)
Among those “weird graveyard
inventions” were things like the Safety Coffin and Escape Coffin, both of which
were designed to assuage the morbid pre-Victorian fear of accidently being
buried alive. In contrast to inventive means for “getting out” of a coffin,
other designs such as the Mortsafe featured iron-clad deterrents against “getting
in,” to thwart grave-robbing “body snatchers” during the 17th,
18th, and 19th centuries who illegally exhumed corpses from
fresh graves—all in the name of medical science and profit. Mostly profit. And don’t
even get me started on the use of Coffin Torpedoes that booby-trapped graves, a
post-Civil War lethal defense
against grave robbers.
Although all these inventions
were fascinating, (and sometimes wildly creative!) none of them helped me to
understand why my great-great-great grandfather had a metal plate covering his
grave. Despite the fact that it was badly damaged—undoubtedly age- and weather-related—the
cast iron cover had a simple, utilitarian appearance with its rivets, vented
dome, and rough finish. It looked like it had been unearthed. To my untrained
eye it definitely fit into the “weird” category.
But upon closer inspection, I
noticed something. Although the lettering was partially obscured in the photo,
it appeared to be a patent mark with a date of JUL[Y]. Not much to go on, I’ll
admit, but it was a start. So, with that tiny clue, I set out to discover who
created Titus Dort’s grave covering and, more importantly, why.
Fast-forward through lots of
rabbit holes, and that little clue led me to other examples of the same design
over two other graves in two other cemeteries—one in Illinois and the other in a
Michigan county bordering Illinois. Between the two, I could finally confirm
both the inventor and the purpose of my ancestor’s unusual grave covering.
The following photo comparison shows
the written detail from the Illinois grave cover:
In a Youtube video by
Faces of the Forgotten, entitled
“BURIED ALIVE - The Grave is Sealed,
But There Is A Small Way Out!...” the host provides a closeup of the patent
info
“PAT.MAR.9[?] JULY 13, 1875.” Video footage of the grave strongly
suggests it is the same design as Titus Dort’s grave cover. However, the
narrator is mistakenly convinced that the grave cover shown is an Escape
Coffin. When I did an internet search of the patent information shown in the
video, it was revealed that the pictured grave cover and the grave cover over
my ancestor’s grave are both the invention of a man named Robert Sipes.
(Spoiler:
Sipes did not create Escape Coffins.)
[NOTE PATENT DATE
(JULY
13, 1875) ON DIAGRAM]
What Robert Sipes created,
however, was something much less weird and much more practical than an Escape
Coffin. His patent information explains:
“This
invention has relation to improvements in grave-covers, wherein are employed
cast-iron boxes for covering the mound, and marble head and foot stones for
receiving the inscription.
“The
object of the invention is, in the first place, to protect the marble head and
foot stones from becoming stained in consequence of the oxidization of the
grave-cover, and in the second place to prevent the pins whereby the stones are
secured to the grave-cover from being injured by the moisture of the earth. “
A second online source confirms
Sipes as the inventor with a photo of a grave that shows the same protective metal design that was used over the
grave of Titus Dort. It is a post entitled “Grave Covers” written by Kim
Jacobson. In the article she states:
“Robert H.
Sipes of Everett, Pennsylvania obtained a patent for a “new and valuable
improvement” in grave-covers on July 13, 1875 that was more resilient to
northern weather than the Abrams cover. - According to the patent: it is well
known that cast-iron grave covers or guards, having the usual box-like form,
will not stand the hard freezing of cold climates. The expansion of wet earth
when frozen in such covers causes them to crack and become broken. - The Sipes
covers included a marble head and foot stone as opposed to the cast-iron Abrams
head-plates that typically rusted through and have since disappeared.” [Note: Abrams also invented a protective cast
iron grave cover found mostly in the South—much more decorative than Sipes’
design, also much more susceptible to harsh weather conditions.]
After
examining all of the information I was able to gather online, I am relieved to know
that my great-great-great grandfather’s grave wasn’t weird after all. Although Mr. Sipes’ patented
product was designed to weather even our coldest Midwest winters, the deterioration
of the cover over my ancestor’s grave suggests that the Sipes Grave Cover was
no match for Mother Nature in Michigan.
The abstract of a paper found on
academiadotedu suggests that I wasn’t alone in my initial confusion and
misunderstanding of the unique type of burial tribute that was chosen to mark
my ancestor’s grave. Entitled “The Cast Iron Grave Cover: A Case of Mistaken
Identity and Identity Found,” the abstract states:
“An object, tentatively identified as a cast-iron casket lid, appeared to
be eroding out of the ground in an east-central Illinois rural cemetery.
Appropriate authorities were notified in the anticipation of re-interment, but
subsequent research determined that the object was a cast-iron grave cover, a
rare and scarcely recognized mortuary accoutrement. The revelation afforded the
opportunity to systematically examine a mid-nineteenth century death custom and
artifact, and to ultimately reunite the grave cover and its associated grave
with its dislocated gravestone.”
SOURCES:
[Terry Lack. Find-a-Grave contributor. Photos of Titus
Dort’s grave at findagravedotcom]
[Alan Finn. mentalflossdotcom article “7 Weird Graveyard Inventions,”
18 July 2018 https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/59584/7-weird-graveyard-inventions
]
[Faces of the Forgotten.
Youtube video 26 Jan 2021] (BURIED ALIVE-The Grave is Sealed, But There is a Small Way Out!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woPhHiBsz_4 Bellflower, IL (minute 23:36 -close up of
patent info “PAT.MAR.9[?] JULY 13, 1875”)
[Kim Jacobson. from online
article, Grave Covers, September 26, 2022 “Sipes Metallic Grave-Cover” https://symbolism.magnoliasandpeaches.com/2022/09/grave-covers/
]
[Naso, Steven Di, and Bill
Lovekamp. The Cast Iron Grave Cover: A Case of Mistaken Identity and Identity
Found. https://www.academia.edu/14136435/The_Cast_Iron_Grave_Cover_A_Case_of_Mistaken_Identity_and_Identity_Found]
ABSTRACT
[Google Patents.“Improvement
in grave covers.” R(obert) H. Sipes. https://patents.google.com/patent/US165622A/en
U.S. Patent Office]
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