Meet the So-Called Night Doctors: Chris Baker and Grandison Harris

We have chosen to include certain racial epithets as they appear in quoted material, not the one you're probably most worried about. Don't worry. We're doing that though, in order to honestly represent the bigoted language that was incredibly common and accepted at the time. This is, of course, if you know anything about it, a difficult period America's history. But it's really important to tell the stories of black men like Baker and Harris as they live their lives.

And while we're setting this stage, let's also make sure we're on the same historical and constitutional page. We're not going to dive deeply into the history of the United States during the time of its Civil War. That would be an incredibly enormous and ongoing project, and there are plenty of resources for that information if you want to brush up on it. But there are a few key things to know that will help these men's stories come

to life. The stories of both Chris Baker and Grandison Harris take place during the American Civil War, fought between April eighteen sixty one and April eighteen sixty five. Actually their stories take place a little bit before and a little bit afterwards as well. Post war, the United States Congress made amendments to the United States Constitution to both

end slavery and to grant citizenship to black people. The Thirteenth Amendment, passed by Congress on January thirty first, eighteen sixty five, and ratified on December six that same year, abolished slavery within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Congress made several new laws to protect former enslaved persons, including the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment was passed by Congress on June thirteenth, eighteen sixty six,

and ratified on July nine, eighteen sixty eight. It was intended to grant citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to free black people and enslaved persons who were emancipated after the Civil War. The Confederate States, defeated in the war underwent what was known as reconstruction. That always sounds like such a positive word, but this was a very turbulent time in the Southern States from the end of the war in eighteen sixty five until eighteen seventy seven.

This period was intended to have transformed the states politically, socially, and economically, but free and newly freed black people found themselves instead up against Jim Crow laws and black codes that enforced or even legalized racial segregation. These laws, which varied from state to state, became well established and lasted for almost a hundred years from the post Civil War era until around nineteen sixty eight. Their main purpose was

to marginalize the black American community. Let's name off just a few examples. For instance, marriage between a white person and a person of color any color was prohibited, and that was actually the case in some US states until nineteen sixty seven. There were segregated waiting rooms, elevators, restrooms, you get the idea, and none of those designated spaces for black people were built or maintained to the same standards as those that were intended for the use of

white people. Nothing about this was equal. In Georgia, for example, where Grandison Harris lived, it was unlawful for and we are this now quote any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race. And it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the

white race. Virginia, which was Baker's home, authorized cities and towns to create what we're called segregation districts to prevent anyone of color from moving into white neighborhoods. Okay, so now that we know where we are in history, let's take a break for a word from our sponsor. When we're back, we'll talk about who Chris Baker was and

why he was important. Welcome back to Criminalia. Now that we have a little bit of background into the time Chris Baker and Grandison Harris were alive, Let's start talking about their actual lives. Despite what we may often see in movies and media, not all enslaved people worked as agricultural laborers on large plantations, such as those producing cotton or sugarcane. While many did work on plantations in the Southern States, there were also enslaved people engaging in skilled labor,

such as in domestic jobs cooks, blacksmiths, drivers, gardeners. That list goes on and on. There were a variety of workplaces including when you might not think of, well, at least probably not at first, Chris Baker may have been involved in the theft of hundreds of corpses from black cemeteries across Richmond, Virginia in the mid to late eighteen hundreds. Chris was a black man born at the Medical College of Virginia or m c V, to enslaved parents who

also worked at the school. Those who were enslaved were considered property, and that made Chris the property of m c V. He was born into enslavement. Demographic information about Chris varies on just about every single detail, beginning with the year of his birth. Without knowing when he was born, it's hard to determine if he was an enslaved man during his time snatching bodies or part of the time, or if he was freed with others at the close of the Civil War. Some records indicate he had a

wife named Martha, maybe Martha. Some reports refer to Martha as his mother, not his wife, and he did were fairly certain have a son named John. Some reports suggested Chris lived with his family in the basement of the Egyptian building at the school. However, this is also a for debate. Some historians point to the city directories in the early nineteen hundreds, where a Chris Baker is listed at a series of addresses close to the hospital in

