With the high mortality rate due to lack of medical knowledge and medicine, people of the Victorian era have been referred to by historians as “professional mourners”. A fashionable way to mourn at the time was to use a tear catcher, a small bottle or vile used to catch tears. Some tear catchers contained special stoppers which allowed for slow evaporation of tears while others did not contain stoppers, allowing for quicker evaporation. When evaporation was complete and the bottle or vile was empty, it was said that person’s mourning period was over. Tear catchers came in a variety of shapes, sizes and extravagance, some even being worn as jewelry.
Have you ever laughed so hard you couldn’t breathe? Be glad the laughter eventually ended. This blurb appeared in newspapers throughout multiple states in 1893.
“LAUGHED HIMSELF TO DEATH
Wesley Parsons, an aged and well-known farmer died at Laurel, Ind., under peculiar circumstances. While joking with friends he was seized with a spell of laughing, being unable to stop. He laughed for nearly an hour, when he began hiccoughing, and two hours later he died from exhaustion.”
What does this antique doll have to do with a woman being buried alive? This is the sad story of Octavia Hatcher.
Eventual wealthy businessman, James Hatcher, married Octavia Smith in 1889. James was 30. Octavia was 20. At the end of 1890, the couple had their first and only child, Jacob, who passed away shortly after his birth due to an illness in January 1891. Octavia became ill herself following her son’s death, becoming bedridden over the next few months. She eventually slipped into a coma. Her breathing became so shallow that she was pronounced dead of unknown causes on May 2, 1891. It was said at the time that she died of a broken heart following the loss of her child. James was beside himself with grief, losing his son and now losing the love of his life, Octavia, at just 22 years of age. A funeral was immediately arranged and she was buried in Pikeville Cemetery in Pikeville, Kentucky.
Several days later, others began exhibiting similar symptoms to Octavia’s, also slipping into a coma but coming out of it after some time. It was discovered that a certain fly, known as the Tsetse Fly, would bring a sleeping sickness to those it bit. James Hatcher and his family began to worry if Octavia had been bitten by this fly and hadn’t actually passed away. James ordered an emergency exhumation. The coffin was lifted out of the ground and opened. Inside, the lining of the lid was torn. Octavia’s fingers were bloody, and her face was contorted in panic. Octavia had been buried alive. Now actually deceased, she was reburied. James would never fully recover from this incident.
Following Octavia’s reburial, James had a life-sized monument of her erected where she lay. The monument featured Octavia holding their infant son, Jacob. At some point, vandals broke off Octavia’s hand holding the infant and stole it. A new monument for Jacob was made and given its own place on the ground in front of Octavia’s. In another way of memorializing his wife, James had this doll designed in her likeness, keeping it as a memento until his own death. The doll is now displayed at the Big Sandy Heritage Center in Pikeville, Kentucky.
The photo below of Octavia Hatcher is the only image of her known to exist (all copies I found of it appear to be fuzzy). She is around 20 years of age in this photo, her whole life ahead of her, not realizing it would very shortly come to an accidental and horrific end. James never remarried and passed away in 1939 at the age of 80.
On September 14, 1855, 23-year-old Lizzie Bourne, her cousin Lucy Bourne, and her uncle, Judge George Bourne (Lucy’s father), hiked up Mount Washington in Sargent’s Purchase, New Hampshire. Their plan was to hike up the mountain, watch the sunset, stay overnight at the Summit House (also known as the Tip Top House) at the top of the mountain, and return home the following day. Summit House was a place where hikers could stay overnight.
It was chilly and raining that morning, yet the three hiked as planned. Lizzie wore the typical heavy clothing women wore at the time – pantaloons, a heavy skirt, and petticoat. About halfway up the mountain, Lizzie’s clothing, wet with rain, which had ended a short time ago, began weighing her down. The further they climbed the mountain, the colder it became, and the more Lizzie began freezing in her soaked attire.
Day gave way to night and the Bourne trio were still two miles away. They had not reached the summit before nightfall as they had intended. The darkness taking away their visibility, they continued hiking but were now unaware of what progress, if any, was being made. As icy winds picked up, George decided it was best if they stopped, slept where they were and continued again in the morning.
(It should be noted that Lizzie was born with a heart defect. With minimal medical knowledge of the time, it was not understood that people with weak hearts should avoid certain strenuous activities.)
That morning brought further heartbreak to George when he looked up to see the Summit House before him, just 300 feet away, as seen in the old postcard below. They had nearly made it, where Lizzie could have warmed up by the office’s coal burning stove, also seen below.
Rev. Larned Eastman and his wife were staying at the Summit House that night and helped George and Lucy bring in Lizzie’s body that morning to try and revive her. Eastman wrote in his diary, “Miss Lizzie Bourne, of Kennebunk Me., perished but a short distance from the Tip Top House, where we were comfortably sleeping. How painful the fact was to us, I can never describe. We were the only company present on that beautiful yet very sad morning. I helped to carry in the dead girl. After making every possible effort to revive the dear girl without success, and to comfort and make comfortable the uncle and his daughter who did but just survive the terrible night, our guide having returned, we proposed to descend.”
Lizzie’s funeral took place a few days later, heavy rains having delayed the service. Her family erected a stone pyramid monument for her on Mount Washington where she had passed away. The monument remained there for some time, as seen in the photo below from 1902. The monument was eventually removed, and a permanent sign posted in its place, as seen below.
Judge George Bourne, a healthy and robust man in his 50s, never recovered from his niece’s death, his health rapidly declining. He died 15 months later of typhoid fever in December 1856.
There had been other deaths on Mount Washington both before and after Lizzie’s. However, Lizzie’s is the best documented due to her uncle and cousin surviving to tell the story.
What happens when a student kills a teacher’s pet bird? It leads to a chain of murders. This story, out of Alabama, was published in newspapers nationwide, the report below appearing in The Daily Dispatch (a Richmond, Virginia newspaper), dated August 16, 1856.
