Booby-Trapping Your Grave with a Coffin Torpedo

29/10 02:15 - Booby-Trapping Your Grave with a Coffin Torpedo
During the period between the advent of medical anatomy classes and the rise of cadaver donation,  you could make a lot of money by digging up fresh graves and selling whoever was in them. Many of the living dreaded this possibility, and invented ways to make graves burglar-proof. The simplest of these was a concrete slab, but there were also metal cages, locks, and the spectacular coffin torpedo. That was invented in Ohio after the notorious disappearance of the deceased son of a US president (and the father of another). Philip K. Clover filed a patent in 1878 for a device that essentially armed a corpse. It was set just before burial so that anyone trying to open the coffin would be shot in the face with lead balls. Thomas Howell later improved on that idea by designing a land mine that would thwart a grave robber even before the coffin was uncovered. And similar devices were being developed in other states. Did people actually buy these devices, and did they ever kill a grave robber? Evidence is scant, but you can read what we know about coffin torpedos at Utterly Interesting.  ...