Secrets of the Dead (2000–…): Season 16, Episode 5 - The Woman in the Iron Coffin - full transcript

- Queens, New York.

Construction workers discover
the body of a young woman.

At first, it appears
to be a homicide.

But something about the scene
doesn't quite add up.

- My colleague was finishing off
sweeping away

the last residue of the soil

That's when he discovered
something kind of shocking.

- Now, forensic archaeologist
Scott Warnasch

wants to piece together
this historical puzzle.

With the help of a close-knit
New York community...

- We can identify with her
because she does look like us.



And so,
it does make it personal.

- It was my honor
to complete that circle.

- leading scientific experts...

- Lots of different chemicals
that are captured in her teeth

that told us a little bit more
about how she lived.

- and cutting-edge technology...

- This is unbelievable.

I have never seen
anything like this before

- we open the door
to a neglected history...

- It's like a digital puzzle
that we are piecing together.

- It is really important
that we create this rich

and diverse tapestry

of African-American life
in the 19th century.

- to reveal the mystery behind



"The Woman in the Iron Coffin."

♪♪

- This program was made possible
in part by

the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting

and by contributions
to your PBS station

from viewers like you.
Thank you.

♪♪

- This area right here is north
Queens, Corona-Elmhurst border.

- Middle class.
Not a bad area.

- It's a mixed population here.

A lot of local businesses,

not really a bad place
in terms of crime.

Crime can happen anywhere,

In my career, I've seen
over 1,000 homicides.

You get a little bit numb to it,
but it doesn't get easier.

- To be called out for a D.O.A.
in this area

is not really that uncommon,

but it's not
a frequent event in this area.

- 911 emergency...

- On October 4, 2011,

construction workers at a site
in Queens made a grim discovery.

- We received a call
at Crime Scene

at about 9:15 in the evening.

- It was a D.O.A.,
and it was deemed

that they discovered
under suspicious circumstances.

The workers at
the construction site

were working
with the heavy equipment

and they hit something,
which they believed was a pipe,

and they saw an individual in it

and that's when they decided
to call the police.

- Detectives Warren Davis
and Robert Saenz

were two
of the first responders.

- What we had when we came
to the site,

we found it was all plywooded up

It was dark,
there was no lighting

and in the background
what we had was a field,

and we could see it barely
with our flashlights,

but we knew down in the pit area

was where this backhoe
unearthed this individual.

- But what at first seemed
like a recent homicide

soon became something
much stranger.

- There was some metal
that was very intriguing to see.

- What they did see over there
obviously was very unusual.

It was surprising to see how
well-preserved the remains were.

- Who did these remains
belong to?

♪♪

- My name is Scott Warnasch.
I am a forensic archaeologist.

I spent a lot of my early career
in archaeology

working on traditional
archaeological sites...

Historical and prehistoric...
And I gravitated

towards excavating skeletons
and cemeteries

or burial grounds.

I was always interested
in forensics

although I was very squeamish
and I didn't think

I would be able to get through
the proper coursework

to actually get
that formal degree.

I originally began working
at the medical examiner's office

in the World Trade Center,

handling the remains,
doing the case file work,

and releasing the remains
to the family members.

Recovering
potentially human remains

and identifying the victims

puts my usual work at a much
higher level of satisfaction

than typical
archaeological projects.

♪♪

October 5, 2011,
started off like a normal day,

although a normal day
at the medical examiner's office

is probably a bit different
than everybody else's.

When we got to work,
we were told

that we had to
get a crew together

for the forensic
anthropology unit

to respond to a potential
crime scene in Queens.

Apparently, a body
was discovered in Elmhurst.

So we arrived at the scene
on Corona Avenue,

walked into the site,
and spoke to the detectives

to get a little background
on the situation.

The team lines up
as we approach the scene,

and we're looking on the ground,

looking for any type of evidence

that may have been dug up
from the machinery

and spread around the site.

It was then when I noticed
this piece of rusty metal.

It wouldn't have been anything
to anyone else on the site.

However, I had some idea
of the significance of it.

This told me that this wasn't
an ordinary crime scene.

This suggested that the person
died over 150 years ago.

As we were uncovering the body
and exposing it,

we quickly realized
that we were dealing

with an African-American woman.

She seemed to have been buried
in some kind of white nightgown

and high, thick knee socks.

Forensic protocol suggests
that you leave the most

sensitive parts of the body
covered until the last minute.

That way they're protected from
the sun or any other situations.

My colleague Chris
was finishing off

sweeping away
the last residue of the soil

around the woman's chest
and around her face.

That's when he discovered
something kind of shocking.

And as he's sweeping away,
we can see these lesions

all over the top of her chest
and on her forehead.

It looked a lot like smallpox.

So, the situation went from
a potential crime scene

to an archaeological discovery

to a potential biohazard
within like an hour.

So, there were two things
that we needed to do right away.

One was to take extra
precautions

when handling the body

and messaging
that down the line to the morgue

so everybody involved with this

understood
what we were dealing with.

