"In two hours the invalid was pronounced dead by the ladies in the boarding house." (Image by Antônio Rafael Pinto Bandeira.)

The following article from the June 16, 1889 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle, concerns an unusual Bay Area couple, and has echoes of Nathaniel Hawthorne at his most fantastic. The piece in full:

“The question of being buried alive and the recent case of Washington Irving Bishop were matters discussed by a party of gentlemen at the Bohemian Club the other night. A journalist who was present told the following story of local interest: Living in San Francisco to-day are two persons whose strange experiments have long been a mystery to me. Two years ago a Boston gentlemen came out to the coast. He brought with him his companion, a young woman in the last stages of consumption. She was pretty and talented and ten years younger than her escort. I am of the opinion that a sort of Platonic love existed between them. Three times in my own knowledge the young woman has apparently passed out of this life into the other world and twice preparations have been made for her burial. On one occasion her companion was out of the city when she was taken suddenly with a sinking spell and the landlady became greatly alarmed. In two hours the invalid was pronounced dead by the ladies in the boarding house who were in attendance upon her. As the day advanced the landlady, seeing no signs of the gentleman’s return, visited an undertaker near by and preparations were made for laying out the corpse. The body was cold and stiff when the undertaker arrived. He viewed the corpse and went back to his shop for his assistant.

During his absence the missing companion of the dead young woman arrived upon the scene. It was now about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Upon being informed of her death some five hours before, the gentleman uttered an exclamation of surprise. Then, rushing up to the room where the body lay, he closed the door behind him and turned the key. When the undertaker returned he was refused admission. Two hours later the gentleman emerged from the room and ordered two suppers sent to the apartment. Later the young lady was seen sitting upright in bed, eating heartily. Her companion had brought her back to life by a method of rubbing and physical manipulation known only to himself. Twice after this he repeated the performance. Three times, to my knowledge, has the man brought the young woman back from the dead. She lives here today, still and invalid, and is liable to die again at almost any moment.”