Jackson Ward District of Richmond. When Chris began acquiring bodies, it was either by his own hands with a team of a few other guys, or by hiring others to do so for him. Regardless of whether he worked alone or not, all of the bodies he acquired were for the Medical College of Virginia. As an aside here, The Medical College of Virginia that we're talking about joined with the Richmond Professional Institute in nineteen eight to form Virginia

Commonwealth University or VCU as we know it today. Chris was m c VS in house resurrection man, or as he was described in the nine census, his occupation was quote an anatomical man. In addition to digging up bodies, his work also included preserving those bodies in quicklime for dissection, as well as generally keeping up with the local deaths and therefore any potential body snatching opportunities in the city.

Chris was well respected on campus. In fact, he was often asked to take pictures with the medical students after dissections. But in the black community it was rumored Chris could wield black magic. As one future doctor wrote of the legendary resurrection man, quote, he was a small man, bald, and wore a black skull cap that made him so

distinguishable that Negroes avoided him like the plague. According to VC used chairman of the Department of African American Studies, Dr Shaun O. Utsie Baker had been arrested several times in the act of stealing bodies. He describes an instance when Chris and three other men were caught by local Virginia authorities in the process of disturbing at least eight graves,

so this is a large operation at that point. That time, Baker was indicted on one felony and two misdemeanor counts of body snatching, but he was pardoned by the governor. As we've talked about in almost every episode this sea and many authorities simply looked the other way when it came to this job, and Chris became famous, infamous as a ghoul who haunted the graves of the black community. There is no way to know how many bodies were stolen from cemeteries in the area, but the estimates from

within the black cemeteries are in the thousands. Baker, it said, was known to haunt both the Sycamore Cemetery on the North Side and the Oakwood Cemetery in northeast Richmond. Unlike the white students who took photos with him, his work left the black community fearful of him. There are many sensational stories surrounding Chris. One talehold is that he would attend funerals disguised as a mourner to scout for fresh bodies.

Another tells of how some richmonders believed he carried a bag to silence the screams of the living he captured in dark alleys around the city. Little side note here, there's really no evidence that Chris committed orders for bodies, although that wasn't unheard of among body snatchers. If you remember the term burking. We talked about that in our episode about William Burke and William Hare, who never seemed to have stepped foot in a cemetery, yet were highly

successful at delivering fresh corpses. The Virginia State Newspaper argued in a front page feature story that Chris Baker and other resurrection men were not what many considered to be quote, a necessary evil. This article argued, quote, if they be, why not divide the honors between Oakwood Cemetery and Hollywood alike, and between the two races. It has been claimed by many white men that Negroes are physically dissimilar to Caucasians.

If that be true, then it is not fair to the white people that only colored ones should be dissected and should be the only ones of whose physical structures the doctors have any knowledge. After an eight five visits in their land, English travel writer Harriet Martineau astutely observed that quote in Baltimore, the bodies of colored people exclusively are taken for a dissection because the whites do not like it and the colored people cannot resist. Chris Baker

story is not the only one of its kind. Next, we are going to travel to Georgia. It's a little bit early, but we're going to take this opportunity for a word from our sponsor, and when we're back, we'll talk about the life of Grandison Harris. Welcome back to Criminalia. Grandison Harris was an enslaved man who stole the bodies of black people from black graveyards. A little bit similar. Here is his story. The Medical College of Georgia and Augusta once purchased a man for the purpose of quote,

procuring subjects for anatomical study. Yes, this is real, and stay with us here. In eighteen fifty two, the Medical College of Georgia or MCG bought a black man named Grandison Harris to be their exclusive body snatcher for their anatomy classes, and he was jointly owned by all seven members of the school's medical faculty. Let's unpack that statement and a half. Yes, a medical college purchased a thirty six year old enslaved man in the mid eighteen hundreds

when slavery was legal in the state of Georgia. According to faculty minutes from an eighteen fifty two meeting at MCG, the dean of the college purchased Grandison at a Charleston, South Carolina auction for seven hundred dollars. So seven hundred dollars in eighteen fifty, if you're curious, is roughly equivalent in purchasing power to about twenty six thousand dollars today.

