Talk:Chase Vault

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"Christ Church Parish Church in Oistins, Christ Church, Barbados."

Dear god...--Threedots dead (talk) 13:39, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No matching entry for James Elliott on the James Elliot disambiguation page, wiki-link removed. Sorry! Retry, Ignore, Fail? 98.140.194.208 (talk) 23:15, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lang's Lacking Evidence

There is a written account from 1824, found in the Barbados National Archives, just four years after the vault was opened for the last time, by the Hon. Nathan Lucas, an eye witness to the final opening. The Governor, a highly decorated war hero, and the Rector of Christ Church were present, and the Lucas account was 'certified" as correct by the Rector, Thomas Orderson, Doctor of Divinity. Also, it is incorrect to say that burial records do not exist; records for all six individuals interred in the crypt between 1813 and 1820 do exist, with the correct dates, and these can easily be pulled up on ancestry.com. Given the unlikelihood that the Governor of the Island and the Rector of Christ Church had any reason to fabricate such a story, and moreover that the vault was emptied of six coffins that had to be buried elsewhere in the cemetery, the crux of the matter falls in favor of how it happened (because something apparently did happen) rather than if it happened. 69.73.193.11 (talk) 00:51, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cite a reliable source. Orderson, as described in this article, has been thoroughly discredited as a reliable source of info, therefore anything "certified as correct" by him is immediately suspect. The article does not say that there are no interment records for the dates in question, it quite clearly says that these records do not corroborate Orderson's accounts. In other words, there are no records to substantiate that "something apparently did happen" before the first publication of one of Orderson's tales in 1833, eleven years after the first alleged occurrence of the phenomena. If something "apparently did happen", why did it take over a decade for it to appear in print? 12.233.147.42 (talk) 20:19, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Orderson, as described in this article, has been thoroughly discredited as a reliable source of info, therefore anything "certified as correct" by him is immediately suspect."

Comment from a Barbados history researcher, MA in History: With regard to Rev. Orderson's credibility, the following point, which has never arisen in any discussion concerning the Chase Vault, should be considered.

The Rector of every Barbados Parish presided over a church board called a 'vestry'. Barbados is divided into parishes, and at that time, the Vestry of each parish not only oversaw the operations of parish church, but also operated like a City Council or County Commissioners, i.e. they were the local government. Vestry meetings included and recorded not only church (religious) business, but the collection of taxes, paving of roads, delinquent properties, aid to destitute persons, etc., The minutes of each and every meeting were scrupulously recorded throughout each meeting by a clerk (my 2nd great grandfather was the Clerk of the Cathedral Parish of Saint Michael in the 1880s). At the conclusion of every meeting, the minutes were read aloud, all present had opportunity to discuss and finally unanimously approve the minutes as correctly recorded, and then the Rector would attach his signature and a statement to the effect that they were correctly recorded. Nota Bene: This was a profoundly important fiduciary duty that no cleric would neglect in the presence of his wardens, 8-12 of the most powerful citizens in his community.

