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White House and Political News
A Black Woman Was Found Preserved In A 150-Year-Old Iron Coffin, Now Scientists Know Who She Was, And How She Died
Scientists have identified the mysterious woman whose 150-year-old corpse was dis- covered in a metal coffin in New York City by construc- tion workers in 2011.
Archaeologists believe the woman is Martha Peter- son, a free black woman who worked as a domestic assis- tant for a white abolitionist, reports The New York Post.
Peterson's body was dis- covered when construction workers were excavating the grounds of an old church and hit what they thought was a pipe. It was an air-tight iron coffin and when a backhoe rose from the ground, its claws were clutching a corpse. The woman wore a white gown, a nightcap and knee- high socks.
Peterson’s body was so well-preserved, forensic ar- chaeologist Scott Warnasch thought she had only been dead for a week.
“It was recorded as a crime scene,” Warnasch recalled. “A buried body on an aban- doned lot sounds pretty
straightforward.”
Upon further examination,
Warnasch discovered pieces of the coffin that led him on a journey to tell Peterson’s story.
“I came across metal frag- ments that are pretty distinc- tive,” said Warnasch. “Right away, I knew what they were.”
Samples recovered from her body provided other de- tails about her life. According to chemicals pulled from her teeth, Peterson had been in the Northeast for at least a few years.
Data from her hair told re- searchers she ate a balanced diet, while her facial structure placed her between 25- and 35-years-old. Peterson’s body was covered with lesions caused by smallpox. War- nasch believes the disease traveled to her brain and killed her. Initially, he was worried the virus could still be active, but it was determined to be dormant.
“The body was so well pre- served that I would not have been shocked if the smallpox
The sketch of Martha Peterson, a free black woman who worked as a domestic assistant for a white abolitionist and the coffin she was found in.
virus had survived,” he said. Warnasch pulled census records from the 1850s and used them to narrow the
search down.
“It was the first to list
everyone in the population by name, age, sex and race. Only 33 individuals fit her criteria,” he said.
“She would have been 26 in 1850, probably died around 1851 and lived in the house- hold of William Raymond,
a partner in the iron-coffin maker Fisk & Raymond.”
The scientist determined she had been buried in a cof- fin deemed worthless by her employer because of an up- side down patent mark. This curve led Warnasch to be- lieve she worked as a domes- tic helper.
Since Peterson’s skull had been damaged by the backhoe, Warnasch asked forensic-imaging specialist
Joe Mullins to help him fig- ure out what she might have looked like.
“The skull tells where the eyes are. The width of the nose comes from the shape of the nasal aperture; lip thick- ness is based on teeth enamel,” Mullins said. “I used the skull to tell me the height and angle of her ears.”
He gave her a milk choco- late complexion and there she was, staring back at him.
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