Boyertown Burial Casket Company, Boyertown, Berks County

Happy Flag Day!

I had hoped that this week I'd be bringing you all the details of the new marker up at Fighter's Heaven in Schuylkill County, but between the poor air quality of last week, the lingering sinus issues I developed as a result, and my day job, I just didn't get the chance to go there. 

Instead, for this week's quest, it's the first time all year that I'm repeating a county! We're going back to Berks County, which was the location of the first post of the year, to find out the answer to a question I couldn't help asking: exactly why does a casket company, of all things, have a historical marker? 

The marker stands at the Walnut Woods Retirement
Community at 23 West Walnut Street, Boyertown

Boyertown, which traces its history to colonial Pennsylvania in 1720, developed worldwide fame thanks to the booming business of death. In 1874, a man named Daniel Brumbach was operating a furniture business at 112 East Philadelphia Avenue, a trade he had learned from his father Samuel. Both Samuel and Daniel were not only skilled cabinet builders, but they also provided undertaking services for the community. In those days, however, caskets were not usually put together until there was a specific need - that is, someone had died. As a result, caskets weren't readily available and funerals often had to be postponed until a cabinetmaker had built the casket. To help with the waiting, Daniel had a horse-drawn hearse and a body cooler, which would be filled with ice to preserve the deceased as much as possible until the funeral could be held.

This post is a bit macabre, and I apologize.

Anyway, Daniel had the bright idea that if caskets could be prepared ahead of time, the funerals wouldn't need to be postponed. So in 1893, he, along with C. A. Mory and a few other local undertakers whose names I couldn't find, came together to raise $20,000 in capital funds, and together they established the Boyertown Burial Casket Company at 23 Walnut Street. Daniel served as the first president of the company, which was housed in a brick building that was originally a stable. Because of the laws of supply and demand, it quickly became the largest manufacturer in Berks County, and produced wooden caskets of exceptional quality and craftsmanship.

As an interesting sidebar, Daniel continued to work both with the casket company and as an undertaker until 1905, when he retired and handed the undertaking business off to his son-in-law, James Brown. James had been educated in the relatively new science of embalming, but the Boyertown families were not thrilled about this practice and generally preferred the old technique of keeping the body on ice. That all changed in 1908 with a terrible tragedy remembered to this day as the Rhoads Opera House Fire. The fire has a marker of its own, which you can read about by clicking that link; but 171 people died after a kerosene lamp was accidentally knocked over and set the stage ablaze. Because of the sheer number of victims and the horrific state of many of the bodies, it took a long time to identify and bury them (some were never identified), and James was able to use his embalming skills to make the task somewhat easier. As a result, embalming became much more widely accepted in the borough. One of the survivors of that night was teenage actor Wayland Schwenk, who later went to work for James and learned the funeral trade; after his mentor's death, he purchased the business from James's widow and established a funeral home which is still in operation today.

The casket company, meanwhile, continued to grow and prosper, providing caskets not only for Daniel and his successors but for many other undertakers and funeral parlors for miles around. In 1923 they expanded their catalogue, offering metal caskets as well as wooden ones, and by 1926 a multi-story metal manufacturing plant had to be built in order to meet the ever-increasing demand. The undated photo at left shows the company compound as it appeared around this time. More locations for the company were established, in places like Philadelphia, New York City, and Columbus, Ohio. The quality of Boyertown caskets led to international fame, and it's said that many political figures and celebrities specifically requested Boyertown products for their funeral. Among the notable names said to have been entombed in a Boyertown casket are Clark Gable, Herbert Hoover, Robert Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Liberace, and Rudolph Valentino (meaning that this is now the second Pennsylvania historical marker in which I learned he's a small part of the story). Boyertown became known as "the Casket Capital of the World".

Odd as it may sound, they also made a few caskets that were not intended for funerals - or at least, not at first. These were used by magicians in various tricks. Rahman Bey, a fakir who claimed to be from Egypt, was buried alive in a Boyertown casket and claimed to survive the experience by entering a cataleptic trance. The great Harry Houdini sought to outdo this by practicing in a back room at the Boyertown company headquarters, where he managed to keep himself alive inside a casket for an hour and ten minutes. The company provided him with a new custom casket that held more air than his practice casket, and was outfitted with an alarm bell (in case Houdini gave up) and a telephone (so he could call his assistant). The casket, with Houdini inside, was soldered shut and submerged in the indoor pool at the Hotel Shelton on New York City's Lexington Avenue, where he managed to remain for a staggering 91 minutes. Boyertown later provided Houdini with a number of other caskets for his various feats, including a glass-topped one and another metal one in which, he declared, he would be buried after his death. As far as anyone knows, that is indeed what happened, and Houdini is another celebrity who slumbers in a Boyertown casket.

At the height of its success, the casket company was producing 60,000 caskets a year, and by 1957, operations had spread all the way to California. But this ultimately spelled the end of the original local company, and in 1980 it was purchased by Service Corp. International of Houston, Texas. Before the end of the decade, the new owners decided to stop making metal caskets in Boyertown, which took away many jobs. In 1988 the facility closed its doors forever. The land was purchased by Walnut Acres, Inc., which tore down the buildings; they constructed the Walnut Woods Retirement Community on the site of the former company, where the marker stands today, and the Chestnut Knoll Assisted Living Facility on what was once the company's lumberyard.

Boyertown still remembers the industry which made them a worldwide name. The local historical society has a permanent exhibit about the history of the company, including one of their caskets and several pieces of equipment. And the PHMC marker identifies the spot where the borough earned its unusual, and perhaps completely unique, claim to fame.

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Sources and Further Reading:

Official website of the borough of Boyertown

Author unidentified. "Casket company supported community." The Reading Eagle, March 30, 2007.

History of the Morrell Funeral Home

Permanent exhibits (including the casket company) at the Boyertown Area Historical Society

Cox, John. Assorted articles at his blog Wild About Harry: Where Houdini Lives

Boyertown Casket Company at the Historical Marker Database

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.