"There was no evidence of any coffin." (Image by Sklmsta.)

You apparently couldn’t walk down the street back in the day without finding a human skeleton. Reports of a few such occasions from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle follow.

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“Unearthed a Skeleton” (January 16, 1897): “A skeleton was unearthed by John Fentuny at Bowery Bay beach late yesterday afternoon. Fentuny was at work in a bank near the mill pond when his pick struck a hard substance. He thought it was stone and kept at work until the different parts of what proved to be a skeleton were revealed. The pick scattered the bones, but the head remained intact. Thomas Blackwell who lives on the beach gathered the bones into a box and brought them to the station house. Coroner Haslam had the skeleton transferred to the Newtown morgue and he says that the body must have been in the ground for many years. There was no evidence of any coffin. An old resident says that a farmhand who had the reputation of being a miser mysteriously disappeared from the neighborhood twenty years ago, and he thinks the skeleton might possibly be that of the miser.”

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“Boys Find a Man’s Skeleton” (November 29, 1896): “The skeleton of a man was found yesterday by Jersey City police on the meadows west of Hackensack river, and north of the Newark branch of the Erie railroad, near Snake Hill. It is supposed that the man had been murdered. The skull lay about five feet from the body.

Three boys who were hunting on the meadows discovered the skeleton on Friday afternoon. They said afterward that they were frightened and did not examine it closely at the time. They continued their hunting expedition and made no report until they returned to Jersey City.”

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"Following the rope was a perfect skeleton of a horse found, the noose of the rope still encircling the neck bones."

“Died of Thirst in the Desert” (May 1, 1890): “San Diego, Cal.–George Millard, arrived at Campo from Indian Wells and reports finding three skeletons on the desert. In one place he saw skeletons of two men lying a few yards apart. They evidently had been companions. Lying on the sand nearby was a third skeleton, betraying in its unnatural position terrible agony of death from heat and thirst. A few steps away was a picket pin driven into the ground with a lariat attached to it. Following the rope was a perfect skeleton of a horse found, the noose of the rope still encircling the neck bones.”

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“Skeleton of Child Found in Tenement Wood Shed” (August 13, 1900): “The discovery of a skeleton in the wood shed of the cellar of the tenement house at 333 Furman street, on Saturday evening at 6:30 o’clock, by three boys caused a report in that section that a baby farm had been unearthed. The neighbors shook their heads over the uncanny find and stories began to circulate freely to the effect that the skeleton might be only one of a number of similar cases.”

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“Newbury’s Ghastly Find” (November 24, 1902): “Rockaway Park, L.I.–Louis Newbury, an attaché of St. Malachi’s Home, while passing through a clump of woods near Eighteenth street, yesterday afternoon found the skeleton of a man. The bones were those of a man judged to have been 5 feet 10 inches tall. A fedora hat, a gold watch, a revolver and 25 cent piece were found near the bones, but there was nothing else by which indentification can be established. The revovler was fully loaded with the exception of one empty chamber and a smooth hole in the skull indicated that the mising bullet had been used to end the life of the stranger.”