The Nantucket Heart

By Shannon Webber (Summary and Analysis)

Home is where the heart is...literally.

This is the story of Dr. Charles F. Winslow, more specifically of his death. Dr. Winslow was a doctor, lawyer, author, and avid traveler. He grew up in Nantucket, Massachusetts and spent a great deal of his life in Cambridge, Mass with his wife. He moved to Salt Lake City, Utah after her passing. When he died on July 8, 1877, he left a very interesting request in his will for his children to find:

“I request, order, and command that if in the course of 8 and 40 hours it be positively and clearly proved that I am dead, my heart shall be removed from my body by some competent anatomist and placed immediately in a strong glass vessel having a ground glass stopper accurately fitted to same, and that this vessel be immediately filled for the purpose of embalming my heart, with a saturated solution, in hot water, of muriate of ammonia and sal ammonia, each of these salts being added to the boiling water until it will dissolve no more. Then alcohol may be added and the vessel filled therewith. The vessel must be stopped and sealed and the stopper securely covered with wet parchment and tied. I order this vessel put in a thick oak plank box, made of the size just to receive it, and the box saturated with coal tar; this I wish enclosed in a plain pine case and buried in the grave and over the remains of my dear and venerated mother in the South or Newtown burying ground, in the island of Nantucket, where I was born.

My dear and venerated father lies by my mother’s side, and a single stone records the final resting place. Thus may this sacred spot be known where I wish my heart to rest after my heart has been embalmed as above directed.

I order that my body be burned and placed in the same grave at Mount Auburn in Boston which contains the precious remains of my great, dear, and venerated wife…” (Snow, 123).

It did indeed come to pass that Dr. Winslow’s wishes were upheld, much to the protest of his children. Interestingly, what ended up becoming popular news at the time surrounding Winslow’s death was not in fact his heart being removed from his body but the cremation of the rest of him. In his book Purified by Fire, author Stephen R. Prothero discusses Winslow’s cremation and explains that it was in fact only the second cremation in “modern America” (42). Prothero goes onto explain that Winslow was attracted to the new concept of cremation because as a doctor he had had “unpleasant encounters with exhumed human remains” and goes onto add that his cremation attracted so much attention that “nearly 1,000 people were said to have witnessed his fiery end” (42). The ceremony was said to have consisted of Winslow being,

“embalmed and wrapped in a white linen sheet. Flowers and evergreens adorned his body. And he was carried lovingly and solemnly by pallbearers to the furnace door. Although ‘no prayer was uttered, no sermon preached, no funeral anthem sung,’ organizers went to great lengths to assure the purity of his ashes. After iron chips from the apparatus flaked off into the doctor’s remains, they were removed one by one before the remains were inurned…” (42).

This particular story piqued the interest of Edward Rowe Snow and upon hearing it in full, Snow went to the island of Nantucket to see if it was actually true. Upon locating Winslow’s mother’s grave, Snow got permission from Winslow’s living relatives to probe down into the ground and find the box. Snow did indeed get the permission and soon the box was found. Snow then got permission to open the box and inside he found the heart. Then, in order to prevent anyone from ever again questioning if Dr. Winslow’s heart was in fact on the island, Snow raised funds for a burial plaque that reads ‘The Heart of Dr. Charles F. Winslow Lies Buried Here.’ The plaque was placed on July 14^th, 1947 and it can be found today at Newtown Cemetery (Snow, 124-5).

This story could be used to discuss many interesting topics such as the history of cremation in the United States, but I believe that this story is particularly valuable because it shows the value of public history in modern society. In the writings of Grace Brown Gardner, a famous Nantucketer who is “renowned for her compilation of scrapbooks chronicling island life, history, and people” (Finger) one can find a list of ‘Fifty famous Nantucketers”. This list names Dr. Winslow #27 and states that “A few years ago no one would have even considered placing Dr. Charles F. Winslow among ‘Fifty Famous Nantucketers’”. He was a forgotten man who was brought to public attention through the curiosity of Edward Rowe Snow, the well-known author of books on New England subjects” (Fifty famous Nantucketers). Today the fascinating history of Dr. Winslow can live on without debate because of the determination of Edward Rowe Snow to make it known. Public history is about teaching history in a non-traditionally academic setting, and a gravesite exhumed, definitely fits that description.

