‘Stoneman Willie’ mummy to be laid to rest after 128 years at Penn. funeral home

Warning: This story contains an image of a human body.

The people of Reading, Penn., are finally bidding farewell to a beloved mummy who’s been on display at a local funeral home for more than a century.

The previously unidentified man — whose body was preserved in an embalming experiment 128 years ago — has been on display at Auman’s Funeral Home since he died in prison in 1895.

Now, the funeral home says it has identified the mystery man, and will reveal his true name when they lay him to rest on Saturday, with a proper burial and gravestone.

“We don’t like to see him leave. It’ll be strange here without him in the building,” Kyle Blankenbiller, director of Auman’s Funeral Home, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

“But the consensus has been within the community — and among our staff, as well — that this gentleman just deserves to finally rest in peace and just have his day.”

Experimental embalming technique

“Stoneman Willie” — as the folks of Reading have long called him — arrived in town from Philadelphia in 1895.

He had a reputation for boozing, picking pockets and committing petty theft. And soon after his arrival, he was arrested for public drunkenness and incarcerated at the Berks County Prison.

It was there that he died from kidney failure after suffering from acute alcohol withdrawal. Officials were unable to properly identify him, as he’d given prison authorities a fake name.

“He came from an affluent Irish family, and his brother and a sister both lived in New York,” Blankenbiller said. “And he didn’t want to bring shame onto his family.

At the time, embalming was a relatively new practice in the United States. Theo Auman, the funeral home’s first director, used Willie as an opportunity to test a new embalming recipe he found in a Philadelphia bookstore for preserving meat.

“He applied this on Willie simply as a matter of preserving him until his next of kin could be located,” Blankenbiller said.

When nobody claimed the remains, Blankenbiller says the state stepped in and ordered Auman to bury him as an unidentified John Doe. But the funeral home director successfully petitioned to keep the body to monitor the progress of this experimental technique.

‘He became a legend … but he was a man’

Over time, Willie became something of a local legend. On display in a private room at the funeral home, people would visit him on school trips.

“When I was a kid growing up, he was a sideshow freak that people craved to go see,” said Charles J. Adams II, a local historian who will be eulogizing Willie at his funeral.

“He became a legend, which is fine. I’m very much into legends. But he was a man. He had a mother and a father, friends and relatives we know nothing about. So I think that’s the important thing for the eulogy of what we know as Stoneman Willie.”

Historians and the funeral home staff have long had their suspicions about Willie’s true identity. Blankenbiller says that by the time he started working at Auman’s 10 years ago, it had been whittled down to three possible people.

With some old-fashioned detective work, he was able to narrow it down — though he was unable to find any living relatives.

Blankenbiller wouldn’t tell CBC Willie’s real name.

That, he says, will have to wait for his funeral on Saturday. He will be interred in the nearby community of Exeter Township, with his name inscribed on his gravestone.

Reading, Penn., residents bid farewell to beloved local mummy

People in Reading, Penn., celebrated their town’s 275th anniversary on Sunday with a parade, where they had a chance to say goodbye to ‘Stoneman Willie,’ an unnamed man whose mummified body has been on display at a local funeral home for 128 years. Auman’s Funeral Home says it has finally identified the mystery man and will reveal his true name on Saturday, when they will lay him to rest in a neighbouring town with a proper burial and gravestone.

Until then, he will be on display at the funeral home. And Blankenbiller says residents are already coming in droves to say their goodbyes.

His casket was also carried through the streets Sunday during a parade marking the town’s 275th anniversary.

“I think it’s good that he finally gets his respect and gets buried with dignity,” said Reading resident Randy Taylor, who was at the parade with his wife Lisa Zimmerman. “I think it’s a very good Reading story. I love it.”

Blankenbiller says it’s hard to put a finger on why Willie has struck such a chord with the people of Reading.

“I think it’s just the history of this gentleman,” he said. “We have people viewing him today that are in their 80s that came and saw him with their classroom back when they were in fourth grade.”

Auman’s plans to keep Willie’s legacy alive with annual fundraisers to mark the anniversary of his burial. One idea they’re floating around is a yearly 5K run from the funeral home to his gravestone.

“All the proceeds from that event are going to go to … homeless outreach in the city of Reading,” he said, adding it would be a fitting tribute to a man who lived a transient life with no home to call his own.