George Washington famously feared premature burial. While on his deathbed in 1799, he instructed his personal secretary Tobias Lear to make sure he was dead before he was buried:
“Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead.”
Washington ushered in an era of taphophobia, or fear of premature burial. During the 19th century, popular books and magazines promoted the idea that many people were buried alive. They reported tales of bloody shrouds, gnawed fingers and horribly contorted bodies inside their coffins.
“Less than 150 years ago many medical practitioners freely admitted to being uncertain whether their patients were dead or alive,” wrote Jan Bondeson in Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear, published in 2002.
https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/when-fears-of-pr...