Show Smithsonian team unearthed gives gives aives unearthed body a name Michael E. E Ruane The Washington Post He was a sickly orphan who had died of pneumonia as a teenager and then was left behind when the cemetery where he was buried in Northwest Washington moved a decade after his death He lay lost and forgotten beneath the sprawl of the city while six generations and 15 years passed by And when his body was acci accidentally unearthed by a construction crew in 2005 still clad in his fine white burial suit and encased in an iron coffin researchers at atthe atthe atthe the Smithsonian Institution vowed to find out who he was Now they say they have This week after a two- two year project that unfolded like a detective story experts at the National Museum of Natural History said the mysterious boy in the iron coffin has been identified He was William White about 15 from Accomack County on Virginias Virginia's Eastern Shore He had been buried in ina a cemetery that probably belonged to Columbian College the precursor to George Washington University in what is now Columbia Heights and had been a student at the college preparatory school when he died Jan 24 1852 S m i t h s o n i a n anthropologist Douglas Owsley O said this week that the boy was just over five feet tall and probably had been an unhealthy youth because because of a hole that was nr r ed d b between two chambers c h am b ers in his h IS heart h eart D T t t I identification JAr was was made after museum researchers led by Deborah Hull and Randal Scott figured out that the youth might be White constructed a person family tree a diagram that stretched the length of ofa a wall and tracked down downa a descendant in Lancaster Pa The descendant Linda Dwyer 64 a night clerk clerkin in a convenience store agreed to provide a sample of her DNA obtained via a mouth swab and when that was compared with DNA taken from the boys boy's left shinbone it matched She said elated Smithsonian researchers called her with the news saying Its you Its It's you I think its it's awesome Dwyer said this week adding that she believes she is Whites White's great-great-great- great grandniece The whole technology t of finding me and putting it all together Its It's so cool The museum also had computerized facial reconstructions done by experts from the National Center for Missing Exploited Children in suburban Alexandria Va The images depict a pleasant-looking pleasant youth about the age of a high school freshman who a century and a half after his death again has a name Its more than a name Hull said Its his whole story Its It's his family's story Its It's who he was what he did Its It's everything The saga began April 1 2005 when construction workers digging beneath a agas agas agas gas line outside an 80 year old apartment building at 1465 Columbia Rd NW V stumbled on the elegant coffin The workers locked it inan inan in inan an empty building where on April 4 vandals broke in and smashed the coffins coffin's oval glass faceplate and metal cover But the Fisk and Raymond metallic burial case casc was a big clue Such coffins were expensive often reserved for forthe the well well- to-do to and were were p popular pul r between 1850 and 1860 Hull and Scott said in an interview Tuesday at atthe atthe atthe the Smithsonian's Museum Support Center in suburban Suitland Md The cases also were airtight The museum which Owsley said investigated the case as a public service and research opportunity took custody of the coffin after the vandalism and in August 2005 he and a team of pathologists unbolted the lid and examined the body and the clothing The boy was extremely well preserved and clad in white cotton clothing that included a pleated shirt and vest with covered cloth-covered buttons flared trousers darned socks and ankle- ankle length An autopsy indicated that the boy probably died of lobar pneumonia and the clothing style tyle hinted that he had probably died in the But why was he buried in jn the residential now-residential neighborhood of Columbia Heights The investigation revealed that Columbian College had once been there and a page from a 1970 history of George Washington University stated that the theold theold theold old college had a cemetery Further research showed that the original cemetery was moved in 1866 from the periphery of the college grounds to the main campus And it was during this move that the iron coffin was probably left behind This might have been because the tombstone was absent or had been misplaced during the Civil War when the college was the site of two sprawling military hospitals the researchers said The team then began poring over lists of obituaries from the compiled from local newspapers and quickly hit what looked like pay dirt The May 27 1852 edition of Washington's Daily National carried an obituary for Lemuel P. P Bacon 12 the son of Columbians Columbian's president Joel Bacon It seemed p perfect r The museum museum had the samples of the coffin boys boy's DNA which Smithsonian experts said can be traced and matched via female descendants over many generations Hull- Hull and Scott developed a Bacon family tree and located a descendant in Texas But when the descendants descendant's DNA was compared with the boys boy's it did not match Neither researcher was surprised It was too easy Another apparent breakthrough followed The Jan 28 1852 edition of the carried a rI r rr x cT r f y I Washington Post photo by Bill OLeary O'Leary Joe Mullins left and Glenn Miller look over their t work reconstructing the facial features of a teen who died in the century brief obituary for a William Taylor White of Accomack who who had died at college hill four days earlier The researchers obtained a digest of old wills for Accomack County and found one in which a guardian had left White money for his education This time Scott said we really felt like we had the right person The same digest contained the will of a Levin White who had a ason ason ason son named William T. T and who the researchers figured must have been the boys boy's late father It matched up beautifully Scott said But when a descendant of Levin White was located in Baltimore to the experts' experts surprise her DNA did not match That was r I. I devastating Scott said But Bait they h had d one more prime candidate The team had also found an obituary for a William Henry White who had died Sept 29 1852 at 14 There was no connection to the college but the boys boy's father Mathias had been a Pennsylvania Avenue undertaker who used Fisk and Raymond coffins A descendant was traced to suburban Maryland but again the DNA did not match What do we do now Hull said they thought Yet they remained determined Hed been left behind that initial time Scott said It wasn't going to happen again Hull said We wanted to know who he was We just wanted to give him a name In the spring she found a crucial clue Searching through a computer database of the Washington she stumbled on another notice of the death of William Villiam T. T White But it wasn't an obituary It v was was' wasa s a heartfelt resolution drawn up by his college friends expressing their anguish at the loss of one who was bound to tous tous tous us by the ties of friendship Somehow it had not turned up in prior research but it reinforced to 19 Hull that despite Yf the thre DNA DIVA Wi William lam T T. T White had to be the coffin boy She showed shoed the notice to Scott Its him she told her colleague But where had they gone wrong There was the research mistake Hull realized and that's why the theDNA theDNA theDNA DNA didn't match It was wasa a relief she said r. r Yet it still didn't tell h her r who the boys boy's father was was Without that knowledge knowledg no descendants could be traced and no modern modem DNA could be checked Then more help came eme Two acquaintances visiting an Accomack records office found an 1850 court court document that referred to Whites White's status as an orphan and and listed the name of on his is deceased father William Villiam A A. White Bingo o Hull said The team quickly traced the family and located Dwyer in Lancaster Hull Hull- Hull Hull- and a colleague went to visit Dwyer Aug 1 and took the DNA swab i ia in ina a quiet corner of a Dennys Denny's restaurant The Thc comparison performed for gt e fey iv V Technologies g c of State College Pa came through a week orso lat later The DNA matched And the orphaned youngster from a bygone time finally had his identity back You Vou just kind of tear up Hull said It just felt so good It felt so doggone good |