Imagine waking up to discover that your family had mistaken you for dead and were about to bury you. According to a story preserved in the Salt family records, this was almost the fate of Sarah Bolde, whose experience as a young woman left her with a lasting fear of being buried alive.
Sarah was sixteen when she suffered an attack of catalepsy and was believed to have died. Just before her coffin was to be fastened down, however, someone noticed slight signs of life. Efforts were made to revive her, and she recovered.
The experience frightened Sarah so much that, according to the family account, she insisted that her relatives must never bury her without a doctor first certifying her death.
A doctor’s difficult journey
Sarah’s story did not end there. In 1813, she was visiting her daughter and son-in-law, Mr and Mrs George Moultrie, at Hopton Court in Shropshire. Mr Moultrie had exchanged his living at Cleobury Mortimer with the rector of Hopton Court for two years.
Sarah became ill and died a few days later. The family records tell us that Dr Pope, from Cleobury Mortimer, had difficulty reaching Hopton Court to certify her death. The journey was long and hilly, and the account describes him struggling to get there for a fortnight.
There is an interesting detail in the dates. Sarah’s death is recorded as 22 July 1813, and her burial took place approximately a week later. This is a shorter interval than the fortnight mentioned in the family story, but the reason for the difference is unclear. Nevertheless, it offers a fascinating glimpse of a fear that must have been very real to Sarah after her earlier experience.
A curious family connection
Sarah’s story also brings to mind another member of the wider family, Charles Francis Allnatt, whose will contained extraordinary instructions about what should happen to his body after death.
Charles was so concerned about the possibility of being thought dead prematurely that he required a post-mortem examination, with particular instructions concerning his heart and the removal of his head. Henry Salt later recalled that Charles had even suggested Henry might benefit under his will if he guaranteed that his head would be removed after death. Henry declined.
There is no known connection between Sarah’s experience and Charles’s fears. It is an intriguing coincidence that these two stories appear in the history of the same extended family.
Sarah Bolde’s experience reminds us how deeply the fear of premature burial could affect those who believed they had once come close to it.
Further reading: Sarah Bolde’s family-history record.
