Cincinnati Magazine
January 8, 2021
On May 25, 1878, John Scott Harrison died at his farmhouse in North Bend, Ohio. He’s the only person to have been both the son and the father of U.S. presidents. As his family prepared to bury the distinguished farmer and politician, they were sidetracked by a despicable crime. A Harrison family friend, August Devins, died of tuberculosis in what should have been the prime of his youth. Loved ones suffered a second blow when they discovered that Devins’s body had been stolen. The Harrisons vowed to recover his remains.
Illustration by Donna Grethen
Medical schools of the day required cadavers to train future doctors, and still do. Under Ohio law, colleges received the unclaimed bodies of people who died in public institutions, but legal acquisition didn’t satiate the need. More than 1,000 students attended Cincinnati medical schools annually; the Ohio Medical College alone could require 300 cadavers a semester. Grave robbers, known euphem