Cast Iron Coffin Brings Giles County National Attention

In 2002, when I began covering relocation of the Mason Cemetery, I never imagined that a year later I’d be in the Smithsonian Institution as the remains believed to be those of planter and Confederate soldier Isaac Newton Mason were examined by a team of experts in...

How the Search for Pvt. Mason Began

How I came to be present in the scientific research area of the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History when a 19th-century iron burial case was opened by a team of prominent scientists started as a routine story for the Citizen/Press.In covering the removal of the...

Clothing, Boots Help Tell Soldier’s Story

Clothing, Boots Help Tell Isaac Mason’s Story On May 28, a room filled with scientists and historians awaited removal of a heavy lid from a heavy cast iron coffin containing what was believed to be remains of Giles Countian Isaac Newton Mason, a private in the 11th...

Dr. Larry Cartmell Explains Autopsy Findings

Dr. Larry Cartmell Explains Autopsy Findings in the Isaac Newton Mason Case An important member of the team of scientists and historians who studied the 142-year-old remains of Isaac Newton Mason was Dr. Larry Cartmell, a general pathologist from Ada, Okla., who is...

Photographer Chip Clark Documented Mason Story

Photographer Chip Clark Documented the Science Behind the Mason Story When the cast iron coffin believed to contain the remains of Isaac Newton Mason was opened at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in May 2003, a room filled with...