*note: no spoilers herein
“Never sleeping on a good opportunity, I have decided to hack up the larger bodies such that they will more easily fit into child-sized coffins; I gather that I could increase my profits three fold since the contract is based on the total number of coffins delivered. So long as we leave no evidence, no one will be the wiser.”
Enter into the mind of one E.P. McGovern, undertaker.
In 1893 the City of Denver awarded McGovern the low-bid contract for the removal of roughly 5,000 bodies from what was then known as City Cemetery, later Mr. Prospect Cemetery. The City of Denver had been expanding eastward and the land surrounding the cemetery was rapidly being developed. Real estate developers began to lobby for the cemetery to be converted to a park as over the years since its creation in 1875, the cemetery had fallen into disrepair, on account of it primarily being filled with the remains of vagrants, criminals and paupers. Although the original developers of the cemetery had high hopes for a beautifully landscaped cemetery with sweeping views of the mountains, by the 1880s the cemetery was rarely being used.
By 1890, Senator Henry Moore Teller persuaded the U.S. Congress to allow the cemetery to be converted to a park, as it was technically located on federal land dating back to an 1860 treaty with the Arapaho (I’m sure there were no shenanigans surrounding that treaty). Naturally, the park was to be named Congress Park, but is now known as Chessman Park (pronounced cheese-men by the locals). A 90 day notice was given to next-of-kin to remove the bodies of loved ones, but very few bodies were claimed. In 1893, work began on the removal and transfer of bodies to nearby Riverside Cemetery. The contract between the City of Denver and McGovern consisted of $1.90 for the exhuming and placing of bodies in new coffins and for them to be transferred to a nearby cemetery.
What happened next was horrific and thus we return to the sordid story of undertaker E.P. McGovern, as conveyed by the Denver Republican newspaper in 1893 with the headline “The Work of Ghouls”:
Bodies Taken From Their Resting Places In the City Cemetery, Distributed Each Among Three Boxes, Carted Off to Riverside and Charged as Three “Bodies” — A Contract to Remove Full Size Bodies in Boxes Forty-Two Inches Long a Job on Its Face — How “Cap” Smith and John D. McGilvray Engineered the Contracts Through the Council — Some of the Workmen Explain How They “Break” Fresh Bodies to Fit Boxes — Most Inhumane Proceedings and a Most Extensive Swindle Possible.
From the article:
Out of one grave, where only a single coffin was visible, three of the forty-two-inch boxes were filled. Into the first box some bones were cavalierly tossed by a workman. He then pulled another box to the edge of the grave, and into this he tossed one bone, some earth and portion of the coffin. After this the son of toil rested awhile. The graves on each side of him were being excavated by other workmen, and he evidently did not care to move, so he called for another box.
At this juncture a man came along with a pot of paint and brush and numbered and lettered the two boxes already filled from the single grave. John E. Wood, the representative of the Health department, also came up. When he saw the third box he asked the man in the grave what it was for. “Oh, I guess there’s another one here,” said the grave-digger, as he threw a shovelful of earth into the box. Mr. Wood looked into the grave, said “Humph,” and walked away. Another shovelful of earth and some crumbled wood was then thrown into the box, the “remains” were disinfected, the lid fastened on and the “body” of “274, B. H.,” shipped to Riverside.
A case of jobbery, indeed.
Now, the astute reader may be wondering, what does this all have to do with the 1980 movie The Changeling?
Russell Hunter, the film’s screenplay was inspired, or rather, haunted, by events that allegedly transpired while he was living in the Henry Treat Rogers mansion in none other than Chessman Park, in Denver. Legend has it that after experiencing a multitude of unexplained phenomena and exploring the vast mansion, Hunter came across a hidden room in which he found an old journal recounting the tribulations of a disabled boy who was kept in isolation by his well-to-do parents. After conducting a seance, Rogers claimed that the spirit of the boy guided him to another house, where the remains of the boy were found. The house no longer stands in Denver and whether or not the events actually happened is up for debate, but nonetheless the inspiration for the story of The Changeling lives on in Denver lore.
Fewer things are more unsettling to me in a horror movie than an enormous old house and a solemn singular piano being played. The eerie echoes, the sounds bouncing off of the dark corridors, the sonorous emptiness ushering in a chill that works its way through the uninhabited and vast confines of the old mansion, a whisper vanishing without a trace; the anticipation is palpable. The Changeling encompasses everything done right in a haunted house movie. In true gothic tradition, the house comes alive with the camerawork and set work. While the mansion appears to be ordered and symmetrical from the exterior, the interior certainly has a mind of its own, physically and otherwise, and the camerawork glides and hauntingly maneuvers through the mansion, leaving the viewer anticipating what may lurk behind the corners and in the dark spots just out of view. Add to that an eerie soundtrack emphasized with slashing aurals that pierce through the vast house and the mind of the characters, the house truly comes alive and is an integral character of the movie; an omnipresent and foreboding force.
At its core, the Changeling is a haunted house ghost story, but it is expertly interwoven with excruciating personal memories lingering in the lead characters’ past and the shocking revelations that are uncovered regarding the previous tenants’ scandalous past. There is no gore, no nudity and there are no cheap scares, but undoubtedly, there are lots of chills. This movie is the antithesis of a more modern type of horror film, where the viewer is shown every gory detail. The movie builds upon innocent beginnings and culminates with a calamity that linger in your memory long after viewing it. This is a movie not to be missed.
And the saga continues in real life:
In November 2008, during construction of a new parking structure for the Denver Botanic Gardens (which resides partially on the grounds of the original City Cemetery), human bones and parts of coffins were unearthed and in 2010 and crews working on an irrigation project at the park came upon four well preserved skeletons. The bodies were removed and buried in a different cemetery and construction was allowed to continue. As for the spirits? May they rest peacefully.
