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From the Philadelphia Times, Aug. 24. "Yes," said
William Hill Moore, settling himself back with his
snowy-haired head against the cushion of an easy
chair and crossing his legs., now somewhat
attenuated with age, "yes," said he, "I believe I am
the oldest living undertaker. I've been active in
the business over 50 years. I began in an alley, but
I was not above my business, and I gave my whole
time to it, and, of course, the business grew, and I
made lots of money. There are a hundred undertakers
who have started since, but I was the first one to
keep ready-made coffins on hand in Philadelphia and
supply funerals as a regular business, and, so far
as I know, it had not been done anywhere else at
that time. That was in 1826. I learned the business
during the cholera of 1819-20 with a man who buried
the dead for the prisons and Coroners and that like,
and there's no telling the many a one in those days
that went in the ditch who'd never died at all."
"Why, William," said a little, thin, nervous lady in
the room, "you don't mean they were buried alive?
Ugh! It makes my flesh creep."
"Yes, Martha, that's it exactly. No telling how
many. A good old Quaker friend of mine__I buried him
afterward; he had everything very plain, I remember,
and no handles on the coffin said to me once:
"William, said he, "is thee sure that all thee
buried with the cholera were dead when thee put them
in the ground?" Said I: "I never thought whether
they were dead or not; I just buried them as fast as
I could."
"Well, I never forgot the remark. When I fixed up a
place for myself on Fifth-street, I forget the
builder's name now, but I buried all his family, and
a large family it was, too. I had two rooms where I
used to do embalming and keep bodies until some one
would come to pay for them, but I made up my mind
that I'd never bury any of these or anybody else
until I was sure they weren't alive. But it's easy
to tell. With such as die from apoplexy and sudden
like that it actually seems" and here the jolly old
undertaker laughed a broad, hearty laugh "it
actually seems they'd decomposed before they died.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Its remarkable how plain the signs of
decomposition become to the practiced eye. Why, Sir,
I can tell a dead body as quick as that" and he
snapped his long fingers in front of his shrewd gray
eyes "but we always put off moving the body as long
as the relatives like, unless it gets very bad, and
then we does our duty and moves them off. They
always like, you know, to have their little cries,
and we lets them have their way. John Swift, who was
the Mayor that time we buried him in a double
coffin, I remember didn't like the idea of my
keeping the bodies a month at a time, but I didn't
mind it the least, and I soon showed him there was
no danger.
Why, Sir, the dead are no more to us than the sheets
of paper you write on. We never think any more what
a person dies of than you do of asking the people
you meet in the street what disease they have. I've
been all through cholera, small-pox, and yellow
fever, and never had so much as a sick stomach. Most
contagious diseases are caught through fear, but a
great deal depends on the way a man lives. No
undertaker can touch liquor if he wants to keep free
from disease. He has to be strictly temperate. He
has to be very careful what he eats, too. Its my
experience that if a man is careful what he eats and
drinks and keeps his stomach in order he need not be
afraid of any contagious disease. I had a friend
buried him, too, by the way who lived to be 90 just
by eating as little as possible."
The gaunt, strange-looking old man at this point let
his eyes relax somewhat from their usual dim, vacant
gaze, and in response to a motion, put the large
speaking trumpet which he balanced on one finger to
his ear. All he had said up to this point was
suggested by a single question shouted into the ear
trumpet, and it now became necessary to start him on
another train of reminiscences.
"You buried Gen. Patterson, did you not?" he was
asked.
"Yes, but I was scarcely able to get there, " he
replied. "I've been very sick, but I'm not quite
ready for the undertakers yet. Up to a very little
while ago we buried all the Judges and Commodores
and Generals, and almost all the great people it
seems to me, but Lincoln we didn't get him."
The undertaker was unable to repress a heavy sigh at
the thought of missing the melancholy pleasure of
laying away this truly great man.
"There were the obsequies of Zachary Taylor," he
resumed: "The hearse cost $8,000. There were eight
gray horses, with black covers, trimmed with white,
and the men who walked as leaders wore long white
bands on their hats and white gloves. It was a grand
sight. There was a single tassel that cost $45. Then
I had the obsequies of Bushrod Washington, and Chief
Justice Marshall, and General William Henry
Harrison, and John Quincy Adams. You may be sure
they were the best that could be had. When the body
of Henry Clay passed through the city in 1852 there
was a funeral procession, and I had that, too, but
it was not so much of an affair. Dr. Kane, the
Arctic explorer, I buried and Judge Kane and his
wife, I buried them too. "Old Ironsides" Commodore
Stewart, you know we put him in Woodlands, and then,
besides, there was Commodore Bainbridge, Horace
Binney, Commodore Elliott, John Price Wetherill,
Commodore Hull, Judge Thompson, and President Edgar
Thomson, of the Pennsylvania Railroad, I buried them
all. We removed Commodore Porter to Woodlands, and
there was Gen. Mercer's funeral, too. We were highly
complimented for the way we buried him. Ah, my
memory is getting poor and I can't think of them
all. Funerals are very different to what they used
to be. Matters are simplified in the burial, but
funerals are more numerously attended and more
expensive. It costs about $400 to bury a man of any
consequence now. The use of ice is comparatively
new, and they never used to line coffins with satin.
