8.10.1888
Walt Whitman
Dear Friend
When I left you I went straight to the prison and gave that book to Rush in his cell
with your respects, and how the poor fellow's eyes shone out with joy for your
remembrance of him in prison. He says his spirit will be in your back yard in Camden
all the time he will be reading it. His mind is well occupied in his cell as he has
a good many scientific books to read. I had given him when there before a copy of
Jean Paul Richter and he was delighted beyond measure in reading it and he thought
Germany could hardly prouce such a great mind.
Wm Cooper of this city (the free thinker, that I took over to see you some years ago)
sent to the country for me to come as he was near the end with lung trouble, he
wanted me to lay him quietly away with the least trouble and expense possible and no
priest to come near him and he would like to be cremated, so I found the President
of that Society and made all the arrangements and returned and told him all about it
which pleased him very much, he put his arms around my neck in a fatherly way, and
said he would now die in peace and thought he would not last till morning this was
friday night, he passed away the next morning saturday at ½ past 6 without a
struggle, his mind was as clear as it was 20 years ago when I first heard him
lecturing on Darwin's theory. Twenty four hours after his death the retort fires
were started on Sunday morning and at 4 in the afternoon the oven was at white heat.
2800 degrees all ready and he was put in a white sheet which was soaked in alum and
laid on a sheet
of thin iron, the centre of it about 6 inches lower than the edges, and this was
suspended on a scienfitic machine which had a long rod in front of it something like
a fishing pole and the iron pan was suspended from this rod, and then it was moved
or wheeled into another room and when it got close to the wall an oven door opened
and in went the rod and pan with my friend Cooper, no hands touched it, no fizzing
or blaze, no smell or smoke of any kind whatever, the rod came out of itself, and
left the pan behind, the door closed without noise and every thing was as quiet and
orderly as a Quaker Meeting, nothing to jar or hurt the feelings of any one, the
most perfect work I ever saw. Thanks to science for doing such good, clean, fine,
work. There is a small aperture of glass about two inches round to look into this
oven so that you can see the process of what is going on inside. As the gasses from
the body arise they are conveyed down into a furnace underneath the oven and all the
gasses are burned as fast as made nothing whatever to go up the chimney no smell
inside or outside the building. it was a new experience for me, as I looked through
the little glass door and saw my friend vanishing away like a snow flake before my
eyes. that thought then as well as now crowded into my brain when I looked on him
whom I had known for 20 years, a man that had read all about the Religion and
Philosophy of India, China, Egypt, Greece, Rome and Europe and how often we had
talked over these people and their Philosophy, and I standing outside that oven was
left to think, had his thinking come to an end before my eyes there. What a selfish
race we are, how we fight with law as well as no law to grasp and accumulate and
steal of the
poor all for what. The millionaire, beggar, priest, lawyer doctor and philosopher
all have to come to this as soon as the doctor says that that is the last breath he
has to breathe and he then can be removed legally into a hot oven and in 2 hours
nothing is left of him except 5 lbs of bone dust which I pay 2 cts a lb for, to
enrich my farm. so man after all his knowledge and boasting of the millions that he
owns is just worth 10 cents what a self conceited thing man is, and it was well said
of old, Earth to Earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.
These are part of what thoughts were crowding in my brain as I stood watching for one
hour till my friend Cooper vanished away before my eyes. so I felt I must tell you
that there is a new Crematory built in Philadelphia between Germantown and Chestnut
Hill and they have 30 acres of land round the Building which cost them $75,000 to
put up, and it is the finest one in the world. my friend Cooper was 66 years old,
and he was the Sixth person that had been cremated there and the cost is $50. I did
all he wished me to do in this matter and I know well he would have been pleased to
know that his remains were returned so quickly to the elements from whence they came.
Just write me if able or send me one word, say better or worse
From Your Friend
Wm Ingram
Telford
Bucks Co,
Pa,
I would like you when you have read this, to send it to Mrs Johnston
150 Bowery
New York