Ghost Map

EN PL

Haunted places · Cemeteries, crypts and ossuaries

The Moving Coffins of the Chase Vault, Barbados

When
1812–1820 date reconstructed from later accounts · first known record: 1833
Where
Christ Church Parish Church cemetery, Oistins, Barbados
Verdict
Legend

Heavy lead coffins in a sealed Barbados vault were said to be found scattered every time it was opened – one of the most famous mysteries of the 19th century.

Show on the timeline

13.07°, -59.54° · dimmed: other phenomena within 1,500 km

What happened

The vault in the churchyard of Christ Church in southern Barbados was bought in 1807 by Colonel Thomas Chase. Buried in it in turn were a Mrs Goddard, little Ann Maria Chase (1808), Dorcas Chase (1812) and Thomas Chase himself, who died later in 1812. According to the story, at his funeral the earlier coffins – some of them heavy lead ones – were found out of place, although the entrance was closed by a massive slab. They were put back, but at later openings in 1816 and 1819 the same thing happened. Finally, in April 1820, the vault was opened in the presence of the island's governor, Lord Combermere, who is said to have had sand spread on the floor and seals pressed into the mortar at the previous closing. The seals were intact, the sand unmarked, and the coffins were scattered once again. The family moved their dead elsewhere, and the vault stands empty to this day. The story has been retold in dozens of books of ‘unexplained phenomena’, and even Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about it.

Witnesses

According to the story: the parish rector Thomas H. Orderson, Governor Lord Combermere and witnesses to the openings. First printed in James Edward Alexander's Transatlantic Sketches (1833).

Explanations and hypotheses

As early as 1907 Andrew Lang could find no confirmation in the parish burial register or in the Barbadian newspapers of the time. The story did not appear in print until 1833, and its main source was the rector Thomas Orderson, who, as Joe Nickell noted, never told it the same way twice; the memoir of Lord Combermere's widow, published in 1866, does not mention it at all. Benjamin Radford, who examined the vault twice, found no marks on its brick walls of heavy coffins striking them. He concluded that it is a legend – a reworking of an older Barbadian tale about the Williams vault and a similar story from the island of Ösel (Saaremaa) – rather than a genuine mystery.

Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.

Sources

  1. Skeptical Inquirer – Benjamin Radford, Reopening the Chase Vault Mystery (2020)
  2. James Edward Alexander, Transatlantic Sketches (Richard Bentley, 1833)
  3. Skeptoid – Brian Dunning, The Moving Coffins of Barbados (2014)

More: Wikipedia (en)