More About LMMM Explores the Dark History of Body Snatching in Upcoming Halloween Lecture
In celebration of the Halloween season, the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum will present the lecture, “Grave Objections: A History of Body Snatching for Science,” on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, from 6-8 p.m.
The presentation will be led by James Henry, a New York City tour guide and a nine-year veteran docent at Brooklyn's historic Green-Wood Cemetery. Light refreshments will be served immediately following the presentation. For more information, pricing, and ticket sales, please visit Click for Details or call (203) 838-9799.
This talk will explore the dark underbelly of medical history and the 100 plus year reign of the body snatchers. Driven by a severe shortage of legal cadavers for medical training, professional "ghouls" built a lucrative seasonal industry by secretly exhuming fresh corpses from local burial sites.
This illicit trade disproportionately targeted marginalized communities, igniting public fury and violent “anatomy riots,” including New York City’s massive 1788 uprising. While families fought back with creative defensive measures to protect their dead, the grim business of body snatching persisted for generations, until modern anatomy laws and shifting medical practices claimed to shut it down. Or did they? Join us for a thrilling evening of true crime as we find out where all the bodies aren't buried.
Guest speaker James Henry is a specialist in New York City cemeteries and burial grounds. He is currently writing and illustrating a novel detailing the global history of body snatching.
LMMM’s 2026 Lecture Series is sponsored in part by The DiNardo-Aiello Family Fund, and The Sante Center for Natural Healing. LMMM’s 2026 programs are made possible in part by LMMM’s Season Distinguished Benefactors: The City of Norwalk, The Maurice Goodman Foundation, Inc., and Lockwood-Mathews Foundation, Inc., LMMM’s Leadership Patrons: Dr. Michele & Attorney Miklos Koleszar and The Sealark Foundation, Inc., and LMMM’s Founding Patrons: The Estate of Mrs. Cynthia Clark Brown.
The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum is a 501(c)(3) organization and National Historic Landmark located at 295 West Avenue in Norwalk, CT.
Image Credit: Thomas Rowlandson “Grave-robbers, with death pictured as a nightwatchman” (1755), pen and ink, with watercolor (Courtesy of The Public Domain Archive, Wellcome Collection, England)
The presentation will be led by James Henry, a New York City tour guide and a nine-year veteran docent at Brooklyn's historic Green-Wood Cemetery. Light refreshments will be served immediately following the presentation. For more information, pricing, and ticket sales, please visit Click for Details or call (203) 838-9799.
This talk will explore the dark underbelly of medical history and the 100 plus year reign of the body snatchers. Driven by a severe shortage of legal cadavers for medical training, professional "ghouls" built a lucrative seasonal industry by secretly exhuming fresh corpses from local burial sites.
This illicit trade disproportionately targeted marginalized communities, igniting public fury and violent “anatomy riots,” including New York City’s massive 1788 uprising. While families fought back with creative defensive measures to protect their dead, the grim business of body snatching persisted for generations, until modern anatomy laws and shifting medical practices claimed to shut it down. Or did they? Join us for a thrilling evening of true crime as we find out where all the bodies aren't buried.
Guest speaker James Henry is a specialist in New York City cemeteries and burial grounds. He is currently writing and illustrating a novel detailing the global history of body snatching.
LMMM’s 2026 Lecture Series is sponsored in part by The DiNardo-Aiello Family Fund, and The Sante Center for Natural Healing. LMMM’s 2026 programs are made possible in part by LMMM’s Season Distinguished Benefactors: The City of Norwalk, The Maurice Goodman Foundation, Inc., and Lockwood-Mathews Foundation, Inc., LMMM’s Leadership Patrons: Dr. Michele & Attorney Miklos Koleszar and The Sealark Foundation, Inc., and LMMM’s Founding Patrons: The Estate of Mrs. Cynthia Clark Brown.
The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum is a 501(c)(3) organization and National Historic Landmark located at 295 West Avenue in Norwalk, CT.
Image Credit: Thomas Rowlandson “Grave-robbers, with death pictured as a nightwatchman” (1755), pen and ink, with watercolor (Courtesy of The Public Domain Archive, Wellcome Collection, England)
Date & Time
October 20, 2026
6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location
Lockwood Mathews Mansion Museum
295 West Avenue
Norwalk, CT 06850
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More About Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum
The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum is regarded as one of the earliest and most significant Second Empire Style country houses in the United States. Built by renowned financier and railroad tycoon LeGrand Lockwood from 1864-1868, the Mansion, with its unparalleled architecture and interiors, illustrates magnificently the beauty and splendor of the Victorian Era.
Lockwood’s financial reversal in 1869, and his untimely death in 1872, resulted in the loss of the estate then known as “Elm Park,” through foreclosure, in 1874. In 1876, the property was sold to Charles D. Mathews and his wife Rebecca. Mathews, a prominent importer from New York, and his family, resided in the Mansion until 1938. In 1941, the estate was sold to the City of Norwalk and designated a public park.
The Mansion was a technological marvel of its time: it had indoor hot and cold plumbing, gas lighting, ventilation, and a central heating system that burned a ton of coal a day. Indeed, there is no comparable mansion museum in our state. Built during the Civil War and still inhabited during the Great Depression, there is no institution in Connecticut that is better able to bring to life these significant events in American history.
When the building was threatened with demolition in the 1960s, concerned citizens galvanized to save the Mansion in one the most important and hard-fought preservation battles in Connecticut’s history. These local preservationists succeeded in saving the Mansion in 1965, and later formed the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum of Norwalk, Inc., a 501(c)(3), which was designated a National Historic Landmark, in 1971.
Lockwood’s financial reversal in 1869, and his untimely death in 1872, resulted in the loss of the estate then known as “Elm Park,” through foreclosure, in 1874. In 1876, the property was sold to Charles D. Mathews and his wife Rebecca. Mathews, a prominent importer from New York, and his family, resided in the Mansion until 1938. In 1941, the estate was sold to the City of Norwalk and designated a public park.
The Mansion was a technological marvel of its time: it had indoor hot and cold plumbing, gas lighting, ventilation, and a central heating system that burned a ton of coal a day. Indeed, there is no comparable mansion museum in our state. Built during the Civil War and still inhabited during the Great Depression, there is no institution in Connecticut that is better able to bring to life these significant events in American history.
When the building was threatened with demolition in the 1960s, concerned citizens galvanized to save the Mansion in one the most important and hard-fought preservation battles in Connecticut’s history. These local preservationists succeeded in saving the Mansion in 1965, and later formed the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum of Norwalk, Inc., a 501(c)(3), which was designated a National Historic Landmark, in 1971.
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