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FILE 121 · VOL XX · The Dead Are Still Working
They Built Coffins With Bells So the Buried Could Call for Help. One Is Still Ringing.
Nobody was ever saved by a safety coffin. That does not mean nobody rang.
Based on: Safety Coffins
Intake record
| Recovered from | Bell tower of a decommissioned rural cemetery chapel, Licking County, Ohio |
|---|---|
| Contents | A cast-iron bell with a frayed cord, a sexton's night log from 1871, an 1868 patent drawing, a cemetery groundskeeper's phone recording |
| Finder | Russ Kettering, cemetery groundskeeper |
| Status | The patents and the fear are documented. The bell's cord leads underground. |
Recovered file
In the 1700s and 1800s, people were terrified of being buried alive. [1]
It was not a silly fear. Doctors could not always tell when someone was dead. There were no heart monitors. A person in a deep coma, or very cold, or with certain illnesses, could seem lifeless. Stories spread of coffins dug up and found with scratch marks on the inside of the lid. Some of the stories were true. [1]
Edgar Allan Poe wrote a famous story about it in 1844 called "The Premature Burial." It was about a man so afraid of waking up in a grave that it ruined his life. [1]
Inventors saw a market. They designed what were called safety coffins. [1]
Some had a breathing tube that ran from the coffin up to the surface. Some had a little window. Many had a cord tied to the dead person's hand, running up through a tube to a bell above the grave. If the person woke up in the coffin, they could pull the cord and ring the bell, and someone would dig them out. [1]
In 1868, an inventor in Newark, New Jersey, named Franz Vester received a U.S. patent for a burial case with a tube to the surface, a ladder inside the tube, and a bell to ring for help. [2] Many similar patents followed in America and Europe. [1]
Cemeteries in some places paid night watchmen to listen for the bells. [1]
There is a popular saying that the phrase "saved by the bell" comes from these coffins. That is not true. It comes from boxing. No safety coffin is known to have ever saved anyone. [1]
The bells, though, did sometimes ring. Bodies swell and shift as they decay, and the cords pulled. Wind moved them. Animals tugged at them. [1]
The watchmen learned not to run every time they heard one.
The rest of this file is sealed. The ending, the sources and the archivist's note unseal with the file.
Unseal File 121 ($2.99) · its volume · everything ($49.99)
Built on real, cited records. The stories are dramatized. Disclaimer · If you are in crisis in the U.S., call or text 988.