In December 2015, I personally examined the aforementioned documents of 1824. They were indeed signed by the Rev'd Thomas Orderson, in exactly the same manner that church minutes are signed. Given his high ranking position (rector of the 2nd largest parish in Barbados) which he held for many years, and lacking evidence of shortcomings in his other clerical duties, any suggestion that he might have misrepresented the Chase Vault events as recorded is far-fetched. From a legal standpoint, he is as good a witness as one could have at that time. [It was also not to his or anyone's benefit to fabricate such a story, since it meant that they would not have adequate labour to tend the church yard, the enslaved people being especially superstitious.] There are many facets and questions to this story, but I do not see any justification to malign such a credible witness. We should spend our time looking for better explanations of the events themselves, rather than, in this instance, discrediting the recording of them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.41.163 (talk) 19:15, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is very useful. (1) Surely such disturbances of the churchyard would themselves be recorded in these Vestry minutes? As you do not assert so, presumably they are not? Is this not odd? (2) There is a photograph of the vault opposite p226 in 'West Indian Tales of Old' by Algernon E Aspinal 1912 https://archive.org/details/westindiantaleso00aspiiala/page/226 'Taken by the late W. E. Hunter, Esq' (so presumably some considerable time before 1912) which is radically different from the vault as seen today - there are no rectangular openings with metal shields, no coat of arms, and the rough concrete lintel above the door is much deeper. I do not think there is the 'Chase Vault' inscription on the edge of the slab and there are also no posts and chains (but these may be lying in the undergrowth). Clearly the vault has been subject to massive modification since 1890'ish? How do you account for this? How can we be sure that the vault as shown today is actually the Chase Vault referred to in the accounts? 86.187.166.242 (talk) 11:16, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Christ Church records, including vestry minutes, and the church itself were destroyed by the 1831 hurricane. The church, so the current Rector informed me (Nov 2023), was reconstructed in 1935. The only surviving BMD Christ Church records are a volume of Bishop's transcripts which contain minimal information. // The vault's exterior was spiffed up in the 1950s to accommodate tourism as air travel brought increasing numbers of tourists to Barbados. The rails, chains, and crest, and the 'windows' on either side of the crypt's entrance displayed images of the coffins' Before and After positions, I believe, from Lucas's mss and are still on display under the west portico. // Concerning James Eliot's memorial marker, currently mounted into the west wall of the church near the entrance, speculation that Eliot was never buried in the crypt defies logic. The vault was built in 1724, the same year James Eliot died, presumably commissioned either by Eliot himself or by family members. Extant church records mention no other Eliot burials, and the Eliots apparently did not reside nearby but were buried elsewhere, which would explain why they sold the nearly empty crypt to Thomas Chase. I explored churchyards across the island to get a feel for vault design of the early 19th c. (vaults are, after all, status symbols whose appearances are subject to prevailing tastes) and am persuaded that Thomas Chase may have modernized his newly acquired vault, but only minimally. Other contemporaneous vaults with flat tops still have grave markers mounted across theirs tops, similar in appearance to graves in church floors. Eliot's marker aligns nicely and proportionately(!) with the top of the vault, which is no more than 4cm larger, supporting the prevailing practice of grave markers covering flat topped vaults. // The vault's interior walls and ceiling are original, its floor having received a thin coat of concrete of which pieces remain. I also found inside a recess in the floor a fair amount of sand. Although the church grounds are not sandy, whether the sand was introduced by modern shoe soles or by Lord Combermere et al in their 1819 experiment cannot be determined. // Andrew Lang was a brilliant author and a highly esteemed associate of the SPR, whose mission statement (worth reading) is absolutely rational and scientific. Suggestions of deceit or ineptitude on his part qualify as extraordinary claims that demand extraordinary supporting evidence. 50.111.8.13 (talk) 06:16, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Link to extant Christ Church records (note by the uniform handwriting that they are later transcriptions). 50.111.8.13 (talk) 06:23, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Lead Coffin and a Strong Magnetic Energy

Is it possible there is a strong magnetic energy at the vault that makes the lead coffins tumbling around, while Mrs. Goddard's wooden coffin was remain undisturbed?

Perhaps it was formed only occasionally at certain moments. Lead is not magnetic, but very strong magnets energy can make it move. Uriel welsh (talk) 14:06, 11 September 2019 (UTC)]][reply]

It’s unlikely. In any case, your questions are better asked at WP:RD/S. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:56, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Unlike its Caribbean neighbors, the Island of Barbados is not volcanic, but coral, i.e. chalk, calcium carbonate, the result of ocean floor upwelling of coral; chalk is not magnetic. The question itself begs an obvious fact; most "encrypted" Barbadian coffins across the island are lead-wrapped@ but only these were afflicted by movement. 50.111.8.13 (talk) 06:34, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Magnetism does not do that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:14, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]