According to reports of the event, Grandison was separated from his wife, who was pregnant and who remained enslaved as well. Grandison was described as quote a large and powerful Galla slave born in eighteen sixteen in West Africa. As an enslaved Gulla man, he would have been from one of several tribal groups of western Central Africa who, upon being brought to the United States, were primarily forced to work on the plantations of coastal North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,

and Florida, often on rice and cotton plantations. Grandison's fate brought him to Georgia, but not to a rice field. Before Grandison became mcg's go to grave robber, The faculty had tried a few alternative methods for procuring cadavers. First, there was no way these seven doctors, who were apparently comfortable owning a human planned to potentially ruin their reputations by getting caught with a hand in a coffin. So that was out. The school's cadaver program began just like

a lot did. They purchased fresh corpses for seventy five cents each from local body snatchers in Augusta, but they ran up against a common problem there was a limited supply. In eighteen thirty nine, the school tried a different tactic and began to source cadavers from out of state for one hundred dollars. One order of bodies from New York City was shipped in barrels of whiskey to preserve them

during travel. What is unclear in that report, though, is exactly how many bodies one might purchase for one dollars shipped from New York. Regardless, that was not really an efficient method anyway. They still needed more corpses, so to fill this void they brought in Grandison. For decades, Grandison's work was as an in house resurrection man dedicated to steal bodies from graves at downtown Augustus Black Cedar Grove Cemetery to be delivered to and used by the medical school.

Cedar Grove Cemetery is notable here because it was reserved for Augustus impoverished and black residents. There was no fence, and the bodies there were buried in plain pind coffins, sometimes known as toothpicks. Dr Eugene Murphy and mcg professor and former dean, who was a contemporary of Grandison, had observed the body snatcher at work. He recounted his routine as quote. He would go to the cemetery late at night,

with only the moon watching. He would quickly dig down to the upper end of the box, smash it with an axe, reach in there with his long and powerful arms, and draw the subject out. He would put the subject in a big sack, place it in a cart, and carry it to the school. Grandison, we should note, was

known to be really meticulous. He would memorize the grave site before disturbing it, and then he was able to to recreate that grave site perfectly once he had put the dirt back down, right down to the flower arrangements. The exhumed body was first destined for preservation in vats of whiskey, and later it was off to the dissection table.

Between eighteen thirty five and nineteen twelve five nine eight Telfare Street, an impressive Greek Revival style building, housed nearly all of the medical colleges anatomy classes and their cadavers. Stories of these quote night doctors, a term often used in regard to the stealing and selling of bodies, became part of local black focal or tradition, and men like Harris and Baker as well were turned into a sort of bogeyman, used to scare local children and frankly, to

scare adults as well. There's a chapter on Harris in the book Bones in the Basement post Mortem Racism in nineteenth century Medical Training, in which J. Philip Waring, retired administrator of the Urban League, is quoted as saying local blacks feared him because they did not know who he was going to dig up next. He was feared in the I don't want to say supernatural, but anyone who goes out and digs up bodies and gets away with

it and makes money. And the medical college promoted him, and what have you what kind of person was this? It's believed doctors and doctors in training at the medical school were the ones who taught Grandison to read and write so that he could follow the obituaries and funeral announcements in the local papers. It was illegal for an enslaved person to read or write at this time in America's history, so Grandison had skills that other black men

would not have had. Chris Baker, for instance, was not literate. Historians also believe that Grandison had decent knowledge of anatomy and even assisted during dissections, and that he became something of a respected mentor like figure among the medical students. And photographs taken of each graduating class during his tenure you will find Harris standing along with the students. Eugene Murphy of MCG also described how after one late night run,

