Mobile Corpses from the 18th Century

ABC:LHS #087

Even in death, some people don’t rest easy. Someone always wants to dig them up and move them. Though Laurel Hill East opened in 1836, several of its 18th-century dead were buried elsewhere first.

First, I trace the many reasons people exhume the dead. And there are plenty.

Thomas Godfrey invented a lifesaving navigational instrument. Buried first on a Germantown farm, he was later pursued by Laurel Hill as one of its earliest celebrity corpses.

Commodore Alexander Murray was as important a sailor as Isaac Hull or Stephen Decatur, but without the headline-grabbing legend.

Mayor Hilary Baker served when Philadelphia was the nation’s capital and crossed paths daily with the signers of the Declaration and Constitution. He died in office.

Rev. William Smith deserves recognition alongside Benjamin Franklin as a cofounder of the University of Pennsylvania, yet Franklin is celebrated while Smith is largely forgotten.

I had a blast making this one. I think you’ll have fun listening.