The second was
to call the experts.

- My name is Kevin Karem,
and I am a medical researcher,

and I work for the Centers
for Disease Control

and Prevention
in Atlanta, Georgia.

My career and my role at the CDC
over the years

has been as an infectious
disease researcher.

So really helping to protect the
public health of the country,

and we actually have
an extensive global program,

as well.

Within days after getting
the call from Queens County,

we prepared to come up
to New York

and help them with the case.

We thought, "Well, there is
no way we are going

to find anything viable."

And so, we agreed
that the examination

would be quick and brief.

We'd take a few specimens
and move on.

Well, that changed
the next morning

when we got to the morgue.

One of the more shocking things
for me

was actually
opening the body bag

and seeing the sheer number
of lesions

across this young woman's body
from head to toe.

The preservation of the body
was just totally unexpected.

And so that point I got
a little more nervous

about the possibility that there
might be a contagion risk here.

Smallpox is very unusual,
in that it is thought

to have killed more people
in human history

than any other agent
that we know of.

It was transmitted
by aerosol droplets.

So, when someone had a fulminant
cough or sneezing,

it could actually be carried
on those particles in the air.

And that's thought to be
one of the reasons

why it was so contagious.

Its transmission rates
are around 60%,

which is actually higher
than Ebola.

The mortality rate,
depending on the outbreak,

could be anywhere from
10% to 60%.

But it's very devastating

and the denser population
in a community,

the higher the probability
of spread.

- We tend to forget that
in the cities

of the early 1800s,

even throughout
the 19th century,

there was a very active
disease environment,

and you didn't have
great sanitary conditions.

- New York was an incredibly
unhealthy place

to be in the 19th century.

There are waves of epidemics
that sweep the city

against which the population,
you know, has no recourse.

And it attacks

those who are living in
the least healthy environments.

And that was where
African-Americans, of course,

were allowed to live.

Death by epidemic
was absolutely very common.

- By the middle
of the 20th century,

there was a huge effort to wipe
out smallpox once and for all.

- In 1959, there was
a World Health Assembly meeting

where they talked about
a mandatory vaccination program

to eradicate the disease.

So, disease in the United States
was eliminated

really before 1970.

Vaccination among children
of the United States

actually stopped in 1973,

and then the rest of the world
followed suit.

And in 1980,
the World Health Organization

declared the world
to be smallpox free.

- Although we understood
that this woman probably died

over 150 years ago,

it was important
to examine the body

to determine whether this was
a public health concern.

- So, in this case
the type of specimens

we took from the skin tissue

as well as internal organs were
very good samples for a test

we call called polymerase
chain reaction, or PCR.

And in that test, we can
actually look specifically

for viral DNA sequences

based on what we know
about smallpox virus.

And it was the most effective
way for us to test quickly.

What we found was that
we could not detect any DNA.

And what it really told us
was that the tissue

and any viral DNA was degraded,

probably due to how long it
had been since she died,

the moisture in the body,
that sort of thing.

We felt confident at that point

that there was not
a contagion present,

and that the body really posed
no risk relative to smallpox.

- With the results from the CDC
showing

there was no
public health threat,

Scott's part of the job
was officially over.

But he couldn't let the case go.

He wanted to know more
about this woman

and the world she inhabited
more than 150 years ago.

And so, to help him solve
the mystery,

Scott turned to science.

- I was able to get in touch
with a specialist

on non-invasive ways
of examining a body.

- My name is Jerry Conlogue.

I'm emeritus professor
of diagnostic imaging

and co-director of

the Bioanthropology Research
Institute at Quinnipiac.

I guess you could say
I'm a mummy man.

I've probably X-rayed
well over 1,000 mummies

in maybe 16 different countries.

- For me, the real excitement,
and I still feel this

after 40 years
of doing mummies...

To be able to use X-ray

to find out
what's inside the mummy.

An individual's skeleton
is kind of record

of what their body was like

from when they were an infant
until when they died,

so the history is definitely
in the bones.

My job is to be able to get that
information out of the bones

so that it can be interpreted
by someone like Scott,

an anthropologist.

- This is unbelievable.

I have never seen
anything like this before.

We've seen X-rays,
we've seen CT scans,

but this is a 3-D version
of this woman.

- The original CT scans
Jerry made of the woman

have been loaded into a piece
of groundbreaking software.

It allows for a virtual
autopsy of the body,

unlocking the secrets
contained within

without making
a single incision.

- Normally
I am looking at sections

or regions of the body,
but this thing lets me

see the entire body,
and I can spin it and roll it

and go into it
and come out of it.

This is a way
that I have never been able

to look at a body before.

- With just the swipe of
a screen,

it can move between
multiple layers of the body,

digitally stripping back skin,
revealing internal organs,

and showing the skeleton
beneath.

- If we had examined her
let's say in 2000,

we would have not have had
the capability with the CT

and the MR, and this wonderful
table would have not been there.

- Yeah, right.
We would have X-rays.

