Long Island Kids Dig Up A Real Skeleton Horror – 1934

This news photograph showing a skull that might be a prop from a Boris Karloff or Bela Lugosi horror film, are the actual remains of an ancient criminal that were discovered two centuries after his demise.

The news slug explains:

BOYS UNEARTH SKELETON IN TORTURE CAGE
An age-old human skeleton encased in a crude metal cage, similar to torture chambers used by Pirates was unearthed by Edward (Buddy) Gorman, 9, and a friend (Rudy Powers, 8) who were playing in a vacant lot at Union Place and Main Street, Hempstead, Long Island, December 28.

An iron spike protruded a hole just below the right eye of the victim. The bones forming a human frame, crumples easily, but the teeth were relatively sound. The cage was found to be composed of four vertical metal strips one inch and a half thick and four similar bands running crosswise. The bands were compressed at the neck to form a circular mask just large enough to hold a head. A metal ring. apparently for suspension purposes, was found on top. Photo shows the skull of the unlucky person still in its cage after being dug up. photo: Acme 12/28/1934

The Boy Who Made The Find

While the news slug provides some basic information, an enterprising Washington Post reporter got Gorman’s account of the discovery.

“On Sunday afternoon two boys came over to play cowboys and Indians in the sand lot which is
right in back of where I live. Some men had been carting out dirt and sand, and left a bank, and I was down in this little pit I had for my fort.”

“I was knocking little pieces off the sides’ of the bank and picked up some which I thought were
twigs. But I then saw I had been picking some teeth out of a skeleton’s face! It was just peeking out of the side of the bank and around the head where iron bands fastened together at the top with a spike. It looked as though it had been hung up somewhere.

“I called the other boys, and we ran and got the man next door in the garage, Then we ran and told my mother we had found a skeleton, but she did not believe us at  first as I sometimes fool her,  but when I told her the garage man had gone for a cop she came back with us and waited  there with us en until the cop came.”

“Then they started digging. They got the skull with the iron casing, but the body was so
old it broke all apart, but you could see the iron bands that were around the legs and ankles. In
fact, the whole body had been encased in irons, but the skull was all that was fastened together. I think it was a pirate, but the boys and I don’t care about playing in the old sand lot any more.”

Who Was He?

The question of the victim’s identity became the topic of discussion after the skeleton’s discovery,

Rather than a pirate, some believed the he was a slave or an Indian. Reginald Pelham Bolton, the author of many books about colonial New York and an amateur historian, said there was no way that person had anything to do with piracy as Hempstead was too far inland for pirates. He was probably an Indian or a criminal that the Dutch chose to make an example of.

The remains were given to the American Museum of Natural History in New York and within two weeks a conclusion was reached.

Dr. William W. Howells. associate in physical anthropology at  the museum determined that the skeleton was at least 200 years old.

From the skull Dr. Howells believed the individual was about 30 and a white man of the North-European descent to which the early Colonists of the region belonged.

Calculations based upon one of the arm bones place the height at about five feet two inches.

The cause of death could not be determined but it is certain he was not encased in the iron band while living.

A custom of the time, Dr. Howells explained, was to hang a condemned criminal and then remove him from the gibbet long enough for a blacksmith to place the cage around his head. The corpse was then hung in a prominent place as a warning to all inclined to a life of crime.