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| Via Newspapers.com |
I’m someone who prefers their cats live, not mummified. However, when I come across a story on the topic which includes the phrase, “right of inheritance,” I take notice. From the “Lansing State Journal,” September 24, 1926:
HARRODSBURG, Ky., Sept. 24. The question of ownership of a mummified cat and kitten found in the wall of a century-old house being torn down here is causing wide interest and some agitation. There are three people who claim the relics.
Berry Lawson, tearing away the residence of Dr. J.T. Price, found the mummified felines walled into the building. It was evident the mother cat and kitten had been caught in the space inside the wall, unknown to work men, who had built around them. This was early in the last century.
Lawson took the curious remains and so many persons clamored to see them that it was reported a small admission fee was charged.
The question of ownership arose when Lawson claimed the mummies by right of discovery and proprietorship of the house. Dr. Price said the cats belonged to him as he sold the house to Lawson, but not the contents of the building.
The third claim has attracted the most attention of all. Beriah Magoffin of McAlester, Okla., who has been spending the summer here, says the cats' remains belong to him by right of inheritance.
The old house was built by his grandfather, Beriah Magoffin, the first, father of Beriah Magoffin, the second, who was governor of Kentucky during the Civil War and held Kentucky as neutral ground in that struggle.
Mr. Magoffin says the first Beriah had a pet cat, whose mysterious disappearance became a family legend, handed down through the generations. The mummy cat, he believes, is the lost feline of his grandfather, and he wants to link the past and present to that extent anyway.
Unfortunately--or, now that I think of it, perhaps fortunately--I was unable to learn who finally won possession of the earthly remains of these tragic, if highly-prized, cats. Ave atque vale.
[H/t Chris Woodyard]
The poor cats...
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Although I found it interesting that the cat became a Magoffin family legend. Something similar happened in my own family. When my grandmother's mother was a child, she found that one of the cats on their farm had somehow accidentally hanged himself in the barn. She never forgot that sight, apparently. At some point, she told my grandmother about the cat, and *she* never forgot it. Eventually, my grandmother told me, and *I've* never forgotten it. So that unfortunate kitty has survived in memory since the late 19th century.
DeleteI think every cat-lover will see that horrible vision in their mind's eye once told of it...
ReplyDelete