- We'd just have plain X-rays

- Typically,
in an archaeological situation,

you never really know
how someone died,

the cause and manner of death.

Based on what's left
is usually the skeleton

unless they have a bullet hole
or an arrowhead in them.

Here we can see clearly
the cause

and manner of this woman's death
was smallpox.

- Well, on the surface,
you can see all these

smallpox lesions on her head,
on her neck, on her chest,

down into her thigh area,
and even down into her feet.

- And then on her heel,
and on the pad of her foot,

and the ball of her foot.

- Typically with smallpox,

the rash
really initiates in the mouth,

in the oral cavity,
and so, they become very sore,

you have lesions
inside your mouth,

and then it becomes
a full-blown skin lesions

in a centrifugal pattern.

That means predominantly in the
limbs but also on the trunks.

And quite often it
was documented that they would

have you know exceptional fever,
immune response,

and then a significant drop
in blood pressure,

which indicates
some type of organ failure

- I would have only expected
lesions on the surface,

but if we look inside her skull,
this is her brain.

Now, covering the brain there is
this tissue that is very dense.

It is kind of
the consistency of canvas,

and that's to protect the brain.

And it is called the dura.

And there are lesions
on the dura.

What makes this really unusual
is that I don't think anyone

has ever imaged an individual
with smallpox, looked inside.

And here we have
got evidence that

the lesions are in fact inside.

- It is amazing.

It is like we have a map
of how smallpox

colonized the human body.

That's a first.
That's a medical first.

- The woman's body
was so well-preserved,

the smallpox that killed her
remains clearly visible,

something Jerry and Scott

wouldn't usually get to see
from skeletal remains.

♪♪

The airtight coffin
perfectly preserved the woman.

- The iron coffin was invented
by Almond Dunbar Fisk.

He was originally a stove
manufacturer in Lower Manhattan.

In 1844, Almond Fisk's brother
William died in Mississippi

during the summertime,
and there was no way

to transport his body
back up to New York.

This caused a lot of sorrow
for his family

and especially his father,

and this seemed to be
the instigation

for the development
of the coffin.

- If you died far from home
in the early 1800s,

that is where you were buried.

You are not going to be
transported— a corpse...

Hundreds of miles
over weeks or months.

That is out of the realm
of possibility.

You will be buried
where you fell.

- In the age of steam travel,
Fisk's iron coffin was invented

to address the issue of people
dying far from home.

The coffins were designed to
preserve bodies

for sanitary storage

and long-distance
transportation.

If someone died far away,
he or she could now

be sent back home
for a proper burial among kin.

- He bought a large farm
outside of Newtown, Queens,

and in one of his barns,

he set up
a little furnace for himself

and started his own foundry
and started experimenting.

- Today,
the Fisk Avenue subway stop

stands a short distance
from the location

of the 19th-century foundry.

- In 1848, Almond Fisk
was granted a patent

for his metallic burial case

and started a company with his
brother-in-law William Raymond,

the company being
Fisk & Raymond.

- We're here at the Canton
Historical Society Museum

in Collinsville, Connecticut.

They have the most
extraordinary example

of a Fisk metallic burial case.

There are so many little details

that you never get to see
from the iron coffins

that get excavated
from archaeological sites.

There's so much care
and craftsmanship in this

that it's just unbelievable.

Although they're considered
a manufactured

from a factory product,
this was the 1840s and '50s,

and it took a long time
to finish one of these.

So, it was sort of maybe
a bit of an assembly line,

but it wasn't like
they were being pumped out

like chocolate bars
or anything like this.

This was still a product
of many craftsmen

and many hours of work.

This coffin was invented
prior to modern embalming.

This was the closest they could
get to some way of preserving

the dead
for transportation and storage.

The coffin body itself
would be cast in the sand,

however certain parts of it
were manufactured separately,

as sort of like medallions

and could be pressed
into the sand mold

to show these different motifs.

So, the face plate, the
nameplate, and the footplate...

They had some variation,
they had choices

on what they wanted
to represent on the coffins.

A very important feature
of these coffins of the time

was that it also had a window
for viewing the deceased.

This was a time before
photography had really caught on

as a mode of identification.

And it was important
for the next of kin to be able

to view the body
in order to determine

that it was in fact them.

- The Fisk iron coffin
was completely airtight.

A body sealed inside was kept
so well-preserved

it would be recognizable for the
purpose of legal identification.

- Once the viewing was over,

the lid would be put back on
and bolted shut.

And theoretically
the whole coffin

would be airtight at this point.

The foot of the coffin is
probably the most important part

for the marketer and inventor,
Almond Fisk.

This is the patent mark
that was granted to Fisk

on November 14, 1848.

It says, "A. D. Fisk,
patent, November 14th,"

and then a 48 in the center.

The coffins were
a marvelous invention

to preserve bodies
for transportation.

As an archaeologist,
most of the time

all you're expecting to find

are skeletons in varying
degrees of preservation.

But in this case, oh, my God!

