The Litabug Phlog

*Cue the organ music, and conjure the voice of Vincent Price.*


In the sleepy mountain town of Philippi, West Virginia, lie two unusual residents. Former inmates at the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane (a decidedly blunt name for such a place) these two ladies died alone, without family. In 1888, however, they were given a place in history by a farmer and amateur embalmer when he acquired their bodies to test a new embalming method he had invented using materials much safer than the mercury and arsenic used at that time. The method worked. The farmer, Mr. Graham Hamrick, got some recognition, and the ladies went on to a “life” of adventure, even touring Europe with P.T. Barnum before finally settling into the former bathroom of a former railway station, now the Barbour County Historic Museum. Aside from losing their hair in a flood, these famous residents are amazingly well-preserved.

Here are the photos (on a separate page) for those who are brave. Take a look, but be forewarned that these aren’t your typical museum mummies, wrapped in cloth or resting discreetly in a decorative sarcophagus. They’re oddly preserved dead bodies in a couple of wooden boxes in an old bathroom. Their story is strange and they’re strange to see.