Grandison went from the graveyard to a saloon. Two students who've been watching the night doctor, walked over to his wagon and pulled a corpse from a sack. One of the students, as the story goes, then climbed into that sack. When Grandison returned from having a drink, the student moaned from within the sack, quote Grandison, I'm cold, buy me a drink, And to that the legend goes. Grandison replied,

you can buy your own damn drink. With the end of the Civil War on April night, eighteen sixty five, and the abolition of slavery on December eighteenth, eighteen sixty five, Grandison was a freeman and he left mcg his wife and child. A son named George, moved to be with him. He relocated his family across the Savanna, a river from Augusta, to the small town of Hamburg, South Carolina that's now known as North Augusta, and there he served as a

judge in a Freedman's Bureau court. Those were courts meant to settle cases of freed or formerly enslaved people who were facing prejudice in the white court system. Even with his family reunited and a new respectable job, there is no way this was an easy time for Grandison. The reconstruction period had become a violent political crisis, and in its failure, Jim Crow laws became the way things were in Georgia and across many Southern states, and Grandison found

himself in a strange place in his community. He could read and write he held a good job. He's described as wearing quote proper gentleman's clothing, and a description of that would be, say, imagine a panama hat in the summer, a derby in the winter, and he always wore a mutineer in his lapel on sun days. Grandison, it seems, from all accounts, was a really friendly man. It was known among the black community that he threw great parties that were attended by the emite of local black society.

He was a member of the influential Colored Knights of Patheus, a Masonic secret society that was started in eighteen eighty by black men. It borrowed from the rituals of the White Knights of Patheus. The biggest difference here was that any race was eligible to join the Colored Knights. Hamburg was a small, primarily black community across the river from Augusta, Georgia, but that doesn't mean that it was a haven for black residents. White people from the surrounding area continually clashed

with the residents there. An event called the Hamburg Massacre happened there in July of eighteen seventy six. That massacre was rooted in racial hatred and political motives, and it began as a simple dispute over free passage on a public road. Two white farmers were temporarily blocked from crossing a road while an all black regiment engaged in a military exercise. Outraged the men, who were named Thomas Butler and Henry gets Him filed a formal complaint demanding Hamburg's

all black militia be disbanded. This is a very significant and detailed event in Southern history. We are speeding through it, we know. But the deal here is that when the governor called in local paramilitary groups known as the Red Shirts to quell any violence that seemed to be simmering, at least according to his estimation, terrible things happened. Hundreds of the all white Red Shirts surrounded and attacked the

black militia regiment. Six black men and one white man were killed, and the event did nothing but worse in relation between the races spurred by racial tension, Grandison left Hamburg. He moved his family to Augusta and returned to his work in the dissection lab, this time as a full time employee at the Medical College of Georgia, and that meant he was paid for his work. He received eight dollars a month for doing the work he'd previously done

for the school as an enslaved man. We did find one report that his salary fell between ten dollars and fifteen dollars a month, so a little bit more, and that when he retired in nive it was on a pension of ten dollars a month. So we're in the ballpark here. He was listed as supporter in the medical schools records, although everyone knew that wasn't really his job. But this time around at MCG the medical students didn't

see him as a mentor. They treated him, it's reported as though he had been quote disloyal to the South by working on the behalf of the black community in a freedman's bureau of court, and they mocked him for his attempt at social climbing. In fact, both students and faculty mocked him by calling him judge off campus among free and enslaved blocks in Augusta. At the time, Grandison was known as a ghost, a ghoul, and even a villain.