We have everything here.
This woman is so well-preserved.

- Most bacteria and organisms
responsible

for bodily decomposition
require oxygen.

But in this case,
it was difficult

for them to do their job

because the iron coffin
was airtight.

- I've certainly never seen
a body

that is in this state
of preservation

that has not been
artificially embalmed.

What I am seeing here
is her liver.

The liver would be
the first organs

that will probably
start to decompose.

So decomposition was stopped,

so that speaks
to the efficiency of the coffin.

- The coffins were very expensive
for the time.

They came in many sizes,
and they were

generally associated
with the rich and the elite.

In 1849, former first lady
Dolly Madison passed away,

and she was one of the first
famous people

to be buried in a Fisk coffin.

She was a very beloved
American icon at the time.

Her funeral was covered
in all the papers,

and the fact that she was
in one of these coffins

put Fisk and Raymond
into a much larger world.

Many more famous politicians...
Henry Clay,

President Zachary Taylor,
Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun,

even President Lincoln's son
Willie

was preserved in a later version
of these coffins

when he died while the president
was still in office.

When we were originally
discovered the woman in Queens,

it was revealed
that she was African-American.

That was quite a shock

because that certainly
didn't fit the pattern

of who you would expect to be in
one of these elaborate coffins.

Once we understood that
she probably died of smallpox,

that sort of started
to make sense

why she might be quarantined
in one of these coffins.

However, how she got the coffin
would still remain a mystery.

- So, what we have here
are a bunch of photos

of coffin fragments that
were recovered from the scene.

I spent some time trying
to put it back together,

and it turned out that we had
about 50 or 60 fragments,

but not the whole coffin.

However, the most important part
of the coffin was recovered.

It was the most important part
because it had the patent mark.

Most of the patent marks
that Fisk put on his coffins

are aligned a specific way
on the foot

and are rotated in a way
that you can read them easily,

and that's just his logo
at the time.

However, this coffin
is significant

because the patent mark
is misaligned,

and the whole logo
is rotated 180 degrees,

so it was pretty much botched.

Everything about it worked,

except that the main marketing
part of it was messed up.

So maybe it was put to the side
and saved for a time of need.

- By understanding
this one woman,

she provides a window
into the time that she lived in.

We can learn a lot
about the environment,

her living conditions,

maybe even the types of work
she did,

and from there
we can extrapolate

into the larger population of
the African-American community.

- In trying to reconstruct
the lives of African-Americans

in the 19th century and earlier,
we face several challenges.

Many African-Americans
didn't read or write,

so they didn't leave their
memoirs or their stories behind.

In addition, many white
historians did not record

the histories
of African-Americans.

They were essentially ignored.

- The first step in
an identification process

is to create
a biological profile,

and as an anthropologist,
we would use the skeleton

to start to narrow down
potential candidates

of who this might be,
based on relative age range,

their sex, potentially their
ancestry, and their stature,

and through that, you come up
with a thumbnail sketch

about who this individual is.

From the skeleton,
you can learn a lot

about the age of the individual

based on how well
the bones have been formed

and how they have developed.

The long bones have these caps,

and if the caps at the ends
of the bones have fused,

then we can understand
that this person is an adult.

Then we also have the spine.

- Yeah, she has some
arthritic changes.

This lipping on
the ends of the bones...

So as arthritis develops,
you'll get a bridge

or excess bone formed because of
the wearing action on the bone.

She has got minimal, so I would
say she's probably over 25

but I don't think
she is really that old.

I don't think she's much
older than 30.

- And we can see a little bit
of arthritis in her lower back.

It does suggest she probably
used her back on a daily basis.

- These folks had
a physical life.

So if you are bending
over a lot,

unfortunately this is the part
of your spine

that is going to show
these early degenerative changes

- The skeleton isn't suggesting

she did a lot
of lifting or carrying.

If somebody had a life
of extreme manual labor,

working in the fields,

I think that would be showing up
on a body, even this age.

As you can see here,
unfortunately, the woman's face

was pretty damaged
by the construction equipment

when she was discovered.

The damage to her face
is just incredible.

- The right side of her face
doesn't look too bad

but the left side...

This area here
where you've got a fracture

through the cheekbone,
fracture through the jaw,

and when I roll this
back and forth...

And it is one of
the beauties of this table...

Her right ribs look okay,

but her left ribs are fractured.

- While we are in this view,

I get to mention
an article of clothing

that is really fascinating
on a lot of levels.

It's an exquisite comb carved
out of either hom

or maybe tortoise shell.

It's beautiful,
almost a nimbus cloud of knots

over 12 long, straight teeth.

This would have been
a hand-carved comb.

It was placed in the back
of her hair.

It held her hair back
and also held a very delicate

knit cap that was on
the back of her head.

And it shows really
personal aspects of her life.

It has got little nicks in it.

It's got polishing
in certain areas.

The little day-to-day motions
that this woman had in her life.