I think Dr. Bedell set the style. He was buried in
his robes, and the casket was lined with satin. I
don't know where they got the idea from, but after
that every one who could afford it wanted satin. We
get a great many orders in advance from people about
the way they want to be buried. I have known persons
to come in and look at the different styles of
coffins and pick out the kind they wanted years
before they died. We have had the full directions
for the funeral on the books in their own
handwriting. There is a very wealthy gentleman and
his sister who have given us orders for their
coffins and funerals. "I would like the casket lined
with white flannel." the lady said in the last
letter, "like that one you furnished Mrs.__, which
was chaste and elegant; only I would like six
handles and, besides the plate, a little silver
cross on the lid. But be sure and let me lay in the
room until you know I am decomposed, for I'm awfully
afraid of being buried alive."
"Up to 20 or 30 years ago there were no carriages.
The burial places were not far away, and people
walked, the coffin being carried on the shoulders or
on a bier. I have often carried little babies in
coffins under my arm myself. The great cemeteries
had not grown up then. Eli K. Price and myself are
about the only ones remaining of the starters of
Woodlands Cemetery. Judge Mallory, who was
interested in it at first I buried him afterward
persuaded me to go into it. There are some ten
thousand buried in it now, and I think I have had
something to do with its success. The number I have
buried is something incredible. For many years it
averaged 100 a month. Mr. Kellogg, my partner, who
has kept track of it, says we have buried over
50,000 in the 50 years.
"Now, my son, whatever you say, be careful and don't
wound anybody's feelings. I have always tried to
make it pleasant for the mourners. When Mayor
Stokley's father, who I afterward buried, lost a
little boy and was speaking of Mrs. Stokley's
distress, I recommended the adoption of a little one
of the same age belonging to Mrs. Ward, whom I
buried, too, and sure enough they did, and he grew
up beside mayor Stokley and distinguished himself in
Mexico until I buried him some years ago. You know a
great many commit suicide that nobody knows anything
about but the doctor and the undertaker. many a one
I've buried no one knows but me to this day they had
the rope around their necks. I always used to carry
a crooked needle to sew up gashes in throats. I
found it handy to have around. One day a lady very
rich and elegant she was, and had an A 1 coffin when
she died showed me her husband who had just cut his
throat and said: "Oh, what shall I do?" "Do," said
I, as I commenced to sew up the cut and put a clean
shirt on him, "don't tell a living mortal, for it's
my experience that if you tell anybody a secret you
might as well put ii in the newspapers; don't tell a
living mortal, and it'll be all right." And sure
enough it was. His own brothers don't know to this
day but that he died a natural death.
"Ghosts, did you say? Do undertakers believe in
them? Fiddlesticks! But strange things happen. The
most curious thing is the horses. It's very common
for horses to refuse to pull a dead body. I remember
one time one of our best teams had just started off
when they stopped, trembled, stuck up their ears,
and wouldn't budge one inch further. Coaxing was no
use, they wouldn't go. We had to take a team out of
a hack and put them in the hearse. It was a little
child that time, but another time the same thing
happened when we were burying a man and his wife
together."
With this the conversation closed. The old gentleman
drew himself to his fullest height, listened to the
words of parting shouted through the ear-trumpet,
and bowed his visitor out. With age he has lost none
of the urbanity peculiar to him in his sturdiest
years. Constant intercourse with grief often assumed
has shaken his faith in many things. Half a century
of hand-to-hand familiar intercourse with the dead
has given him a quaint pensiveness mixed with a
strange, grim humor. Careful habits leave him in
complete possession of all his faculties except that
of hearing. One can still imagine what he was in his
best days. When it was said that Billy Moore looked
more truly mournful than all the other mourners but
together. Among the many stories told about him is
this one concerning the cemetery, the name of which
was sometimes jocularly applied to him in the
appellation of Laurel Hill Moore. After scores of
years of constant funeral attendance, it is related,
Mr. Moore was called upon to officiate at a wedding
of a relative. In his long black coat and longer
face, with his hands crossed before, as usual, one
holding the melancholy beaver hat, he stood ready to
nod for the carriages as soon as the minister
finished. One by one the vehicles came up. With slow
step and look of resignation Mr. Moore escorted the
bride and groom down the steps, and as they sprang
in and the driver cracked his whip, the old
gentleman, the ruling habit overcoming him at the
last moment, clapped the carriage door with a bang
and shouted, "To Laurel Hill."
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