Who Was The Woman In The Iron Coffin?

Summary

This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In 2011, the body of an African-American woman who had died from smallpox was discovered buried in a Fisk metallic burial case in Elmhurst, Queens, New York. Her level of preservation made it necessary to contact the Center for Disease Control to confirm that the virus was no longer viable. Analysis of the woman’s remains provided ground-breaking insights into how smallpox colonizes the human body. Analysis of the woman’s burial costume, coffin and genealogy provided important details regarding the woman’s identity, biography, and family that shed light on the funerary practices of this rural African American community during the tumultuous post-emancipation period in New York State. The woman’s connections to early Black abolitionist Rev. James Pennington, as well as the coffin manufacturers Almond Fisk and William Raymond, provide additional fascinating layers of context to the woman’s life, death and burial.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• 2020 SHA General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 103