At the re-dedication service, the minister was quoted as saying, Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead, and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals. Clearly, Mitty Manning was well loved in both life and death. And although things have changed a lot since then, those tender mercies are still on display. To see them, all you need to do is step up to the glass and look inside. Timothy Clark Smith wasn't the only person with a fear of being buried alive. After all, there's a reason it was a common fear, and although he came up with several ingenious solutions to avoid that fate, others went to even more extensive lengths to avoid it. In 1799, George Washington was dying. Several days before he had contracted a throat infection after going out in the cold and wet clothing, and now he was on his deathbed, his secretary, Tobias Lear, close at hand. Washington whispered to him, I am just going. Have me decently buried and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead. Lear allegedly bowed in agreement with the former president's wishes and repeated the instructions back. Then, Washington responded with his final words. Tiswell. Washington died on December 14th, then was officially buried on December 18th. For those doing the math, that was more than three days later, just as he had wished for. Less than a century later, in thousands of miles away, it was the turn for another man to die, the composer Chopin. He took his last breath in Paris, only 39 years old, but just before he did, he allegedly told his sister, the earth is suffocating, swear to make them cut me open so that I won't be buried alive. During a later autopsy, Chopin's heart was removed from his body and placed in a jar of cognac. It was then smuggled into Poland by his sister, where it was kept safe inside a local church. The rest of him is interred in Paris's famous Paris-Lechez Cemetery. And those are just two more examples of a very common fear. Over the years, inventors removed the need for waiting periods and pickled organs by creating a variety of safety coffins, meant to stop premature burials. According to historians, Central Europe was ground zero for the safety coffin craze during the 1790s. Most of the devices included some element to allow the, not quite dead, to activate a signal on the surface. Bells were common, but some even allowed the trapped person inside to raise a flag, or set off a firecracker as a message to the living. Shovels and ladders were also incorporated, you know, so someone could dig their way out if they needed to. And many safety coffins were equipped with a built-in breathing tube that could carry food, water, and fresh air from the surface above, down to the person below. Thankfully, advancements in medical science have stopped most premature burials, although they do still happen from time to time. And yet the coffin industry is still stubbornly innovating.