jgas
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- Apr 23, 2008
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Hopefully you will stay with me for this most intriguing story of a mystery that is over 100 years in the making. An Urban Legend of Northern Indiana that may have been finally solved by some research, pit finding luck, Forensic Anthropologists, Indiana University Archaeologists and the Historians of one of the Richest business familes of the late 1800's located in South Bend Indiana.
The story began somewhere around the 1840's - 1850's where a child was born and eventually grew up to be associated with the personal family Physician of the Oliver Family of the Oliver Chilled Plow Works. Oliver was absolutely rich by todays standards let alone the late 1800's. He enjoyed a life similar to that of the Studebaker Families. Let's just say the Oliver Mansion is now one of the best Museums in the country at over 12,000 square feet that is loaded with the kinds of treasures we all love to find.
Back to the child that was born in the mid 1800's...The Urban Legend known to many in these parts including the current homeowner and the Heritage Foundation(Previous Owners) as well as the local Anthropologists and Archaeologists have always known of an "Unknown" grave that was located somewhere close to the Oliver Estate but this was always the things of Myths and Legends.
The story follows a path of a person indigent and out of money, sick and in need of a doctors care. His debt paid to the doctor only after death!
The home in which this tale unfolds was built in 1879 and was owned by a lady that was the Tutor of the Oliver Children. The home was located 100 feet away from the Mansion. But the Mansion was not yet built. It appeared in the late 1890's. As years went by the home was sold to the Doctor of the Oliver Family. Sometime around the turn of the century. Now the Oliver Mansion was built and the Doctor had easy access to the Family and all of its needs.
It was during this time that the child, who was now at the age of around 40 to 50, was being treated by the Oliver's Personal Doctor. The Legend continues to say that this person could not pay for all of his ills. His debt to the Doctor would be paid back after his death by way of his own donation to science. His body donated to the Oliver Family Doctor for his continued works, teachings and healings. It was then that the Doctor would eventually make a Medical Skeleton of the man.
But then what happened to the skeleton over the years? The timeline of the homeowners was muddied through the decades to come and the Urban Legends fame began to grow. In the early 1970's another family moved into the home and discovered a box in the attic
They opened it and found a Medical Skeleton inside.( A strange side note was that the Anthropologists mother was friends with the family and her daugther baby sat for their children.) The mother remembered that the kids took the skeleton and spray painted it yellow. Maybe to use it for a scary Halloween scene or whatever the kids used to do with things like this. 
Sometime around the later 1970's the kids were made to bury this skeleton in a proper manner and place a grave marker on it that said "UNKNOWN".
Flash forward to Wednesday where two crazy bottle diggers made their presence. It took us over a month to finally come back to this property and dig a pit that we thought was "Iffy" at best. We thought we had plenty of other pits to dig that felt better. But I told Don that we needed to go back and dig this particular one. Since we knew the house was built in 1879 it may hold some treasures or "Unknown things". We never saw this marker when we probed for the privy, but now it was there. Sitting in the corner of the property 30 feet away from where we wanted to dig. The baby sitter later told us that it was on the other side of the yard back in the 1970's. So it never really crossed our minds because we did not know of the Urban Legend....Yet!
So now we dig...Funny how this pit was so hard. The soil like concrete and no signs of glass but it did have a distinctive cap. I pushed the probe rod down and through into what I thought was the use layer. A couple more shovel fulls of dirt and I saw a piece of cloth. It looked like old curtain cloth, white and still fairly intact. Don said " Man, I think that looks like the inside of a coffin". I said no way man. I then used my hand rake and the first thing I pulled out stuck to the rake was the lower jaw of a human A couple of teeth were still there. The next thing was a Femur, large enough to be an adult. Then I pulled out what was the hands and feet. Connected together with intricate wiring as if a master had done his handy work. Strange though, these things were painted yellow. An obvious sign, at least to us, that we had uncovered a medical skeleton. Now it was time to call the professionals!
So my coworkers wife who just so happens to be an Anthropologist was called. Her husband is a homicide detective as well. So they both came out to the pit. He immediately called the county coroner and advised him of our find. He said it would be the jurisdiction of the DNR and the anthropology departments at either Indiana University or Notre Dame. Several more calls were made and paperwork filed to secure the site for the Indiana University professors and students to come and take over the site. They soon arrived and began their work. Dedicated to preserving what we had found so that they could continue their research at the lab. It took two days to uncover and retrieve all the historical bones, the cloth and parts of the box. They had heard of the Urban Legend and said that they would do all the research that they could to properly identify the remains, contact any possible relatives, and possibly donate this find to the Oliver Museum as a historical find and the solving of a 100 year old Urban Legend.
Now I know some might find these pictures a bit disturbing and I am sorry for that. But these photographs depict the finding of a man lost to years of myths and stories of a man who donated himself to the cause of medical science. I respect that more than anything and this is why I called the proper people to investigate. Sure we could have uncovered the first bone and then reburied it, but we had this feeling of solving something. That sixth sense of getting closure, even for a family long since gone. If not for the museums sake and the history of it all, then lets hope we can place a name on this UNKNOWN man and get him a final resting place that would be fitting for a person who gave his death to the lives of others.
