On December 14th, 1799, a man named George died
quietly in his bed, closing out a century that defined the new country
he played such a pivotal role in creating. It was a Saturday, it was a
few minutes after 10:00 PM, and he was 67 years old. Death had come
within 21 hours from the first symptoms of illness and treatments included
bleeding out almost 40% of the man's blood supply, gargling quantities of
molasses with butter and vinegar, an enema (which more than likely was vinegar
based) and a paste of crushed beetles rubbed on the inside of his throat...and
more bleeding. 18th-century medicine held that bleeding and a whole host
of hoodoo hokum would help an ill individual on the road to recovery. In
Washington's case...it didn't.
As with any well known and loved celebrity, we want to hold
on to them. We feel an emptiness when they are no longer among the
living. George Washington was no exception. He was the man that won
America's Independence from Britain, he was the man who served as its first
federal president and he was that man who would not be King. More than
anything else, Washington's refusal to be the monarch of America set the United
States on a course of individual freedom and liberty that has lasted well over
two centuries. He would be missed...
Or would he? Washington's last mumblings on Earth
included instructions not to place him into his burial crypt sooner than three
days after his death. The specter of being buried alive was a real (and
in some cases substantial) fear in those days. There were cases where someone
was laid six-feet under and they were not dead. All manner of
preventative devices and practices were employed, from having someone sitting
next to your grave listening for your screams, to rigging a little bell with a
string in the casket for you to ring, should you happen to still be among the
living.
Into this macabre vacuum stepped Dr. William Thornton. He was a family friend, and he had an idea. Thornton wanted to revive the dead President and bring him back to life, creating the 18th century version of a Zombie. While the word "zombie", a voodoo term from a faraway Caribbean island, would not have been used, and hardly even known in 1799 Virginia, Thornton's ideas more than fit this mold. The good doctor wished to warm Washington's body, blow air into his lungs, and pump lamb's blood into Washington's lifeless form…believing the blood of the lamb would re-animate the body, restore life and perhaps endow immortal qualities. Thankfully, Martha Washington declined, and General Washington was laid to rest according to his last wishes, being most thoroughly and positively, dead. While Thornton’s scheme seems harebrained through the lens of 21st-century hindsight, he was a top-shelf doctor, well-educated and well-respected in the arts of medicine. He had studied and witnessed cutting-edge medical techniques, basing his re-animation theories on some of the first examples of blood-transfusion being experimented with in Europe at the time and believing these methods could be successful. To the 18th-century mind, this was a far cry from "quackery".
Washington
remained frozen in the last moments of the 18th-century, but Dr. Thornton would
continue on successfully into the nineteenth. A Renaissance Man of sorts he
would go on to design the Capital Building in Washington, parts of which still
exists underneath that which was rebuilt following it's burning by the
British. He also served as the first superintendent of the Patent Office,
beginning in 1802.
As a last gesture to deify Washington, Dr. Thornton designed a special crypt for Washington’s remains underneath the Capital building. As the architect, Thornton wanted Washington's body to be moved here, to be revered by all. He even pushed for Washington’s body to be laid in a special lead coffin to enhance preservation, anticipating the day Washington would come to occupy the central position of this American dream. It was not to be…George Washington’s remains remain un-animated right where he took his last breath...in Mount Vernon, Virginia...
