An alcoholic pickpocket — known affectionately as “Stoneman Willie” — who was accidentally mummified by a mortician trying out a new embalming technique will finally receive a proper burial after being on display at a Pennsylvania funeral home for 128 years.
The unidentified man died of kidney failure in a Reading jail on Nov. 19, 1895. Undertaker Theodore Auman tried to preserve the body of the deceased using arterial embalming – and his experiment ended up working a little too well.
For more than a century, “Stoneman Willie,” who has acquired a celebrity status in the area, has reposed at Auman’s Funeral Home.
“We don’t refer to him as a mummy. We refer to him as our friend Willie,” said Kyle Blankenbiller, funeral director. “He has just been become such an icon, such a storied part of not only Reading’s past but certainly its present.”
One of the oldest mummies in the US, “Stoneman Willie” rests in a coffin dressed in a suit with a bow tie, with a red sash across his sunken chest. His hair, teeth, and nails remain intact, and his skin has acquired the appearance of dark, weathered leather.
4 The embalmed body of a 19th-century pickpocket nicknamed “Stoneman Willie” will be laid to rest in Reading, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, after being on display for 128 years.REUTERS
4 The thief was accidentally mummified by a mortician trying out a new embalming technique after his death in 1895.REUTERS
Because the man gave a fake name – James Penn — after he was busted hiding under a bed at a boardinghouse with stolen goods, reported The Washington Post, “Stoneman Willie’s” identity was unknown for many years and local officials were unable to locate relatives.
Willie reportedly refused to identify himself even on his deathbed because he did not want to disgrace his family members. After he died, no one came to claim his body.
The funeral home in Reading had petitioned the state for permission to keep “Stoneman Willie’s” mummified corpse instead of laying it to rest to monitor the experimental embalming process.
4 Stoneman Willie’s real name will be revealed Saturday at the time of his burial.REUTERS
But Auman’s Funeral Home says it has now identified “Stoneman Willie” using historical records and will reveal his name later this week when they bury him.
Until now, not much was known about the mysterious decedent beyond his Irish roots, his ties to New York State, and the fact that he had a mustache in life and died from alcoholism at age 37.
Ahead of the funeral, the city of Reading will memorialize the man who has been part of the city’s folklore for generations.
On Sunday, local residents celebrated Reading’s 275th anniversary with a parade that included a motorcycle hearse carrying “Stoneman Willie’s” casket.
All this week, Willie will be on display at Auman’s Funeral Home, allowing local residents to pay their respects.
4 A hearse carrying the iconic mummy took part in a parade celebrating Reading’s 275th anniversary Sunday.REUTERS
“It was nice to have our hometown hero and see him one last time,” Mark May, who traveled from Mechanicsburg with his son Thomas, to visit Willie, told the station WFMZ.
Veronica Dangler said seeing the famous mummy was part of her childhood, and she visited the funeral home again this week to bid Willie a final farewell.
“It’s kind of sad, actually, because he’s been here for so long, but I’m happy he’s finally going to have a place where he can rest,” said Dangler.
On Saturday, Willie, dressed in a tuxedo “befitting what a gentleman in 1895 would have been dressed in for burial,” according to the funeral home, will make his final journey through the streets of Reading.
He will then be interred at a local cemetery, where his real name will finally be inscribed on his tombstone.