Iron Coffin Lady documentary airing this week

From the NY Post:

On the afternoon of Oct. 4, 2011, a backhoe dug into an excavation pit in Elmhurst, Queens, and struck iron. Construction workers assumed they had hit a pipe. But when the claws of the backhoe emerged from the ground, it was dragging a body clothed in a white gown and knee-high socks.

Scott Warnasch, then a New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner forensic archaeologist, initially viewed the finding as a recent homicide. “It was recorded as a crime scene,” Warnasch, 52, told The Post. “A buried body on an abandoned lot sounds pretty straightforward.”

It turned out to be anything but. The almost perfectly preserved body was actually that of a woman born decades before the Civil War. She had been buried in what was once the grounds of a church founded in 1830 by the first generation of free African-Americans. Now a new documentary, “The Woman in the Iron Coffin,” premiering Wednesday on PBS, provides the woman’s identity.

The Post can reveal that researchers believe her to be Martha Peterson, who worked for a local white man with abolitionist leanings.

Iron Coffin Lady is laid to rest

From the Times Ledger:

Saturday’s featured speaker was archeologist Scott Warnasch, who was working out of the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office identifying 9/11 remains in October 2011 when he was called to the construction site at 90-11 Corona Ave. to investigate a homicide.

“The operator of a backhoe shattered the coffin and dragged the body out,” Warnasch said. “The construction crew headed for the hills and called us and that’s where I came in. She was so well preserved, we discovered lesions on her skin.”

The archeologist knew the woman had died from smallpox and he was intrigued by her casket, which resembled an Egyptian sarcophagus. Warnasch knew it was the type of coffin that was very expensive and used to bury elites the likes of Dolly Madison, Daniel Webster and President Zachary Taylor, not an African-American woman in her 20s or 30s.

Warnash began years of research and discovered from an 1850 census on Newtown that the woman, who was likely named Martha Peterson, did domestic work in the home of the man who produced the special caskets in a Woodside foundry.

“Clearly the Iron Coffin Lady was loved by her community and was given everything she needed for a proper burial despite the fear of smallpox,” Warnasch said. She was buried in the cemetery at the original location of St. Mark, and Rev. Detherage was determined to pay her back for the indignities of her unearthing.

“She reminds us of where we come from and where we are going as a people and a community of faith,” Detherage said. “When people don’t know their own heritage, they are discounted.”

AMEN.

Iron Coffin Lady exhibit & funeral this weekend

From NY1:

The woman being buried is now known as the Iron Coffin Lady. Archaeologists determined she is a 30-something African-American who died in the 1850s.

Her mumified body was discovered five years ago when a construction crew accidentally dug up her steel coffin while building apartments at 90-15 Corona Ave.

The site was the original St. Mark Church and African burial ground. It was founded in 1828 by the United African Society of Long Island.

Many church members were not aware of the Elmhurst location.

"Because of her and because of the finding of her, our church has had a renewed fervor in learning more about who we are and who we were," Detherage said. "We lost some of the history throughout the years."

Researchers believe the woman was born in the 1820s and lived in a part of Newtown, which is now called Elmhurst, Queens.

Forensic archaeologist Scott Warnasch says the woman's body was so well-preserved, investigators initially thought she might have been a recent homicide victim. But he knew right away she was not because of her elaborate coffin.

Warnasch and a research team spent years investigating the woman. While they don't know exactly who she was, they know some details about her and how she died.

"She had apparently died of smallpox," Warnasch said.

Fifteen other remains were also found at the site. Detherage and the developer have been negotiatiating a deal to build a memorial there. The city says all construction has been halted there until both sides come to an agreement.

Meanwhile, after a weekend of exhibits and tributes at the church, a funeral will be held on Sunday at 4 p.m. for the Iron Coffin Lady.

Possible cemetery found in Elmhurst

From the NY Times:

The police described a grim discovery Tuesday evening, at 90-16 Corona Avenue in Elmhurst: an “unconscious female” in a vacant lot, according to the short summary of the incident sent to reporters.

...it is easy to imagine, knowing only this scant description of events, eyebrows rising among the living at the medical examiner’s office upon the arrival of the body. It was enclosed in a steel coffin, the kind that was popular in the 1850s, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the office.

The working theory is that the vacant lot where the coffin was found by laborers used to be a cemetery, and that the woman was placed in the coffin long, long ago, Ms. Borakove said. The case is under review.