There are photo's of our first days pit dig, then the Urban Legend dig, and then finally a farm dig that unearthed a cache of Spear Points and a Beautiful Clasped Hands historical flask. On a final note, please be careful while digging as I finished the three days with seven stitches in my forearm from a shard of glass that was stuck in the side of the pit next to the boulder. Can you say OUCH! I Did
I hope you enjoyed the novel as well as the many pictures. Be safe out there and hope to get some more digging in before the cold hits jgas
The story began somewhere around the 1840's - 1850's where a child was born and eventually grew up to be associated with the personal family Physician of the Oliver Family of the Oliver Chilled Plow Works. Oliver was absolutely rich by todays standards let alone the late 1800's. He enjoyed a life similar to that of the Studebaker Families. Let's just say the Oliver Mansion is now one of the best Museums in the country at over 12,000 square feet that is loaded with the kinds of treasures we all love to find.
Back to the child that was born in the mid 1800's...The Urban Legend known to many in these parts including the current homeowner and the Heritage Foundation(Previous Owners) as well as the local Anthropologists and Archaeologists have always known of an "Unknown" grave that was located somewhere close to the Oliver Estate but this was always the things of Myths and Legends.
The story follows a path of a person indigent and out of money, sick and in need of a doctors care. His debt paid to the doctor only after death!
The home in which this tale unfolds was built in 1879 and was owned by a lady that was the Tutor of the Oliver Children. The home was located 100 feet away from the Mansion. But the Mansion was not yet built. It appeared in the late 1890's. As years went by the home was sold to the Doctor of the Oliver Family. Sometime around the turn of the century. Now the Oliver Mansion was built and the Doctor had easy access to the Family and all of its needs. It was during this time that the child, who was now at the age of around 40 to 50, was being treated by the Oliver's Personal Doctor. The Legend continues to say that this person could not pay for all of his ills. His debt to the Doctor would be paid back after his death by way of his own donation to science. His body donated to the Oliver Family Doctor for his continued works, teachings and healings. It was then that the Doctor would eventually make a Medical Skeleton of the man.
But then what happened to the skeleton over the years? The timeline of the homeowners was muddied through the decades to come and the Urban Legends fame began to grow. In the early 1970's another family moved into the home and discovered a box in the attic
They opened it and found a Medical Skeleton inside.( A strange side note was that the Anthropologists mother was friends with the family and her daugther baby sat for their children.) The mother remembered that the kids took the skeleton and spray painted it yellow. Maybe to use it for a scary Halloween scene or whatever the kids used to do with things like this. Sometime around the later 1970's the kids were made to bury this skeleton in a proper manner and place a grave marker on it that said "UNKNOWN".Flash forward to Wednesday where two crazy bottle diggers made their presence. It took us over a month to finally come back to this property and dig a pit that we thought was "Iffy" at best. We thought we had plenty of other pits to dig that felt better. But I told Don that we needed to go back and dig this particular one. Since we knew the house was built in 1879 it may hold some treasures or "Unknown things". We never saw this marker when we probed for the privy, but now it was there. Sitting in the corner of the property 30 feet away from where we wanted to dig. The baby sitter later told us that it was on the other side of the yard back in the 1970's. So it never really crossed our minds because we did not know of the Urban Legend....Yet!
So now we dig...Funny how this pit was so hard. The soil like concrete and no signs of glass but it did have a distinctive cap. I pushed the probe rod down and through into what I thought was the use layer. A couple more shovel fulls of dirt and I saw a piece of cloth. It looked like old curtain cloth, white and still fairly intact. Don said " Man, I think that looks like the inside of a coffin". I said no way man. I then used my hand rake and the first thing I pulled out stuck to the rake was the lower jaw of a human
A couple of teeth were still there. The next thing was a Femur, large enough to be an adult. Then I pulled out what was the hands and feet. Connected together with intricate wiring as if a master had done his handy work. Strange though, these things were painted yellow. An obvious sign, at least to us, that we had uncovered a medical skeleton. Now it was time to call the professionals!So my coworkers wife who just so happens to be an Anthropologist was called. Her husband is a homicide detective as well. So they both came out to the pit. He immediately called the county coroner and advised him of our find. He said it would be the jurisdiction of the DNR and the anthropology departments at either Indiana University or Notre Dame. Several more calls were made and paperwork filed to secure the site for the Indiana University professors and students to come and take over the site. They soon arrived and began their work. Dedicated to preserving what we had found so that they could continue their research at the lab. It took two days to uncover and retrieve all the historical bones, the cloth and parts of the box. They had heard of the Urban Legend and said that they would do all the research that they could to properly identify the remains, contact any possible relatives, and possibly donate this find to the Oliver Museum as a historical find and the solving of a 100 year old Urban Legend.
Now I know some might find these pictures a bit disturbing and I am sorry for that. But these photographs depict the finding of a man lost to years of myths and stories of a man who donated himself to the cause of medical science. I respect that more than anything and this is why I called the proper people to investigate. Sure we could have uncovered the first bone and then reburied it, but we had this feeling of solving something. That sixth sense of getting closure, even for a family long since gone. If not for the museums sake and the history of it all, then lets hope we can place a name on this UNKNOWN man and get him a final resting place that would be fitting for a person who gave his death to the lives of others.
There are photo's of our first days pit dig, then the Urban Legend dig, and then finally a farm dig that unearthed a cache of Spear Points and a Beautiful Clasped Hands historical flask. On a final note, please be careful while digging as I finished the three days with seven stitches in my forearm from a shard of glass that was stuck in the side of the pit next to the boulder. Can you say OUCH! I Did
I hope you enjoyed the novel as well as the many pictures. Be safe out there and hope to get some more digging in before the cold hits jgas
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Thanks for the replies guys. 
I must be nuts, Don thinks so most of the time!!! Thanks again for the reply buddy 