Despite a new law allowing dissection in Georgia to be legal beginning in eight seven, that law still didn't mean there were enough fresh corpses for dissection tables, and the body snatcher profession was still needed. Grandison continued to not only rob graves, but helped purchase corpses of the poor who died in prisons and hospitals and from anywhere else

he got a tip on a fresh corpse. As Grandison got older, his son, George, began to take on more of the school's graveyard responsibilities, but George was not as well liked or as responsible as his father had been. The dissection lab began to emit an odor strong enough for the Board of Health to be called in, and they discovered not only old rags and tobacco on the floor, but also scraps from dissection procedures and a neglected vat full of bones. Not the kind of scene in medical school,

or actually really anyone wants to explain. Grandison retired in nineteen o eight, after giving one final lecture instructing the medical students on the finer points of being a night doctor. He died of heart failure in nineteen eleven at the age of ninety five, and he was buried in Cedar Grove, the very same cemetery where he had plundered for fresh corpses for decades. In nine nine, the cemetery's records were destroyed when the Savannah River overflowed, and today still no

one knows where Harris's body lies. In addition to that bone collection, in nine nine, construction workers accidentally discovered the remains of We've seen this two ways, actually of roughly four hundred corpses or ten thousand bones below the old Medical College building on Telfair Street, many of whom were likely secretly disposed of by Grandison as part of his daily duties. Some remains were still marked as specimens, but because many were scattered or broken, it's been difficult for

archaeologists and forensic anthropologists to determine much about them. The ancestry, sex, or age of each individual is unknown. What they have been able to figure out, though, through testing, is that seventy seven percent of the bones are male, and most of the remains belonged to black men. Found with them were old medical tools, as well as an old wooden vat that had been used to store bodies and whiskey,

and that that still contained bones too. The discovery was turned over to local authorities, and the bones were buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery. This is obviously a very complex story. It's not just body snatching. There is also race, socioeconomic status, right and wrong, and it's a story that we hope experts to dive more deeply into. One thing that kept coming up in the research for today's show is that there's going to be more to this story than meets

the eye. And we completely agree, so we hope we have done it justice, but we acknowledge there's a lot of depths here we can't even get into because the information has not really been studied. I holly hope that you are not going to serve us anything from that that. No rock gut whiskey today. No, And in fact, I'm

sidestepping whiskey and using an alternate spirit in something. This was one where it was a little bit tricky because I was trying to think of something that we could make that would be a little historical, pretty commonly associated with the South, and not too disrespectful. Right, It's a little bit tricky, of course, very tricky. The thing that

kept coming to my mind is a mint jewlip. I am not that big of a fan of I will confess but there's a fun history lesson to this as well, which will help be a little bit of a palate cleanser if you just need a little break from heavier things. And I wanted to make it a little bit different than the mint julip you have probably been served if you've ordered one before, because it gets its own association

with a lot of very racist institutions in some cases. However, if we go all the way back to the origin, it's different than what you're drinking today, probably right. If you look up the International Association of Bartenders recipe for a mint julip, it's like sugar water your mint and whiskey or bourbon. We're not doing that, but we are doing a variation. And I ended up going to a book that I have in love, which is written by

Jerry Thomas in the eighteen sixties. If you are a drinker or a bar person, Jerry Thomas, he's sometimes called the father of mixology. We've referenced him before on the show. He wrote several books called The Bartenders Guide and various other names. But this is really like the first English language codification of like drink recipes. His julip is a fun one I'm actually going to read it because it's not terribly long. He first starts with a way to

basically make simple syrup. Will skip that it's very short, but then it reads. Take three or four sprigs of fresh mint, Press them well in the sugar and water until the flavor of the mint is extracted. Add one and a half wine glass of cognac brandy and fill the glass with fine shaved ice. Then draw out the sprigs of mint and insert them in the ice with the stems downward so that the leaves will be above

in the shape of a bouquet. Arrange berries and small pieces of sliced orange on top in a tasty manner. Dash with Jamaica rum, and sprinkle white sugar on top. Place a straw as represented in the cut, and you have a julip that is fit for an emperor. He also includes variations to do a brandy julip, a gin ju lip, a whiskey julip, which is what most people get today, or a pineapple julip. So I wanted to go back to that original conky julip because your girl

loves neck, which I'm calling the anatomical man. And I'm adding another twist to it to just make it its own unique thing and take it out of some of its previous associations. So you are going to use your tablespoon of simple syrup or a vanilla syrup. If your name is Holly Fry, that's presume in any reside. Or I say simple syrup, I'm probably using vanilla syrup because

