Over Riley's dead body: Indy's weirdest civic fight

Today James Whitcomb Riley's Tomb, on the highest hill in stately Crown Hill Cemetery, may be Indianapolis' most tranquil place. Generations have retreated there for its peace and quiet.

But when the famous poet  died  on July 22, 1916, the matter of his final resting place created civic unrest of a bizarre and intense nature: a bitter tug of war over the folksy bard's corpse. Indianapolis, where Riley lived for the last two decades of his life, was a small city striving to become an impressive city, and it bent over backward for the honor of being the man's eternal home. Greenfield, the small Hancock County town where Riley was born, wanted Riley, too.

Today, the question of where to dig a hole for a dead poet seems an unlikely thing to fight over. But consider several things:

• Riley, who wrote "When the Frost is on the Punkin," "Little Orphant Annie," and other poems using back-country dialect, no longer commands great respect. But at the time, he was a national celebrity. At his death, President Woodrow Wilson issued a statement expressing "my own sense of loss" of "a man who imparted joyful pleasure." Flags were lowered to half-staff. Later, the U.S. Postal Service would put Riley on a postage stamp. 
• In 1916, Indianapolis, four years away from its centennial, was a city on the move and hungry for respect. Six years earlier, a stately city hall had been built, and on its cornerstone was etched Mayor Charles Bookwalter's proud remark: "I am, myself, a citizen of no mean city." The Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, in its infancy, already was attracting international interest. A massive new public library building, designed to resemble something from ancient Greece, was under construction. 

At the time, "having Riley's grave site in Indianapolis would've been a very prestigious thing for the city," said James P. Fadely, the biographer of early 20th century Indianapolis Mayor Thomas Taggart.

Riley died from a stroke at his Lockerbie Street home, where he'd lived for a quarter century. "Miss Clementia Prough, noticing that the poet seemed not to be resting easily, approached his bed," IndyStar reported on its front page on July 23, 1916. "Mr. Riley died before she reached his side."

He had been cagey about his age, but his death certificate said he was 66. He never married and had no children. He died without a will and without instructions on what to do with his remains.

It was immediately assumed he'd spend eternity in Greenfield, in Park Cemetery, along with his parents. "Burial to be at Greenfield," a July 23 IndyStar headline said. Greenfield's mayor promptly sent a telegraph to Henry Eitel, Riley's brother-in-law and the family member in charge, to let him know the old hometown looked forward to sending Riley off "with the pomp and circumstance due him," said Tom Davis, a cemetery historian who has studied Crown Hill.

Famous Indianapolis explorer lies in unmarked Crown Hill grave

But certain high-tone citizens of Indianapolis saw opportunity and moved quickly. Just hours after Riley died, Volney T. Malott, president of Crown Hill's board of directors and a prominent Indianapolis banker, presented Eitel with a competing offer: Riley could have "one of the most beautiful sites in the cemetery," its highest elevation, the top of Crown Hill Cemetery's then-undeveloped, now-iconic, Crown Hill.

Eitel didn't commit right away. Both Indianapolis and Greenfield were left hanging. Indianapolis seemed to surge ahead when it scored the funeral, held on July 25. And until a final resting place could be determined, Crown Hill would store the poet in the cemetery's specially ventilated Gothic Chapel.

At the the funeral ceremonies, Indianapolis was careful to treat the Greenfield mourners tenderly. Some 200 of them made the 25-mile trip for the visitation, hauling with them a 4-foot tall floral arrangement bearing the inscription: "From the home folks at Greenfield." At the Indiana Statehouse, where Riley lay in repose, the 35,000 people who came to pay their respects were "prohibited from hesitating" at the casket, IndyStar reported. But the Greenfield delegation "through arrangements with the state and city and family, was permitted to stop a moment."

All the players are long dead, so the following development likely will remain forever murky: At Greenfield's Capitol State Bank, IndyStar reported, "$1,200 has been deposited ... for the erection of a Riley Monument" at the Hancock County Courthouse. "It is expected this sum will reach at least $10,000." What was not reported was whom made the deposit, and why $10,000 should be expected.

It was a lot of money, but a statue isn't the same as a tomb. Two days after the funeral, with the poet's final resting place still up in the air, Greenfield's City Council issued a proclamation that seemed aimed at matching Crown Hill's offer: “Resolved, whereas, Greenfield has lost by death her honored son, James Whitcomb Riley, and wishing to demonstrate to the family and friends of the deceased the very high estimate in which he was held in the hearts of his fellow townsmen by granting to his representatives the exclusive right to occupy the most valued and favored spot in Park Cemetery, called The Mound, as the last resting place, overlooking Brandywine Creek, made famous by Mr. Riley and being close to the last resting place of his father, mother, brother, and sister; therefore be it. ... Approved by me this 26th day of July, 1916, Jonathan Q. Johnson, Mayor."

Months later at a town hall meeting in Greenfield, Riley's corpse still in temporary quarters, frustration boiled over. An Elizabeth Harris expressed contempt for "certain Indianapolis influences" engaged in "what seemed to be a selfish or commercial effort on behalf of Crown Hill." Former Greenfield Mayor John Eagan lashed out against “that selfish commercial spirit of Indianapolis people who sought the interment at Crown Hill for merely cold-blooded mercenary purposes.”

Cemeteries don't typically charge admission, but graves of famous people have long drawn tourists. In Los Angeles, cemetery tour organizers compete with each other for the "graver" business. A graver is a person who looks at graves the way a birder looks at birds. President John F. Kennedy's grave is one of Washington D.C.'s top attractions. Doors frontman Jim Morrison's grave in Paris gets millions of visitors annually.

Earlier this year a Melbourne, Fla. politician tried to get in on that action: He floated the idea of exhuming Morrison and bringing his remains to Melbourne as a way to promote the city.

Davis allowed that some of Indianapolis' leaders likely saw Riley's tomb as a "drawing card" but that he "can't be sure" they were motivated purely by commercial concerns.

In late 1916, a committee from increasingly uneasy Greenfield was tasked with traveling to Indianapolis to plead their case with state and city officials, as well as Riley’s remaining relatives, chiefly Eitel. The effort did not prevail. The odds were stacked against it.

The business of body snatching in Indianapolis

Eitel, a successful banker who'd married Riley's sister, Elva May, and who called the shots  regarding the poet's remains, had no connection to Greenfield. He had deep connections to Indianapolis. He'd grown up in Madison but had lived his entire adult life in the state capital. When Elva May died in 1909, he had her buried in Indianapolis, in Crown Hill.

Perhaps even more to the point, Eitel was an employee of Volney T. Malott, who'd begun the whole Riley-in-Crown Hill campaign. Eitel was a senior vice president at Indiana National Bank. Malott, in addition to his role at the cemetery, was the bank's chairman.

Riley was finally buried in Crown Hill on Oct. 6, 1917, 15 months after breathing his last.

But first there was one more weirdness: During excavations, diggers of Riley's grave discovered two sets of bones already buried on the hill. Davis said it was likely both burials predated the cemetery, which was founded in 1863. Those bones were removed to Section 54, Lot 679.

There they lie to this day, their graves unmarked, their identities undetermined.

Call IndyStar reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043. Follow him on Twitter: @WillRHiggins.