In the Caribbean island of Barbados, sits a beautiful Christ Church Parish. Just as other churches, it has a quiet graveyard that became a final home for most of the islands inhabitant. In the graveyard, there is a tomb called the Chase Vault.
This tomb is nothing like any other tombs. The underground building is large and can contain many coffins inside. However, thats not the mystery were talking about. There was a strange incident that occurred in this tomb. Apparently, the coffins placed in it were able to move by themselves.
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The Chase Vault in Barbados (Photo via Flickr/Kaspar C)
The story began in 1724 when a nobleman named The Honorable James Elliot built a huge underground tomb. The tombs doors were made of a large marble and designed in such a way so that it would take about 6-7 people to move it. The marble doors were bonded together with cement, so the door wouldnt be easily opened.
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However, Elliot was never buried there and the vault was remained empty until 1807. On July 31, 1807, the body of Thomasina Goddard, laid in a wooden coffin, buried in that place. In 1808, the vault bought by Colonel Thomas Chase, and thus the name.
On February 22, 1808, the youngest daughter of the Colonel, the 2-year-old Mary Ann Chase died and her body was buried in the Chase Vault. Mary Anns tin coffin was placed beside Mrs. Goddards. Five years after Mary Anns death, another Chase children, Dorcas, passed away. It was said that her death was rather strange. Rumor has it that she was abused by her father and killed herself.
Her body was placed in a 108-kilogram tin coffin inside the vault. A month later, the Colonel himself committed suicide and the undertakers brought it into the Chase Vault.
Much to their surprise, when the door is opened, Mary Anns coffin was moved to a corner. Nobody could explain, so they replaced the coffin. Over the years, the vault continued to receive coffins: Colonel Chase, Charles Brewster Ames, Samuel Brewster Ames, and Thomasina Clark. Every time they opened the vault, coffins inside it were moved. They were replaced and then moved again.
But one coffin was never moved from its initial place: the wooden coffin of Thomasina Goddard. However, it had signs of heavy damage from another coffin bumping into it, made Mrs. Goddard's skeleton stuck out of it.
Before and after (Photo via Slightlywarped.com)
The strange case regarding the tomb had drawn Barbados Governors attention. Lord Combermere the governor- ordered his people to inspect the vault, sprinkled sands around it to see if there are any footprints in there. He ordered the vault to be sealed, and thus it was sealed for two years.
During the two years, visitors and the locals reported eerie sounds and howls coming from within, and they started to relate the vault with ghost and paranormal being.
After two years, Lord Combermere ordered to open the vault. People were flocking to the place only to see another horror. Those coffins, once again, had been moved as if toys being tossed away. Some coffins were even seen chipped.
And there were no prints in the sand.
Eventually, the Chase family decided to empty the vault and take all the coffins out to be buried in the graveyard.
Many people came up with theories, including Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He proposed a theory that it was Thomas and Dorcas angry spirits made the coffins move, considering that the two were dead by suicide. Moreover, coffins were only started to move after Dorcas was in.
Other theories including earthquake and flooding. However, those theories were easily refuted, because the sand around the vault was left undisturbed. Until this time, no one had ever find out what happened inside the Chase Vault.
However, the Chase Vault isnt the only case of moving around coffins. We also have The Curious Vault at Stanton in Suffolk in which coffins were moved more than once under some mysterious circumstances. A man named F. A. Paley also gave us another case. It happened when his father was a rector in the parish of Gretford, England. Coffins in its vault had been moved for two or three times.