And it also represents
in a large way

the larger community
that was involved

with preparing her body
for the funeral,

that they took the time
to put her comb in

and put the cap on her head

and prepare her
for a proper burial.

- Within the time
the woman lived,

it was a very tumultuous period

for African-Americans
in New York,

as well as everywhere else
in the country.

- America was an emerging nation.

It was not the superpower
that we think of today.

The economies were
also diversifying.

By the 19th century, slave labor
was diminishing in the North

whereas it was growing

and became
quite valuable in the South

- There are great differences

among
African-American communities

in terms of geography,

whether you are in the North
or in the South or in the West.

In the North, the first state
to abolish slavery is Vermont,

and Vermont is 1777,

followed by
Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

- New York was one of the largest
slave-holding states

in the United States,

proportionately surpassing
some of the Southern states.

By 1788, 4 in 10 New York
families owned slaves.

- New York was one of the last
states in the North

to abolish slavery.

- It's a somewhat
complicated procedure.

In 1799, a gradual emancipation
bill is passed

which says that slaves
born before July 4, 1799,

are slaves
for the rest of their lives,

but people born into slavery
after July 4, 1799,

will be emancipated.

In 1817, another bill
gets passed that declares

that people even enslaved
before 1799

will be freed on July 4, 1827.

- Finally, on July 4, 1827,

28 years after the state's
first emancipation bill,

New York's
African-American community

celebrated their liberation.

In all, about 10,000 people
in New York state were set free.

- The position of
the African-American community

remains very vexed

because you do have
slave kidnappers

coming from the South up North

in pursuit of slaves
who have escaped to the North,

and the passage of
the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850

meant that they could indeed
legitimately go

and catch slaves
and bring them back.

But the real problem is that
the kidnappers would come up

and were capable of seizing
any black off the street

and saying,
"Oh, you are a slave.

You are the slave of
Mr. Johnson, whoever,

and we're remanding
you into slavery."

And that person
could protest and say,

"Well, no, I'm free," and "I was
born here free," et cetera,

but if you didn't have your
papers on you right then

or you couldn't prove it
right then and there,

you were kidnapped
and sent into slavery.

And that was a process
known as black birding.

One great example
is the case of Solomon Northup,

who was a free black
and who was kidnapped

and taken to the South
and was 12 years a slave

and lived to gain his freedom
and to write that narrative.

♪♪

- After emancipation in New York,

the abolition of slavery
in New York,

the black population was made up
of free African-Americans.

It was also made up of people
that had escaped slavery

and had come to New York,

as well as those who had been
manumitted from slavery.

- Throughout New York,
free African-Americans

established
their own communities.

Weeksville in Brooklyn
and Seneca Village,

later cleared to make way
for Central Park,

were among them.

- New York was a magnet for
escaped slaves to migrate north.

What I am really interested
to find out

is if this woman
was a freed slave,

an escaped slave,
or from a family

that had been freed
for quite a long time.

- Comparing when the coffin
was manufactured

and her age when she died,

this woman must have been born
sometime in the early 1800s.

If she was indeed
born in New York

after the Emancipation Act
of 1799,

then it is more likely that
she was a free woman

rather than enslaved.

- One of the best ways

we can determine
the origin of a person,

where they were born,
is isotope analysis.

- My name is Rhonda Quinn.

I am a biological
anthropologist.

I am a professor
at Seton Hall University.

And I use geochemistry to answer
anthropological questions.

If you are looking to
paint a picture

of where someone was from,
their place of origin

throughout the time period
of their childhood,

even into the late childhood,

teeth are the best place to go.

Teeth are amazing snapshots
of time in your life

and the environment itself.

It tells you about diet.
It tells you about location.

- Adult teeth begin to develop
before birth

and continue growing
until they are all in place.

As they grow, they absorb
the chemicals

found in the water
the person drinks.

These chemicals are unique
to geographic regions.

- The first measurement
that we did was oxygen isotopes.

Really what this is showing us

is what was the signature
of the water that she ingested.

What we first found was that
she would have ended up

in this blue part,
and what do you know,

it absolutely
overlaps with New York.

- So it's like a snapshot of
her childhood environment?

- Absolutely.

I cannot differentiate her
from people

who resided in New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania.

It's really only the Southern
states that I can take out.

So only Florida,
Alabama, Georgia.

- Specific isotopes
found in the tooth

match the mineral content
of the water

in the northeastern
United States,

meaning she can't have
grown up in the South.

- The other component we really
wanted to look at

is lots of different
elements in her teeth,

lots of different chemicals
that are captured in her teeth

that told us a little bit more
about how she lived.

We measured lead.

Lead was much higher
than we would have predicted.

You get lead levels this high
when you have industrialization.

- That's really interesting
because just based

on the general area of

where this woman
seems like she grew up,

she was really close to
industrial centers of Brooklyn

and Lower Manhattan.

- We have a few locations
in the United States

that show us that.

New York is one of them.

- While her teeth give clues

about where this woman
came from,

a sample of her hair
provides a window

into how she might have lived.

