"Funeral Carriages and Cast Iron Coffins" Top 5 Page for this destination Baton Rouge Local Custom Tip by grandmaR

When we went through the Rural Life Museum they had some Funeral Carriages (which I had seen before) and also an exhibit of coffins including ones of Cast Iron. This is what the sign inside the horse-drawn hearse said:

Cast Iron Coffins, 1850's

The Fisk Metallic Burial Case was patented in 1848 by New Yorker A.D. Fisk. Early mummiform styles like this one show the influence of Egyptomania in Victorian society. Cast iron coffins were manufactured by the thousands in 17 different styles until the 1880's and have been recovered in 20 states, including California. Newspaper advertisements for the metallic burial cases boasted that they were "air tight and indestructible..for preserving the mortal remains of the departed for an indefinite period of time above or underground." The coffins were especially popular during the Civil War in order to transport fallen soldiers home for interment. Notable nineteenth-century politicians John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Stephen Douglas were also laid to rest in metallic burial cases.

The Rural Life Museum's three coffins were exhumed from a family tomb in St. Joseph's Catholic Cemetery in Thiboudaux, Louisiana in 1992 by a team of experts working with Louisiana State University. The individuals buried inside were wealthy Acadians Celeste Leontine Gaudet Lacaperre (1824-1852); her sister Clemence Elizabeth Gaudet Tucker Evans (1821-1857) and Clemence's son Daniel Pennington Wade Tucker (1836-1852). Unlike most of the metallic burial cases recovered, these had remained intact since interment, so that the clothing, jewelry and flowers inside were well preserved and the bodies themselves (now reburied) had become mummified. Three xxx of the coffins' contents are held by...

Website: http://www.forensicartist.com/facesfrompast.html