I visited the Harrison Vault in October 2022. In the photograph I am standing with Beverly Meyers, the manager of the tomb complex. She is the only person who has the key to the vault. President William Henry Harrison’s tomb is behind the plaque on the right side, and John Scott Harrison’s grave is behind the plaque in the left lower corner
The Harrison Horror!
By Dr Khalid Siddiqui
Ohio
Congressman John Scott Harrison (October 4, 1804 – May 25, 1878) was a US Congressman from Ohio whose father President William Henry Harrison was the 9 th US President, and his son General Benjamin Harrison was the 23 rd US president. He is the only person to have been both the son and the father of US presidents.
In May 1878 Augustus Devin, a twenty-three years old nephew of John Scott Harrison, unexpectedly died in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was buried at the Congress Green Cemetery in North Bend, Ohio. On May 25, 1878, John Scott Harrison also died unexpectedly. His son, General Benjamin Harrison, who lived in Indiana, got on a train to be with his family at Point Farm, Ohio, to attend the funeral services of his father. Scott Harrison was to be buried also at the Congress Green Cemetery in North Bend, Ohio close to the tomb of Augustus Devin who had died and was buried there only one week earlier.
When the funeral party arrived at the cemetery, it found that the grave of Augustus Devin had been robbed – Augustus’ body had been stolen! The prime suspects were the professional body snatchers who were known to rob the graves and sell the dead bodies to the Anatomy Department of medical colleges. General Benjamin Harrison was worried that someone might do the same to his father, John Scott Harrison's, dead body. He took all the precautionary measures.
John Scott Harrison’s body was sealed in a metal casket. On May 29th, 1878 an eight-foot deep grave was dug, and a brick vault was built inside the grave. The casket was lowered into the vault. Three heavy stone slabs were placed over the vault and cemented together. Then finally, the rest of the hole on top of the stones was filled in with sand. This fool-proof arrangement was supervised by General Benjamin Harrison, the son of the deceased, himself. General Harrison, fearful that the body snatchers would return, paid a watchman $30 in advance to stand guard over the grave for 30 nights until the body decomposed enough to make it useless for dissection. Then General Harrison and his wife returned to Indianapolis leaving other family members in Cincinnati to resume the search for the missing body of Augustus Devin.
As the Medical College of Ohio in Cincinnati was the prime suspect, the search party made a start there. The irritated janitor reluctantly showed them around the building, taking them from room to room, so that they could see for themselves that there were no illegal dead bodies at the Ohio Medical College. They found nothing. When they were about to leave, the police constable who had accompanied them noticed something strange hanging in the wind shaft of a room. On close inspection a naked dead body was found hanging there. The dead body was hanging by a rope tied around the neck and its face was covered with a piece of cloth. After the cloth was removed, what they found was not the dead body of Augustus Devin but that of John Scott Harrison who was buried so securely just a day before! The guard placed at the tomb had fled the very first day with the $30 advance money.
The family sent a telegram to General Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, who immediately returned to Cincinnati. The police, who were not very helpful initially, took some action once General Harrison was in town. Mr Marshall, the janitor in the Ohio Medical College, was arrested and charged. This didn’t please the medical school staff, who all rallied around Mr Marshall and posted his $5,000.00 bail. This action by the medical school faculty did not please the press and the citizens of Cincinnati, who felt that if this could happen to the body of someone like John Scott Harrison, it could happen to anyone. Because of this negative publicity the medical school faculty issued an apology.
John Scott Harrison’s body was reburied – this time at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, and the search for the body of Augustus Devin continued. Ohio Medical College faculty and staff were questioned again, this time before a grand jury. But they didn't have much to say, even under oath. General Harrison hired a local detective agency. It was found that a Charles Morton from Toledo, Ohio was head of a gang of body snatchers, and that his gang was responsible for both the thefts. Finally, the Ohio Medical College professors admitted to the grand jury that they had entered into a contract with unnamed body snatchers to receive a regular supply of cadavers each year so that they had the "material" they needed to properly educate their students. According to them, they were under the impression that private burials were not to be disturbed. Bodies were supposed to be coming from public burying grounds, or places where paupers or unclaimed bodies from hospitals and prisons were buried…people they seemed to think mattered less. Morton couldn’t be located.
The janitor of another medical school in Cincinnati came forward confirming that they too purchased bodies from Morton. He disclosed that some of the bodies had gone to Ann Arbor, Michigan, disguised with the labels that read "Quimby & Co." A detective set off right away to Ann Arbor. The barrel labeled "Quimby & Co" was located. Sure enough, inside that barrel of pickled bodies was.... finally, poor Augustus Devin.
Devin was finally laid to rest. There were, however, pending trials against Charles Morton and the janitor Mr Marshall. The trials dragged on because of lack of cooperation from the medical faculty. In desperation General Harrison filed civil suits in the amount of $10,000 for the costs of the investigation and the pain and suffering caused by the terrible ordeal. The outcomes of the criminal and civil cases are lost, as all the records were destroyed when the County Court House was burned down in 1884! Sounds familiar.
In reaction to the Harrison Horror, however, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan passed amended Anatomy Acts that increased the penalties for grave-robbing and allowed medical schools to use unclaimed bodies of people who died in the care of the state (paupers, orphans, the insane, prisoners) for anatomical dissection. But enforcement was lax, and with demand still outstripping supply, resurrectionists would ply their lucrative trade in the United States well into the 20th century.
After one year, John Scott Harrison’s body was moved from Spring Grove Cemetery to William Henry Harrison Memorial, North Bend, Ohio. Many other members of the Harrison family, including President William Henry Harrison, are buried inside a vault there. General Harrison was elected 23th president of the US (in between the two terms of President Grover Cleveland) in 1889. He died in 1901 and was buried in Indianapolis, Indiana.
I visited the Harrison Vault in October 2022. In the photograph I am standing with Beverly Meyers, the manager of the tomb complex. She is the only person who has the key to the vault. President William Henry Harrison’s tomb is behind the plaque on the right side, and John Scott Harrison’s grave is behind the plaque in the left lower corner.
