In 1897, mourners gathered around a coffin in Newport, Delaware, believing they were saying their final prayers over the body of 14-year-old Frank Dougherty.
The boy had reportedly died on a Tuesday night. A wake was held over him, and by Friday, family, friends, and neighbors had assembled for the funeral. A priest delivered the sermon. The mourners formed a circle around the coffin. Then they began to sing.
That was when the impossible seemed to happen.
The boy in the coffin opened his eyes.
Moments later, Frank Dougherty sat up, looked around the room, and faintly answered his mother’s voice. The funeral was stopped at once. A doctor was called. And the mourners who had come prepared for burial left with what the newspaper called joyful hearts.
Doctors in Wilmington were left puzzled by the case, uncertain whether the boy had truly died or had fallen into a deep trance-like sleep so convincing that even his family believed life had left him.
Restored to Life
The doctors of Wilmington, Delaware, are puzzled over the remarkable case of Frank Dougherty, who lives at Newport, a small town four miles below that city, and who died one recent Tuesday night and suddenly returned to life the following Friday, during funeral services. He is 14 years old and the son of a farmer.
A wake was held over his corpse on Thursday night, and the ceremony continued until daybreak. One of the mourners, Dennis McDougal, a cousin of Mrs. Dougherty, sat beside the corpse all night, and while the others were asleep he noticed that the corpse twitched a little. He summoned Mrs. Dougherty and she awakened the other mourners.
The party waited patiently for six hours to see if the McDougal story was one of fact or merely an illusion, and at the end of this time they began preparations for the funeral services. They formed in a circle about the coffin, and when the priest finished his sermon they commenced to sing a hymn.
Hardly had they begun to sing when the corpse opened its eyes and then saw up and peers about the room. Mrs. Dougherty spoke to the boy, and he gave her a faint answer.
The doctor was summoned from Newark and placed in charge of the boy.
The funeral was, of course, postponed, and the mourners departed with joyful hearts. After his revivification, young Dougherty called for water, and drank two quarts without stopping.
Several Wilmington physicians who investigated the case declare that they found unmistakable proof that the boy was either dead or in a trance of hypnotic sleep.
Young Dougherty was fond of singing, and the doctors say that the singing of the mourners had a soothing effect on his nerves and caused him to awaken.
Source: San Antonio Daily Light. San Antonio, Tex. February 22, 1897.
