Baron de Palm
Joseph Henry Louis Charles, Baron de Palm, Grand Cross Commander of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre and Knight of various other orders. He joined the Theosophical Society in its earliest days, and became the first person to be cremated in the United States.
Personal life
Baron de Palm was born at Augsburg, May 10, 1809, in an ancient baronial family of Bavaria. Late in life he emigrated to America, and lived for a number of years in the Western States.
Theosophical Society involvement
The Baron met Henry Steel Olcott in New York in December, 1875, bringing an introductory letter from the late Col. Bundy, editor of the Religio-Philosophical Journal. He was admitted as a member of the new Theosophical Society on March 8, 1876.[1]
On March 29, 1876, he was elected on the Council of the Theosophical Society after the resignation of Rev. J. H. Wiggin.
First cremation in America
On May 20, 1876, Baron de Palm died at the Roosevelt Hospital, New York of nephritis, as a result of years of suffering from a complication of diseases of the lungs, kidneys, and other organs. In his will he left 12 parcels of land located in Highland Park, Illinois to Emma E. Berringer of Chicago; all the rest of his estate went to Henry Steel Olcott "in gratitude of his kindness to me." Olcott was also designated as executor.[2]
A symbolic memorial service was held in the Masonic Temple at the corner of 23rd Street and 6th Avenue. The Baron had asked that no clergyman or priest should officiate at his funeral, but that Colonel Olcott should perform the last offices in a fashion that would illustrate the Eastern notions of death and immortality. Col. Olcott wrote in his diary:
The recent agitation of the subject of cremation in Great Britain and America, caused by the incineration of the body of the first Lady Dilke, the scientific experiments of Sir Henry Thompson (vide his published essay The Treatment of the Body of the Death, London, 1874), and the sensational article and pamphlets of Rev. H. R. Haweis upon the unspeakable horrors of the burial-grounds of London, led me to ask him how he would wish me to dispose of his remains. He asked for my opinion upon the relative superiority of the two modes of sepulture, concurred in my preference for cremation, expressed a horror of burial, some lady he had once known having been buried alive, and bade me do as I found most advisable.[3]
The actual cremation did not take place until six months after his death, and the body was preserved by using potter’s clay and Phenol. Finally, on December 6, 1876, the body of the Baron was consigned to the flames, in what constituted the first cremation in America, in the small town of Washington, Washington County, Pennsylvania.
Online resources
Articles
- Up in Smoke: Theosophy and the Revival of Cremation at www.wunderkabinett.co.uk
- A Theosophical Funeral The New York Times, May 29, 1876.
- Cremation of Baron de Palm by H. S. Olcott
- The Cremation of Baron De Palm at The Bone Idol
Notes
- ↑ Membership Register. Theosophical Society Adyar Archives.
- ↑ Record of Wills, 1665-1916; Index to Wills, 1662-1923 (New York County); Author: New York. Surrogate's Court (New York County); Probate Place: New York, New York. Wills Vol 0259-0260, 1878-1879.
- ↑ Henry Steel Olcott, Old Diary Leaves First Series (Adyar, Madras: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1974), 150-151.