Sources

Brown, Grace Gardner. “Fifty famous Nantucketers: #27 Charles Frederick Winslow 1811-1877.” Grace Brown Gardner Collection, 1900-1962. Nantucket Historical Association. Accessed September 8, 2019. https://nantuckethistory.org/.

Finger, Jascin. “Tag Archives: Grace Brown Gardner.” Maria Mitchell Association: Nantucket’s Science Center, last modified on March 16, 2015. https://www.mariamitchell.org/tag/grace-brown-gardner.

Prothero, Stephen. Purified by Fire: A History of Cremation in America. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 2001. Accessed February 15, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pnnhg.

Snow, Edward Rowe. Mysteries and Adventures Along the Atlantic Coast. Updated by Jeremy D’Entremont. Forward by Joseph E. Garland. 1948. Reprint, Carlisle, MA: Commonwealth Editions, 2004.

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AN ODD MAN’S WILL.: AN ODD MAN’S WILL. --- Heirs Call for an Accounting in the Estate of Dr. Winslow, Born in Nantucket, and Died in Salt Lake City in 1877. SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Feb. 27.—Messrs. Crapo, Clifford & Clifford, of New Bedford, Mass., have written to the clerk of the probate court of Salt Lake county, asking for information regarding the estate of Dr. Charles F. Winslow, who died in this city July 7, 1877. They say that no accounting has ever been made to the heirs, whom they represent. The will itself is unique. It is in the testator’s handwriting. Dr. Winslow was 65 years of age when he made it, in 1875. After naming the place of his birth, the Island of Nantucket, he “requested, ordered and commanded,” that 48 hours after it was clearly proved that he was dead, his heart should be removed by some competent anatomist and placed immediately in a strong solution of muriate of ammonia, sublimate of mercury, and the highest proof alcohol, and put into a glass vessel with a ground glass stopper accurately fitted and sealed; that this should be enclosed in a box of oak planks saturated with coal tar and enclosed in another box made of pine, and that the whole should be buried in the grave with the remains of his “dear and venerated mother in the south or Newton burying ground on the island of Nantucket, who sleeps beside the dear and excellent father, “ to whom he owed “his enlarged views of nature.” Another provision was that after his heart had been removed his body should be cremated and the ashes enclosed in a similar glass vessel and interred on the coffin of his “dear and venerated wife” in Auburn cemetery, Cambridge. In carrying out these arrangements he especially desired that all publicity be avoided, and expressly forbade any religious serve by any priest, minister or layman of any religious creed or sect, assigning as a reason that in the way he provided the dust of his remains would return to Mother Earth and the spirit to the God who gave it, and that all invocations to the Deity could not change this course of events. Dr. Winslow left six children. To each he left $10 in cash to be expended on some object which should be kept as a sacred remembrance of him. The income of the estate, which he figured would amount to about #+$3,000 a year, was to be equally divided between his two daughters, who were at that time unmarried, and this sum was to be paid them until they wedded. In the event of one of the two dying or marrying, the entire amount was to go to the other. After her marriage or death the sum so set apart was to go into the estate. The library of the Doctor was a large one and was left to the four boys as common property. To each of his grandchildren he left $50, which was to be expended in the same manner as the cash left each of the children. Among his books was a set printed in 1572-75, entitled “Civitates Orbis Terrarum,” which he valued at $10,000, and which he directed should be sold after his death and burial, the money to be placed at interest for the benefit of the heirs. A collection of shells, valued at $5,000, was ordered to be sold to some scientific institution, and $1,000 of the proceeds was to be devoted to the publication of his diaries and papers. Whether or not all of the provisions of the will were carried out does not appear on the record, the only matter on the books showing compliance being a bill of $1,550 for embalming the heart and cremating the body, which was done in this city. All the dead man’s ashes did not reach the cemetery where his wife lay, on account of the imperfect arrangements of those having the cremation in charge. The task was badly performed, and a lot of his charred bones were carried away by relic hunters. The attorneys in the case will probably set an investigation on foot and ask for an accounting from those in charge of the estate. The estate is now greatly enhanced in value, some of the real estate having increased at least 100 per cent. ~ Source: Newspapers.com ~ Creator: Fall River Daily Even News (Fall River, Massachusetts) ~ Date: March 1, 1895

SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL: SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL --- Cremation—The Best for Sanitary Reasons—Less Expensive—A Process of Great Scientific Skill—Its History --- The four principle ways of disposing of the dead have been: First, mummification: second, burning; third, interment fourth, aerial exposure. Of the first, practiced chiefly by the ancient Egyptians, and of the fourth, by many savage nations, I need say nothing at this time. In most nations, I need say nothing at this time. In most nations, savage and civilized, from time immemorial, it has been the custom to inter the bodies of the dead in the ground, or to seal them up more or less tightly in tombs. Though these may answer all sanitary purposes, and fulfill all the sacred obligations of the living to the departed, in scattered populations, they are attended with danger, always increasing in populous communities. This danger has practically been recognized by the fact that cemeteries have generally been placed without the limits of thickly inhabited districts. When persons, dead from infectious diseases, are buried in graves, they leave behind them to the public, as residuary legates, a fearful amount of danger; and faithfully and impartially is the deadly legacy divided among all dwelling within a circle of 1000 to 3000 feet of such graves. Earth will, to a certain extent, deodorize, but cannot destroy or impede the escape of minute poisonous germs. The danger from this source has never been fully appreciated by the public, entirely ignorant of the process of decomposition, and the products thereof. Of course, the decay of the body committed to the grave depends as to rapidity entirely on the soil and temperature. In the arctic regions decomposition is imperceptibly slow; in dry, torrid sands desiccation takes the place of putrefaction, and a kind of natural mummification takes place. In low, damp, or wet soils, in temperate zones, decay may be complete in one to one and one-half years, giving off deleterious gases for that length of time, with, perhaps, the seeds of contagious disease. In dry, high and airy soils the process is much slower and less dangerous. What is decomposition of the human body? What are its products? What its dangers? An English writer has DEFINED THE HUMAN BODY, CHEMICALLY, as forty-five pounds of carbon and nitrogen dissolved in five and one-half pailfuls of water, Oxygen, though the principle of life, is also the great destroyer; the moment life ceases our carbon by its agency is converted into carbonic acid, which escapes into the air, or is taken up by the roots of plants, according to the mode of sepulture; our nitrogen combines with some of the hydrogen of decomposition, forming ammonia, which escapes in a similar way; the water, which forms about two-thirds of our weight, is lost by evaporation. We are resolved, therefore, into gases, and the only dust which remains behind is the four or five pounds of lime salts, which constitute our bones and hard parts. Nature provides sufficient animate and inanimate agents for the removal of decaying animal substances in the air, on the ground, or just beneath its surface, and the more speedy in the hot and damp climates, where the results of decomposition are the most deleterious, provided man in his folly do not interfere with her processes. Man, by his mode of interring human bodies, contrives to prolong as much as possible the decay of his deceased brethren, thereby increasing to the utmost the possibility of poisoning the air, infecting the earth, and contaminating the water in the neighborhood of living beings. Air and surface burial permit free access to the myriads of minute living creatures whose office it is to convert into their own harmless substance the bodies of dead animals and men. In the grave of six feet or more in depth light and air are in a great measure excluded, and there is no access to the insects from whose eggs emerge the grubs or worms, from whose jaws popular belief expects the rapid and total destruction of the body. The truth is that the devouring worm is a myth, as much without foundation as the “dust” into which we are supposed to be resolved, and the results of decomposition are horrible enough in reality without adding any imaginary sensational accessories. THE MODERN PROCESS OF CREMATION is performed as follows: The crematory at Washington, Penn., is a brick structure one story high, thirty feet long, twenty feet wide, divided into two rooms, a reception room twenty feet square, including walls and a furnace room twenty feet by ten feet, including walls. Cremation is performed in a fire clay retort, such as is used in the manufacture of illuminating gas, but of a somewhat different shape, heated to a red heat before the body is introduced, which work requires about twenty-four hours. The body is placed in an iron crib made in the shape of a coffin, with small round rods, with feet three or four inches long, to keep it up off the bottom of the retort. These feet are inserted into a flat strip of iron two inches wide and a quarter inch thick, turned up at the ends so that the crib with the body will slide into the retort easily. In addition