- This represents a different
time period in her life.

As you can imagine, the hair
on top of your head

is growing at a rate
that's much faster,

and it's going to represent
a time period very close

to her time of death.

A student of mine collected data

from a number of New York City
residents today.

She looks like a lot
of New Yorkers.

- So does that mean she ate meat

like most New Yorkers
or protein at least?

- For the time period
that is represented

with this hair sample,

it looks like she's getting
a fair amount of protein.

- So, a balanced diet then?
Okay.

- There's probably a little
bit of com in her diet,

but it's not a com-based system

that we see in the United States
today in Middle America.

She looks like
other New Yorkers.

- The science seems to confirm

that the woman grew up close
to New York City.

But to identify who she was,
Scott needs to work backwards

from the place
where her body was found

to piece together what Queens
was like when she was alive.

- The coffin was discovered
right here on Corona Avenue

between Corona Avenue
and the railroad tracks.

Obviously, Queens has changed

considerably since
the mid-19th century.

Trying to find out a little bit
more background

on what was
on this property previously,

we contacted the New York City
Landmarks Commission.

- What was Queens like in the
decades before the Civil War?

1830s, '40, '50s?

You have a major town
in Jamaica,

which serves the southern
half of Queens.

The other major town
is Flushing.

And then there is Newtown,
what is now Elmhurst.

What was Newtown like
in the 1850s?

It is a small place.

This is a one-street town,
and there was nothing beyond.

- The Landmarks Commission
explained that the property

where we discovered the body was
the site of the African church

right on Corona Avenue.

Originally it was called
Dutch Lane,

and it had changed names
a few of times

over the period
of the 19th century.

I was able to uncover
the original deed

for the Dutch Lane
cemetery property,

which was sold to the
United African Society in 1828.

- Only one year after full
emancipation in New York,

the African-American community
in Newtown

established its own church.

- The African-American population
who lived in Newtown

were either the children
of slaves

or they were former slaves
themselves.

But at this point,
they are free people

who have sufficient funds

that they are able to buy
property for a cemetery.

There isn't a lot of wealth

in the African-American
community,

but they are able
to build a church.

- The African-American community
organized itself

right from the beginning
in very, very powerful ways.

And the whole concept
of mutual relief

was really the bedrock of
the African-American community.

You come together in fellowship
and brotherhood,

and everybody puts
in a certain amount of money,

and that is then reserved
to help anybody in need.

And then you have
black churches,

black denominations like

the African Methodist
Episcopal Church,

AME Church.

- The African Methodist Episcopal
Church was a church

that grew out of protest.

African-Americans
in Philadelphia,

who were members of the
predominantly white

Methodist church
were essentially discriminated

and asked to sit
in segregated pews.

And they refused
to do that and left

and formed their own church,

the African Methodist
Episcopal Church,

and this took off and many

other African Methodist
Episcopal Churches

were formed as a way of sort of
protesting

racial discrimination and
segregation in white churches.

- Churches are engaged
in political activism,

and one example would be
the Amistad case,

when a group of slaves
who had mutinied

on the Amistad come ashore.

And so black churches
galvanized to send money.

So churches are
really important,

not just from
a religious point of view

but from a social
and political point of view.

- Today, St. Mark
African Methodist Episcopal

stands just one mile from
the original Dutch Lane church.

Its history can be traced
all the way back

to the community established

by the United African Society
of Newtown,

more than 160 years ago.

- That church was notified
when this woman was discovered,

and they were invited
to contribute

their input on what should
be done with the woman.

- My name is
Kimberly L. Detherage,

and I'm the pastor

at St. Mark African
Methodist Episcopal Church

here in Jackson Heights,
Queens, New York.

- St. Mark A.M.E. Church
moved away

from the Dutch Lane
location in 1929.

- The woman that was found
represents us.

She was found in our
African-American burial ground,

and because of that, she is
a member of our congregation.

And as a member
of our congregation,

it was important for us
to make sure that we treated her

with the very, utmost respect...

That life and her body
was not treated disrespectfully,

but most of all that we paid
homage to the person

that we believed that she was.

We had to hire a funeral home,

and we wanted to make sure
that there was

an African-American
funeral director

and a funeral home that would be
taking care of her body,

because we understood that
as a part of our congregation,

we wanted someone that looked
like her and looked like us

to make sure that
she was well taken care of.

I'm John Houston,
and I am a funeral director.

And I'm originally
from a small town

in north Alabama named Decatur.

I have been a funeral director
for 23 years,

and this particular
funeral home,

we serve the general
north New Jersey area.

I got a call from the church,

from St Mark A.M.E.

And I went to pick up the body

and then when I saw her...

The clothing that she had on

and she was still intact...

It was obvious that
this was a historical case.

We brought her back here,
we took her downstairs

and got an opportunity
to look ourselves to see,

and it was unbelievable.

She was fully clothed.

You could see the actual color
of the clothing,

and you knew
that there was someone

that had taken great care in
preparing this woman for burial,

the same thing that we do,
and it was just unbelievable.

