September 22, 2011
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/22/2011
Copy photo, 5-1/2" x 4," Basil Biggs and three other Black man exhuming bodies from Biggs' property. There are five wood box caskets. Biggs is shown with a long iron rod used for probing the ground. On the reverse in c1880 ink, "Exhuming and Reburial of soldiers after the Battle of Gettysburg." And on a more contemporary card, additional identification, "Grandfather Biggs, Old man Thomas, Uncle Ezekiel, Oak Ridge Hill Old Seminary, Old Tool Shed, Mr. McCullough, turn key at jail." ...plus, The Biggs family record book, 5-1/2" x 7," 50pp., shows on page 24, "Basil Biggs, Great Grandfather, born August 10, 1819, died June 6, 1906." And on page 25, "Henry Curry, Great, Great Grand Father, deceased assault at Fort Wagner." Loose at spine. Before the war as part of the underground railroad, Basil Biggs assisted escaping slaves coming through Pennsylvania. Then, after the battle of Gettysburg, the Black population did not escape from having the bodies of soldiers killed in the battle buried on their property. Forty-five Confederate were buried around Basil Biggs's property. Yet the task of exhuming the bodies for interment in the National Cemetery was also an economic opportunity for blacks, as town-resident Leander Warren described: "Basil Biggs had the contract to raise the dead and put them into coffins. He had a two-horse team and hauled six at a time… Every particle of the body was gathered up, and the grave neatly closed over and leveled. The bodies were found in various stages of decomposition. They were generally covered up with a small portion of earth dug up from along side the body."
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