May be remains of 37-year-old bachelor Samuel Stone who died around 1854

By Bill Robinson
Register News Writer

Students from Madison Southern High School may be close to identifying the body that excavators discovered buried in a cast iron coffin near Richmond on Nov. 6. “We are reasonably certain the remains are those of Samuel Stone, a single man whose will was probated in 1854,” said Todd Moberly, who teaches American history at MSHS.

A story in the Richmond Register on Feb. 16 reported how students in Moberly’s advanced placement American history class were searching historical records hoping to identify the body. Two newspaper readers then offered some clues that aided the students on their second trip to the Madison County Clerk’s office, Moberly said.

As the students researched deeds to determine who owned the property off Barnes Mill Road not far from the White Oak Pond Church, they found that a John Stone had acquired it in 1833.

John Stone had two sons, Samuel and Alfred, who were both listed in the 1850 census. Only Alfred showed up in the 1860 census.

The students also found a deed of “love and affection” with which John Stone transferred the family property to his son Alfred.

“Because it would have been unusual to transfer all of the family land to only one son, that deed would tend to confirm that the other son was already deceased,” Moberly said.

“We found Samuel Stone’s will in the special collections of the Eastern Kentucky University library,” he said. “It was probated in 1854, so he probably died that year, or no earlier than the year before.”

That would be consistent with the period when the cast iron coffin was manufactured.

“Iron coffins of this type were used from about 1845 to 1860,” Dr. David Pollock of the University of Kentucky said when it was discovered.

The will describes the burial place on family property and calls for both a headstone and a footstone. According to the will, Samuel Stone was a bachelor who apparently lived in his parents’ home.

Samuel left his estate, including land valued at $2,800, to his father and brother.

The cast iron coffin in which Samuel was buried probably cost from $50 to $100, Moberly said. “That was still a lot of money in those days, but the value of Samuel’s estate shows that the family could have easily afforded to bury him in that style,” he said.

Samuel’s mother Sarah died probably no more than a year before her son, Moberly said. The students found the death certificate of Sarah Stone who succumbed in 1853 to dropsy, a 19th century diagnosis of a condition that today would probably be called congestive heart failure.

Kentucky officials kept death records sporadically during the 19th century, Moberly said. No death certificates have been located for other members of Samuel Stone’s family.

After reading the February newspaper story, two members of a church on Barnes Mill Road told Moberly that they had heard of a headstone that had been taken years earlier from the area near where the coffin was discovered. The stone they described may have marked the grave of Sarah Stone, Moberly said. Her son could have been buried next to her. John Stone’s name appears on the 1860, but not the 1870 census, so he probably died during that decade.

Technicians from the Kentucky Archeological Survey found no other graves, however, when they searched the area where the coffin was discovered.

The students will be writing a formal report of their findings for the Kentucky Archeological Survey, which also assisted them in their research.

They had earlier visited the survey’s laboratory at the University of Kentucky, where they examined the coffin and heard presentations by state archeologists.

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