It was my honor to basically
complete that circle...

That she was being
cared for again.

I was honored
to take care of her.

We were her family
during that time.

She was buried in
a solid mahogany casket.

There was a casket spray
that gave a sense of Africa

and nature.

The choir sang.

It was a service for a person,

just as though that someone had
died in the congregation today.

There's no difference.

It was totally unbelievable
to me

and probably I'll never get
this opportunity

to take care of a case
like this again.

It's really part of the
African-American heritage.

We did not come
to this continent freely.

We were stolen from west Africa

and brought here
and treated terribly.

And still we are not
treated fairly.

And to see someone who was
actually clothed the way

that she was
and in an expensive casket,

it gave us a sense of pride

and also gave us a sense
of pride to give something back

and give her a great
going home service.

- It is important to remember
that this isn't just

an archaeological specimen.

This is an individual.

This was a person
that had a life.

One of the best ways
to humanize her

is to give her an identity.

I began the identification
process using two criteria,

first based on the time
the coffins were manufactured,

and second the age range
of the woman

based on her biological profile.

The date range for
the coffin manufacturing

began around 1848 to about 1854.

That gives us a nice window

for the identification process
to begin.

- As luck would have it,
this time period also gives

Scott the perfect place
to look for potential names...

The 1850 census.

It was the first time
African-Americans

were listed individually
by name in the census,

the first full accounting

of the African-American
population of Newtown.

- The biological profile
of the woman

gave an age range
between 25 and 35 years old.

Combing through the 1850 census

came up with
33 possible candidates

that fit the biological profile
of this woman.

- As Scott scours the census
records, one name stands out.

- Her name was Martha Peterson,

and she was
26 years old in 1850.

♪♪

The census data
lists Martha Peterson

living with a man named
William Raymond.

That's amazing because
William Raymond not only

was Fisk's brother-in-law,

he was also
his next-door-neighbor

and business partner.

Now we have the name of a woman
that fits the biological profile

who was living
with the maker of the coffins.

If this woman was Martha,
it's an easy jump to conclude

that if Martha died of smallpox
in the house of William Raymond,

then she would be buried
in one of his coffins.

He would be the perfect person
to be able to supply the remedy

to handle this situation.

And the fact that the patent
mark was misaligned

and sort of botched may suggest
why it was available

at the time of Martha's death.

The woman's clothing suggests
that she was taken care of

and was dressed properly
for a burial.

So, the question becomes
who did care for her?

Potentially family members.

That would be
the most likely explanation.

I have been looking at
the 1850 census and established

there are five main branches
of the Peterson family.

Five males are all within
the age range

of what would have been
Martha's parents' generation.

I have narrowed that down
to one particular couple,

John and Jane Peterson.

- Scott believes the key
to identifying John and Jane

as Martha's parents
lies in the name

of one of her potential nieces.

- If Martha was the daughter
of John and Jane Peterson,

that means that Martha
had a brother named Elisha.

Elisha had a daughter
that he named Martha.

This is the only other Martha
I have found

in the other Peterson branches,

and it is not unrealistic
to think

that Elisha might name
a daughter

after a departed sister.

- There is also evidence that the
Petersons were prominent members

of the African-American
community in rural Newtown.

- So if John Peterson
is Martha Peterson's father,

it is really interesting
because John Peterson

was the president
of the United African Society

who purchased the property
of the cemetery.

- It's another connection between
the possible identity

of the remains and the
location where they were found.

- Another interesting fact
from the census

is that Martha
could read and write.

We know this because there are
boxes next to her name

that shows that she could
read and write.

- African-Americans
craved education.

They wanted to learn
how to read and write,

and they would go
to great lengths,

including hiring teachers.

- Literacy in many ways
simply represents freedom.

Black leaders really
see education

as a path to emancipation.

And the one example
that sticks out in my mind

has to do with James Pennington.

- James Pennington
was an African-American slave.

He was born in 1807
in eastern Maryland.

- He escapes from slavery
in Maryland

and ends up
in Newtown in Queens.

- Pennington became one of

the leading abolitionists
in the United States.

He spoke against slavery.

He traveled overseas,

speaking before
religious congregations

against the system of slavery.

He eventually writes
his autobiography

that describes his conditions,

his experiences under slavery,
and how he escaped.

- He was a blacksmith by trade,

so when he published
a slave narrative,

it's titled
"The Fugitive Blacksmith."

- James Pennington eventually
by the early 1830s

became the first
black schoolteacher

of the first black school
in Newtown,

around the same time that Martha
would have been school age,

somewhere around 8 or 9
or 10 years old.

It is amazing that Martha
may have been taught

by James Pennington,
this amazing abolitionist

and voice of the early
black movement of abolition.

- Using the 1850 census,

Scott has been able
to find a likely name

for the woman
in the iron coffin.

But is it also possible

to find out
what she might have looked like?

- Giving this woman a face
is a little more challenging

than some other situations

because of the damage that
she received from the machinery

when she was discovered.

