This fear was not something that surfaced in the 19th century. It’s quite ancient and dates back to the times of the Romans. However, the phobia was quite widespread in the Victorian era. Such was the public fascination for this subject that it even led to the founding of a group. It was for the prevention of premature burial. Now, let’s take a look at some of the renowned people who were afraid of being buried alive:

1. George Washington

The first president of the United States was apparently scared of being buried alive. He had requested his secretary to have him buried decently a few hours before his death. He had instructed not to put his body into the vault in less than three days after he was dead.

George Washington’s nephew was even more detailed in his request. He had told his doctor not to tie his thumbs together. He were to place nothing on his face. The president’s nephew also instructed not to place any restraint by bandages. Another instruction was to place his body in an entirely plain coffin. It was to have a flat top and sufficient number of holes.

2. Alfred Nobel

His will had led to the creation of the Nobel Prize. Alfred Nobel had left the bulk of his vast estate to fund the prizes. They only went to individuals who were of the greatest benefit to humans. He was the one who invented the dynamite. At the time of the invention, he had the feeling that it would bring peace.

He had invented the dynamite for non-military purposes thinking that it would make war unpalatable. The final portion of Nobel’s will is what’s truly interesting. He had expressed a wish to be cremated in a crematorium. Some believe that it came out of his fear that he would be buried alive.

3. Hans Christian Andersen

Andersen spent his final days at the home of his friends Moritz and Dorothea Melchior. Upon sensing that his end was near, he put forward a request to Dorothea. He begged that she cut his veins after he had breathed his last. She took it as a joke. According to Anderson’s biographer, Jackie Wullschlager, he was extremely afraid of being buried alive.

Hans Christian Andersen was more than a neurotic. The fear of being buried alive was not the only one. He was also afraid of fire and traveled with a rope in his luggage. Besides, he had a fear of dogs and the fear of trichinosis kept him from eating pork.

4. Edward Bulwer-Lytton

He was a novelist and a politician from the Victorian era. He has the credit of being the inventor of the phrase ‘it was a dark and stormy night’. This line also resulted in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Entrants to this contest take up the task of creating the worst opening lines in literature.

He was extremely worried about waking up one day in a coffin. He, therefore, had asked for his heart to be punctured before he was buried.

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The burial process also takes a toll on the funeral workers. They’re prone to many potential hazards as they have direct involvement in the rituals. Maintenance of the memorial plots or cemeteries also places a lot of stress on land and water. As a result, more eco-friendly alternatives are becoming popular today. People are increasingly realizing how harmful the typical burial services are.

Embalming of a dead body is quite common across most parts of the United States. Most of us have grown up watching the burial process and having a nice casket and stone marker. However, these are the very things that make burials expensive. Besides, they don’t help the environment in any way.

Toxic chemicals in conventional burials

A slowdown in the process of a dead body’s decay is possible through embalming. The idea of preserving the body for a ‘viewing’ service is not bad. The real cause of concern is the use of chemicals for this purpose. These chemicals are usually very strong and toxic.

Some of the toxic chemicals used in the process are menthol, formaldehyde, glycerin, and phenol. As a result of conventional burials, about 800,000 gallons of formaldehyde are released into the environment.

People use many valuable resources for conventional burials

In just a year, the amount of casket wood that goes under the earth equals 4 million acres of forest. This fact is enough for people to stay away from the burials. The materials in caskets are usually wood, bronze, steel, copper, and other resources that can be quite useful. There are people who end up spending enormous amounts on caskets. Once they’re placed in the ground, they’ll never be used again.

Conventional burial occupies too much space

When you are going past a local cemetery, you’ll notice that it always looks full. According to research, the total area of all the cemeteries in America put together is 1 million acres. This must raise a concern among people about the destruction of lands, especially forests. One wonders whether there’s still room to bury more people.

Natural burial is the best

More number of individuals are getting to know the negative effects of conventional burials today. This is why most of them are opting for cremation. Although it’s still not the best choice, it’s definitely better for the environment than a burial. There are reasons why cremation is still not the best choice for the environment. The burning of bodies releases gases like sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide.

Many other heavy chemicals are also released into the air by the burning bodies. The most eco-friendly way to be buried, therefore, is natural burial. This would be an upcoming trend in the process of burials. It is the best way to make sure that the body is decomposed in nature. It gets the nutrients back to the earth and the environment benefits from it to a great extent.

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1. Stepp Cemetery

This is a small, abandoned cemetery located in Indiana’s Morgan-Monroe State Forest. You’ll find only a few graves here, but some of them are 200 years old. Stepp Cemetery is a local family cemetery officially. According to the local legends, a cult known as the Crabbites was behind its founding. Their rituals involved sex orgies and snake handling.

They say that you can hear the chanting of their gatherings even today. You can hear these sounds only if you visit the cemetery at night. This happens to be more of an urban legend as one never comes across references to the Crabbites elsewhere. According to another story, a devoted mother stayed at her baby’s grave every day. This went on even after her death.

2. Chestnut Hill Cemetery

Located on Rhode Island, this cemetery is famous for the haunting of Mercy Lena Brown. In the late 19th century, Mercy died due to tuberculosis at the age of 19. She was interred with her family members who had also died from tuberculosis. Before her death, she used to visit their graves often.

Mercy’s father had revealed that her ghost haunted him every night. She visited him complaining of hunger. Later, her brother Edwin also fell sick due to tuberculosis. The family and people from the town considered the dead as the cause of his illness. Mercy’s father, George Brown, had all the graves of the family members dug up.

Among all the bodies, only Mercy’s body didn’t undergo decomposition. Because of this sight, George believed that Mercy was a vampire. Her heart was cut out, burnt, and the ashes were mixed with water by the villagers. They gave the preparation to Edwin as a medicine, but he died after a couple of months.

3. Silver Cliff Cemetery

According to some witnesses, the lights in this cemetery come alive in other colors often. These lights dance across the gravestones. Some dismiss it as reflections of lights coming from the town. However, such sightings were recorded even before the advent of electricity.

The name Silver Cliff Cemetery comes from the mining town of Silver Cliff located nearby. Despite an abundance of ore, mismanagement of the company destroyed the silver mine in this area.

4. Highgate Cemetery

Located in London, Highgate Cemetery looks quite scary with lots of overgrowth. A series of horror movies were filmed in this location in the mid-20th century. Tales of sightings of the first ghosts began to appear in the 1970s. This was a period when there existed a widespread interest in occult. Later, there were rumors of of people seeing vampires in the cemetery.

They mostly came from the stunts of vandalism and grave-robbing. Magicians David Farrant and Sean Manchester vowed to free this cemetery from the vampire. There were a series of escapades that occurred here between 1970 and 1973. Corpses were found unearthed and damaged, leading to crowds of people gathering at night. In 1974, Farrant was put in jail for vandalizing the graves.

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