OCR Text |
Show - - o T ' ' ' " r ' - r - . y 0 "v . - ' T """" T . " ""TO r rx y, Di: cf Er.rly History . cf Salt LaSc That Is Still Reoemkrcd Vividly by Many Old Citizens . Although he ceased to exist nearly a j half century ago, there are many peo- pie In this city today who remember John, the grave robber. They vividly remember the man and the Inhuman , crimes he Is alleged to have committed. commit-ted. vand they remember, too, that his disappearance was as sudden as it was mysterious. , , ' ' The itory is quite generally "credited that the man, after' being branded and I , mutilated, was placed 'upon an island In Great Salt lake, but there seems to : be no one who can, or will, vouch for the truth of the story. It is also believed be-lieved that he was taken out to what Is now called Antelope Island and there shot, but Just what was his fate is probably another one of . those secrets which .will .die. with . those, who .were parties to the affair. - "His Ghoulish. Practices. The' practice of John, the grave robber, rob-ber, who was the grave digger as well. , was .tp .wait until the funeral prores-: prores-: , sion had departed, after. -the services over the lowered . body, and then to open the coffin and despoil the dead of their raiment, before the coffin had "been covered but, if necessary, he did - - , not hesitate to dig down from the surface. sur-face. When this grave robber plundered plun-dered a grave he not only denuded the i ' body to the last strip, even taking the cotton placed under the head, but often took the coffins, too, and used them for firewood.1 The stolen clothes were' af- terward sold to the second-hand deal-- deal-- ers. The robes In which the Mormons "enshroud their dead he sold to a wln-, wln-, ' -.dow-bllnd factory, where - they - were 'painted and made into window-blinds. He robbed the grave of the first man that was hanged in this State and wore the boots of the executed one to a dance, and danced with the belles of the town. One story, showing the pres-1 pres-1 ence of mind he possessed, is told as .follows: ' 'He Played Ghost. ; One night, when he had Just taken -the . garments from a body and was 'covering it again, he heard a noise, and 'on looking up saw a man coming toward to-ward him. Realizing that he must do .. something or be discovered, he grabbed up the flowing white robe he had Just taken from the corpse and putting It over his own shoulders ran after the ' ' intruder, who ,qulckly showed him his heels. For some time afterward the , 'ghost of the cemetery" was the topic of the town. -. Another time he thought a dead man had come to life to accuse him of his crimes, and was, for a moment, as badly scared, if not more so, than the - man who saw the ghost. He had opened a coffin and was about to disrobe dis-robe the corpse, which had become stiffened stif-fened and was lying In such a position that, when he stepped upon its feet the upper portion of the body arose In the ' coffin and the dead man confronted him face to face. His fright was over In an instant and he proceeded with his grim work. V Pound Out at Last. He prospered for a long time in his nefarious work, but was found- out at last, and if report be true, what must ' now be -another dark page in the early history of the State was Involved In the discovery. At that time, it Is said, there was a - band of thieves In the mountains, who plundered the citizens of the valley with frequent recurrence. Three of the band were captured, given a sort of trial and then taken out and told to run. when they were shot down In their tracks. The desire of the wife of one of the men to see her husband after he "had been interred, led to the discovery of John, the grave robber. It was a horrible sight that met the wife's eyes when the grave was opened. The corpse was nude and lying all doubled dou-bled up -in the coffin, as it had been . ruthlessly tumbled in. It was evident that the grave had been robbed and an investigation was started, which led to the detection of the malefactor. In his house were found clothes and gar-" gar-" ' ments of all descriptions. Indignant Citizens. Jack, the grave robber, was kept to point out the graves thaf he had robbed, and a large concourse of indignant indig-nant citizens swarmed among the ' gravestones on the following day. The graves that had been despoiled were reopened re-opened and the bodies reclothed in the best manner possible under the circumstances. circum-stances. ' f It is thought that Jack was given an informal trial, but Just what the sentence sen-tence was is not known. But the story which has acquired more or less credence cre-dence is that he was branded. "Grave Robber" on the forehead and that his ears were cut off close to the head, after which, it Is thought, he was taken to Antelope island first, and from there placed upon one of the islands further out in the lake to die of starvation. And again, it is believed that he was shot on Antelope Island. His Previous History. John, the grave robber, is said to have come to this country from England, Eng-land, where his father before him made a profession of robbing graves. John Is said to have one time donated blankets, that be had stolen from the dead bodies of soldiers In California previous to his operations here.for the construction of a bower, from under which Mormon sermons were preached to the people. |