From the Pages of History: 159. Baby Mary Evva Mullen's Metal Casket

Mary Evva Mullen

A Very Strange Story...
Winchester Journal Herald, August 16, 1968.

The simlpe limestone marker in Fountain Park cemetery at the grave of Mary Evva Mullen has obviously been moved from an older cemetery but the circumstances of this reburial are so unusual that they have become something of a legend.

Mary Evva Mullen was the first child of Elihu and Mahala Edwards Mullen, early Winchester residents. The family history relates that she died in 1856 at the age of one year, of pneumonia. Later surviving children were F. B., Calvin, Lewis, Minnie (later Mrs. William Hunt), George, and Mae (later Mrs. Ed Heaston).

An interesting sidelight is the fact that Elihu Mullen, the baby's father, was a contractor and helped build the tower (since demolished) on the county courthouse.

One family member, Mrs. John Bishop (formerly Grace Mullen), who has returned to Winchester (Note: This was in 1966.) for a summer visit with her son Joe Bishop, remembers something of the legend as related to her by her Uncle Calvin, brother of the baby.

Mrs. Bishop, now living in Florida with her husband, related that the baby was buried in the old Winchester cemetery in a metal coffin with a circular glass face plate. After Fountain Park cemetery was opened in the early 1900's, many bodies buried in the old cemetery were moved to the new one.

And so in 1922, little Mary Evva's metal casket was exhumed for reburial. At this point, the unusual feature of the story develops.

As Mrs. Bishop remembers her Uncle Calvin telling the tale, the child's body was found to be perfectly preserved and in what was described as a "petrified" condition, that is, like a rock. She was described as an unusually beautiful baby, and those who peeked through the glass face plate of her coffin insisted that this beauty had remained intact through the 34 years of her burial.

Calvin Mullen told his niece that the baby's casket was kept for several days in the cemetery vaults, and that hundreds of the curious from this county and adjoining counties came to see the unusual sight.

After several days the little metal coffin was reburied, this time in the parents' burial plot in Fountain Park, but the old marker was set at the head of the grave.

The verse on the marker beneath Mary Evva's name is almost obliterated by erosion of the soft limestone, but it says, in part:
"Little Mary's slumbering away
In her lonely iron bed..."

The little home-made verse, likely of those crudely carved on the older limestone markers, has a personal and poignant note, bringing closer the sense of sorrow at losing the little girl over a century ago. But only the story handed down through the Mullen famly remains to tell in what an unusual way little Mary's "slumbering" would become a legend for historians to record.

Ed. Note: Details of this story were contributed by Mrs. Donald Snyder, sr., secretary of the Randolph County Historical Society. Although the story has been challenged, notably in some details re. the baby's state of preservation, we print it as an interesting example of folklore. It is copied from an article in this newspaper in July, 1966.)

Born about 1855.
Died 1856.
Burial: Old Winchester Cemetery (Heaston Cemetery), 1856 to 1922.
Burial: Fountain Park Cemetery, 1922 to present.

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RCHS Volunteer Thursa Short shares a little research on Mary Evva's family.

Some research of her parents:

1850 Census: House number and street not listed in White River Township, Randolph County, Indiana.
Mahala Ann Edwards, age 16, noted as attended school. Living with inferred parents and siblings.

December 9, 1856: Brother Fernandis Mullen was born in Winchester, Randolph County, Indiana.

1870 Census: House number and street not listed, Winchester, Indiana.
Elihu Mullen (a carpenter), Mahala Mullen, age 36, occupation keeping house and five children.

1880 Census: 255 East Street, Winchester, Indiana.
E. Mullen (a carpenter), wife M. A. Mullen, age 46, occupation keeping house and five children.

Elihu Mullen died 1899. Buried Fountain Park Cemetery.

1900 Census: Meridian Street (house number not listed), Winchester, Indiana.
Mahala Mullen, 65 years old, was widowed and living with her son Fernande Mullen (a carpenter) and his wife Bertie (no occupation noted) and their daughters Grace and Vera.

1910 Census: 603 East Washington Street, Winchester, Indiana.
Mahala Mullen, 75 years old, was widowed and living with her son Fernandis Mullen (a manager in a lumber yard) and his wife Adelia (a keeper in a branding house), along with their 18 year old daughter Vera and six boarders noted working in a glass factory.

1920 Census: 233 South East Street, Winchester, Indiana.
Mahala Mullen, 85 years old, was widowed and living with her son Fernandus and his wife Adella Mullen.

February 11, 1921, Mahala Mullen died. Burial: Fountain Park Cemetery.

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Photographs taken at Fountain Park Cemetery, September 2019.