The Tale of Dr. Timothy Smith

The Tale of Dr. Timothy Smith
Evergreen Cemetery
New Haven, Vermont

Imagine waking up and finding yourself in a dark place, pitch black. Not so scary so far, but wait: you then feel around and find yourself in an enclosed place. You may think your in some sort of crate, but when you push up, the roof of it doesn't move. It's very cold and claustrophobia starts to set in. If you were lucky someone may hear your screams in the dead of the night, but if you weren't, then you would never know you were just buried alive. This scary event rarely happens in today's society, but it was an almost everyday occurrence in the day of our ancestors.

How could something like this happen? Back then, there wasn't the technology that we have now to determine a person as deceased. Someone could be very ill, slip into coma, and they would seem like they had passed away. They "fixed" this problem by having a loved one stand by them in the case that the so called deceased would wake up, a few actually did.

Even though premature burial is on the border of impossible here in the United States, mistakes still happen. A few instances I've found over the years include: In 1984, a pathologist (a person who studies disease) was making the first cut on a "dead" body, when the cut was made the body leaped up and grabbed the poor soul by the throat and the pathologist literally died of shock.

Being buried alive though is an actual fear that is called taphephobia, it can also refer to a fear of cemeteries; the fear was such a concern that a doctor by the name of Count Karnice-Karnicki patented in 1897 a device that would let bystanders know that someone who was buried was actually alive. This system had a spring loaded ball on the corpses chest that when the corpse moved, it would release the spring where up on top was a box that would open, bring in air, light up the casket, and set off a flags and whistles to let people that this corpse was alive.

The fear was so intense that one doctor, from Vermont, took it upon him that if he was buried alive then he'd have the tools to get out. This is the tale of Dr. Timothy Smith who was a well respected citizen who's titles in life not only included being a doctor, but as well as a school teacher and clerk for the Treasury Department. He had a wife and seven children to grace his busy life, but Timothy had a strange phobia and that was being buried alive. Some say that the fear of death eventually killed Smith who died in 1893-four years before Doctor Karnicki would make his invention. Where Karnice was trying to find a way to help those who would suffer a premature burial, Smith had already found a way.

Oh yes, Timothy Smith's grave accommodations included a two vaults, one for him and his wife, a staircase, and a grave with a view. A six foot tube coming up from Doctor Smith's face, with a 14x14 inch plate glass was placed there in the event that the Doctor woke up and found himself buried alive. Some reports say that years ago before the glass became darkened and cracked with age, they said you would see Smith's skeletal remains with a hammer and chisel nearby him.

So, the next time you hear loud whistles and see a flag while strolling in the cemetery one night, make sure to think of this story, but that's after you run and get help of course. Until next time, this has been Scared Sheetless, Happy Hauntings and stay above the soil!

Sources for this story:

snopes.com
vermonter.com

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