I have asked the forensic artist
Joe Mullins

to do a facial reconstruction.

- I'm a forensic imaging
specialist, a forensic artist.

My duties entail anything
to assist law enforcement

with identifying the deceased,
finding the missing.

What we want to start with
doing a facial reconstruction

in this software is a pristine,
you know, CT scan of the skull.

The skull tells you everything
you need to know

about what the face
looked like in life.

Everything from the projection
of the nose,

to the width of the nose,
to the corners of your mouth,

to your eyebrow.

Seeing all that information in,
that makes it very easy

to find the right puzzle piece
to fit on this face

to get the best representation
of how she looked in life.

Step one is to repair the damage
to the skull,

so that means there's damage
to the lower mandible

and the mouth
is open a little bit.

So, we're going to kind of
mirror this image over here,

flip it and close the mouth.

The details of the face
are all here.

It's just a matter
of reading the map

and applying those features
on the right spot.

Applying
the right facial muscles

is also crucial in identifying
how much tissue is there.

We have landmarks on the skull
because the muscles attach

on the same place
on everybody's skull,

regardless of your age
and ancestry.

So it's important as you're
building up these features

you're finding the nose,
the ears, the lips,

you want to have kind
of structure to place it in.

So coming up with that grid,

now the grid is essentially
just an outline

to tell us where
those features are going to go.

So now we are going to start
blocking in some features.

- Joe selects age-and
ancestry-appropriate features

from a database
of thousands of body parts.

- Coming up with the nose...

this is the nose
that fits this skull.

She was well-preserved
within the iron coffin,

so we could see the hairlines.

We knew it was parted
in the center and braided,

so that takes
the guesswork out of it,

which is great
for a forensic artist

having that information
in front of us.

It's like a digital puzzle
that we are piecing together.

The last step is to modify these

and finding the right skin tone,

and then corresponding
that to all the pieces,

so making it a uniform skin tone

and make sure
it's age-appropriate.

I've stared at this face,
after we complete,

I've stared at it
probably a hundred times

since we've completed it
because I am just fascinated.

It's not just a pile of remains

or a body that was found
in an iron coffin anymore.

A person is staring back at me.

I have a photograph of a person
who died that I've...

I've brought her back to life.

- It is really interesting
to have Joe

reconstruct this woman's face

so we can finally see what
she looks like after 150 years.

But what I really want to do
is offer some history back

to the community that is
directly related to this woman.

Hi, ladies.
- Hello.

- Thanks for coming out today

for this wonderful revelation
of the iron coffin lady.

As you remember,
the iron coffin lady

suffered some damage
from the machinery

when she was discovered.

So, we were able to find
a forensic artist

to do a reconstruction of what
the woman may have looked like,

and I'd like to present
that to you today.

- Oh, wow!
- Nice!

- She's very pretty.

She's real.

- Very good.
- That looks like Taylor.

Our little Taylor.

- Beautiful.
- She's very beautiful.

- She looks like us.

- We have a face now.

And we can truthfully say
that she looks

as if she's part of us.

I would say.

There's no doubt
she's a part of our community.

- I really feel connected.

I feel like I know
that she's family.

It's just returning
to what is ours.

And she's ours.

- It's the past colliding
with the future,

and we're able to see this movement.

- She became a prompt for us
to reveal our history.

Besides being a person, who is
a part of our congregation,

besides being
a historical artifact,

as a mummy, the iron coffin lady
was also a prompt

for St. Mark to, as Judy said,
think about our history.

- Once you start asking questions
about the people in the past,

you can understand a way of life
and that cannot but rebound

to helping you understand
your own life.

- Those folks at the bottom
also shape history.

It is not just the history
of prominent people

who leave their letters,
who leave their memoirs,

who have power,
who shape the sort of narrative.

Some people call this
sort of bottom-up history.

- It is important for us to tell
this story moving forward.

Generally, people have reduced
African-American history

to a very low
common denominator.

If you said African or black
American in 19th century,

everybody would say "slaves."

It is really important
that we create

this rich and diverse tapestry

of African-American life
in the 19th century.

So I think seeing this history

is very important
for blacks today to understand

and recognize as part of their
history and not just that,

"Oh, we were once slaves
in the South."

- The discovery of
the Iron Coffin Lady

was actually no accident.

You know that God allowed her
to be discovered

at such a time as this

that the community
that is changing

might be able to learn
and understand

more about
the African-American community

and the work
and the contributions

that African-Americans have made
to New York City and Queens.

Our history has been erased,

so we don't get to see this.

We don't get to see real photos.

We may see a Harriet Tubman
or Sojourner Truth,

but we don't get to see a woman,

just an ordinary, everyday woman

who lived life
in New York day by day.

But we can identify with her
because she does look like us.

And so it does make it personal.

Her life is a testament
to our life.

♪♪

- This program was made possible
in part by

the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting

and by contributions
to your PBS station

from viewers like you.
Thank you.