The Delaware Gazette

VERY REMARKABLE.

Account of a dead body found under the porch of Christ Church, in Boston, Massachusetts, in a high state of preservation.

A circumstance occurred a short time since, while the workmen were repairing Christ Church in this town, and erecting some new tombs under it, that deserves to be recorded in the Anthology. The ground under the porch at the entrance of the Church was directed to be dug up, this spot having been given for the erection of two tombs. At the distance of six feet from the surface, a grave was discovered, in which was found a coffin of hard pitch pine, commonly called the Norway pine, very little decayed, which, on being opened, contained another of the same wood, very handsomely made, and not at all injured; the lid of this being lifted showed a body wrapped in a tarred sheet, that, on being removed from the face, presented the countenance of a man that appeared quite recently to have died; his flesh was fresh and florid, as though just shaved; the flesh hard to the touch, and every appearance of a new corpse, from a short and not painful illness: two or three sprigs of myrtle or box, green as just cut from the stock, were also lying on the outside of the tarred sheets. Both coffins had on their lids, in brass nails, the letters I. T. and a grave stone, at the head of the grave, declared the person interred there to be Mr. John Thomas, of the Island of Barbadoes, aged 45 years, who died 25th June, A. D. 1726, more than eighty two years ago. The number of persons who came to see this curious fact, from the fineness of the preservation, and the manner of it, induced the wardens to direct the coffin to be closed again and buried, which it is, at the N. E. corner of the church. The soil under the porch was a yellow clay, mixed with small stones and some gravel. Whether the body had been partially embalmed previous to interment is not known; but the verdure of the sprigs of myrtle induces one to think it may be owing wholly to the exclusion of external air; yet his being of Barbadoes, and such care taken of the corpse, with a view perhaps to removal, would occasion one to imagine the intestines had been taken out, and herbs substituted. The fact is, however, as stated, and the curious may draw their own conclusions.