Pre-Civil War Time Capsule Unearthed

It was a boy, about 13 years old, whose family had some money.

That’s all scientists at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History know for sure about the body they discovered this month when they opened a cast-iron coffin dating from before the Civil War.

But it’s a starting point for an exploration that they hope will give them a greater understanding of the customs of mid-19th century America.

The coffin was discovered in April at a construction site in Washington and is the oldest one that anthropologist Doug Owsley has seen during a 27-year career examining human remains.

Patented in 1848, cast-iron coffins used a lead seal to protect their contents from the degradations of air and water; prior to that, most coffins were made of wood.

Based on the style of this coffin, it probably was made between 1849 and 1853, said Owsley, who has been at the museum for 18 years and heads the physical anthropology division.

The body was “exceptionally well preserved,” he said, with organs, muscles and tissues intact.

Even some hair had stayed put, and the face was recognizable as a face.

The scientists hope to identify the boy and get in touch with his family’s descendants. But that’s only the first step. The remains, Owsley said, offer “a true opportunity to learn a lot” about 19th century life -- and death.

Adhesions on the lungs indicate a history of infection, most likely pneumonia.

Results from an autopsy and other tests will provide additional information on the cause of the boy’s death, Owsley said, and that will help scientists better understand the diseases people may have suffered in the 1850s.

The results may also give clues to any activities the boy was involved in -- whether he had engaged in physically strenuous labor, for instance.

In addition, the scientists hope they will learn more about the burial rites of the 1850s. The body was covered with two sheets and the head was resting on a kidney-shaped pillow made of silk and cotton. A chinstrap was tied around the head, most likely to keep the mouth closed.

In a wood coffin, artifacts like clothing can disintegrate. In this instance, a great deal of information can be retrieved from what the cast-iron coffin has preserved, Owsley said.

And the boy’s clothing -- a vest, trousers, dress shirt, drawers, socks and a cloth around his neck -- will not only help to date the remains but also reveal something about the social customs of the time.

Shelly Foote, who retired last year as a costume curator for the National Museum of American History, said the collar of the vest was a popular style from the 1840s to the 1860s.

The trousers, she noted, have “a little bit of hip left in them” -- different from the straight-legged cut popular in the 1860s, the kind that President Lincoln wore.

The purpose of the neck cloth, Foote said, is not clear. It was tied in a regular knot, not like a necktie, but there were no signs of cuts that needed to be covered by such a cloth.

Foote, who lives in Ventura but returned to Washington as a volunteer on this project, said the boy probably died in the late spring or summer, because all of his clothing was cotton. It is unusual for cotton to have survived more than a century, she said; because it is plant-based, cotton often deteriorates in the acidic environment of a coffin. Wool and silk, which are protein-based, tend to survive better.

“When you see a whole person dressed up as they would have in the 19th century, it’s like a window into the past,” she said.

When the scientists opened the coffin, the clothes were orange -- the original creamy white material had been dyed by the iron of the coffin -- and had a few stains and tears.

All the clothing was hand-sewn, except for the socks, which were knitted.

The vest and perhaps the trousers appeared to have been professionally made, suggesting that the boy’s family was of “some means,” Foote said.

The coffin also hints at wealth: a cast-iron coffin would have cost about $40, compared with about $2 for a simple wood coffin.

Because the coffin was costly, it probably was purchased from a local undertaker and was part of a formal burial, said Deborah Hull-Walski, a historical archeologist at the museum. She is looking through directories from that time for listings of undertakers.

She has found that Columbian College, now George Washington University, had a cemetery north of the area where the coffin was discovered last spring.

Though that land was sold and the bodies moved to another cemetery, it is possible that this one, if it had not been properly marked, was left behind.

“We’re going through archives to find out if Columbian College would have noted who was buried in the cemetery,” Hull-Walski said.

“We’re also going through newspapers from the 1850s and 1860s, looking at obituary notices.”

Originally, Owsley thought that the coffin contained a woman because it was very small -- but it was a boy, just over 5 feet tall, with a 27-inch waist. Owsley determined his age to be about 13 when X-rays of the teeth showed a growing third molar.

In a museum laboratory, the lid of the coffin and the clothes were laid out for observation. On Monday, Owsley and Foote saw something they had not seen the previous week, when the coffin was opened: writing on the inside of the socks. It appeared to be initials -- “I.I.” or “J.J.” Foote said people living in that period often put their initials on clothing before sending it out to be washed.

“Research is always ongoing,” she said with a laugh.

Two days after making that discovery, they found that the lettering on the socks was woven in, meaning that it had been done by a manufacturer.

What they find from this set of remains will help scientists with other projects, Owsley said. For example, he is studying the remains of historian Robert Kennicott, who was part of the 1865 Western Union Telegraph Expedition to find a telegraph-line route between North America and Russia via the Bering Sea.

From Kennicott’s remains, Owsley picked up evidence of toxic materials, such as lead, but did not know whether they came from the coffin. With the adolescent boy’s remains, Owsley will test for evidence of metals to see whether bodies are absorbing materials from the cast-iron coffins.

“As we narrow in on the date, and learn more about the type of clothing from that period, if you see another piece that is similar, you know what you’re looking at,” Foote said.