to the ordinary burial garments the body is covered with a cloth wet with a saturated solution of sulphate of aluminum (common alum), which, even when burned, retains its form, and prevents any part of the corpse from being seen until the bony skeleton begins to crumble down. During the cremation there is no order or smoke from the consuming body, as the furnace is a self-consumer or smoke and other vaporable matter. The time required to complete the operation is about two hours, but improvements in the process will doubtless shorten the time. A very SMALL PORTION OF THE REMAINS IS ASHES, But the mass is in the form of calcined bones in small fragments, very white, odorless, deprived of animal matter, and may be preserved any length of time without change. There are four to seven pounds of these remains from various sized adult bodies; they can be placed, for preservation, in a one-gallon druggist’s bottle, with large ground stopper, into which a photograph of the deceased, with appropriate record, can be placed before introducing the remains. This bottle can be placed in the columbarium of the crematory, kept among the cherished memorials of the family of the deceased, or placed beside other remains previously buried in cemeteries or graveyards. This building, with its appliances, costs about $1500. A plainer one, equally efficient, could now at the reduced cost of labor and materials, be built for $1000. An impression prevails that this crematory was erected for public accommodation, and that the owner of it follows cremation as a business for fees. This is a mistake. It was built for the use of its present proprietor and friends in the vicinity who concur with him in this reform. No fees have been charged nor never will be while in his possession. A not unimportant item in this process is the great diminution in the expense of funerals. The average expenditure for each body buried is $100, the average expenditure for each body buried is $100, the average cost by cremation is $20; the aggregate saving in the United States, from the adoption of this system, would annually amount to millions of dollars. The expense of cremation is less than that of an ordinary burial case. Cremation certainly is not barbarous, for it never entered, nor could it enter, into the heads of barbarous people. It is not burning; there is no pile of wood or other combustibles, no visible flame, no smoke, no sickening odor; it is a process of great scientific skill, the reduction of the body to ashes by the application of intense hear, 1000 to 2000 Fahrenheit, by which it is resolved into its chemical elements at once, and without the flame coming into contact with the body. We are all, more or less, carried away BY OUR EMOITONS AND SENSIBILITIES especially in the matter or the treatment of the bodies of our dear ones. As rational being we must not allow our instincts and emotions to run away with our reason, especially in a matter as important as this. The history of cremation in the United States is very brief, as the progress of such a radical change in long-established customs must, of necessity, be slow. The earliest known instance was a Colonel Henry Laurens, in South Carolina, in 1796. Including that, to the present time not more than eight, or, possibly, ten cases, have occurred, the last in the current year, and three or four in the crematory at Washington, Penn. Among those who left instructions for the disposal of their remains by cremation was Dr. Charles F. Winslow of California, a former member of the Society of Arts, whose body was cremated about five years ago in Salt Lake City, in a temporary furnace erected by his command by the administrators of his estate. The Washington (Penn.) crematory has had nearly 100 applications, which have been declined, as the trustees do not intend to follow it as a business. They will permit only an occasional cremation there for the purpose of keeping the subject before the public and of hastening the disappearance of the prejudice which exits against this mode of disposing of the dead. It is believed by them that similar structures will be built at other places, and they will furnish for such laudable purpose any information which their experience enables them to give. Leaving out of the question, then, all but sanitary reasons, cremation is far preferable to earth burial, and we cannot but think that by degrees this reform will supplant prejudiced superstition, the pomp and profits of undertakers, and give to the living that immunity from many diseases arising from foul air, impure water and poisoned earth, which they are entitled to receive from the progress of sanitary science.—[Dr. Samuel Kneeland. ~ Source: Newspapers.com ~ Creator: The Boston Weekly Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) ~ Date: June 20, 1882

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Shannon Webber (Summary and Analysis), “The Nantucket Heart,” Histories or Stories? The Power of Historical Narratives, accessed April 24, 2024, https://dh2020.rawhistories.com/items/show/6.

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Published on Jan 28, 2020. Last updated on Feb 15, 2020.

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