NB: This post is part of a series highlighting wills that contain some interesting, and sometimes bizarre, bequests and stipulations. You can see all these posts here.
Solomon Sanborn of Medford, Massachusetts was a patriot, and was especially proud of the part Massachusetts took in the Revolutionary struggle.
So when the hatmaker died in 1871, he left his body to science but stipulated that his skin be tanned and used to make two drums.
The drums were to be presented to a friend, a local drummer, on the condition he promise to go to Bunker Hill at dawn every June 17th and drum out the tune to “Yankee Doodle Dandy” to celebrate the anniversary of the famous revolutionary battle.
The rest of his body was “to be composted for a fertilizer to contribute to the growth of an American elm, to be planted in some rural thoroughfare.”