I just like it better. Then you are going to small dice one large strawberry, toss it in there, and then four to five mint leaves, and you're just gonna muddle them, you know how. Normally I say, don't go crazy muddling, go crazy muddling, because you really want to mash up that strawberry and get it so it can fit through a straw. Theoretically that's the problem with strawberries, and they stick in the straw. So I get your

your your muddle the hell out of this. If you can find like a boba straw that are made taking those big boba pearls, that to me is a great way if you're doing a fruit muddled drink. It's no fun to be sipping a drink. And then so once you have your strawberry and your mint leaves and your syrup muddled really well, to the point that it's a slurry in the bottom. Just fill the whole glass with crushed ice. Crushed ice is very important. I will tell

you why. In a moment, you're gonna add the crushed ice. You're gonna put in two ounces of cognac. You stir it. You wanted to get chilled on the outside of your glass before you even try to drink it. This is where I also explained crushed dice. You'll see in cocktail recipes like they sometimes call for specific kinds of ice, and that's not just to be like a fancy pant's unicorn.

They serve different purposes. So in the case of this, if you were to just drink your two ounces of cognac with your strawberry and Mintley's, it is, to my paletate, not that delicious, even with the sweetness of it, because it's just too strong. It's too many strong flavor. Crushed ice versus like cube dice, has greater surface areas, so it's diluting your alcohol a little bit more quickly, and you're actually getting a more simpable drink. That is the

science of different kinds of ices, different kinds of drinks. Right, if you have like a drink where it calls for one large ice cube, what they mean is, we don't want you to dilute this anymore than it's absolutely necessarily going to happen to keep it cold. So like you want your stuff mixed together, you want it to dilute

it your purposely watering down your alcohol. This is the case if you do a whiskey based Julu as well, crushed ice is key and it probably goes to that saying you don't want to just slurp it all down quickly because you want it to have some time to dilute. That is the anatomical band in its alcohol form. If you want to make a nonalcoholic one, it's super easy.

You do the same exact thing, but you want to put in two ounces a very very very strong tea, so you basically are making like the world's yummiest iced tea with strawberry and mint in it. And if you use vanilla syrup it makes it very lovely. I use

a black tea there. I've seen some people. I was doing some research about other mock tail variations on mint julips, and some people like to use a combination of a mint tea and a black tea together, which sounds like an interesting idea to steep with two bags in your cup or whatever, because that will give you more of that minty minty flavor, since black tea can overwhelm softer flavors sometimes. But you'll do everything else the same again,

keep that crushed dice. You want that tea very strong. That is the anatomical man. I will say I prefer the mocktail on this one. As much as I generally love Kognac, the mock tail is more palatable for me. It's more refreshing, which is really what I want from any drink anyway. Like I'm not a big wine drinker, I've always said, and it's because part of it I'm allergic to a lot of wine. But I also just

don't find wine refreshing. Like when I drink wine, I feel like I need to drink something to be hydrated, and sometimes when you're doing like a heavy Kognak only thing, like I like Kognak in things more than on its own. So that is the scoop with why we went to a historical version of the jew lip and then put our own little twister rou on it, which hopefully is yummy for everybody that tries it, and I hope you enjoy it. And if you didn't know about crushed ice

and why it's important, now you do. This is also why if you meet people that are really into bar culture and tiki bar culture has a lot of people that are very obsessed with their ice shapes. But that is part of it. It is part of the actual mix of your drink. It changes the flavor profile of your drink quite a bit. So it's also like sometimes you will shake a drink with ice, sometimes without, because if you're doing it with ice, you actually are hoping

for a little dilution in the process. Science. Welcome to the science part of the show. Like I said, that is the anatomical man our twist on a jew lip and I hope you dig it. Thank you for spending this time with us this week. I'm so glad that we took time to tell these two particular stories. And we will be right back here next week with more Grave Robin and Resurrection on Criminalia. Criminalia is a production of Shonda Land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.

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