Monroe Hill & Miss Betty: 

In another incident, a delivery mishap led to a shocking discovery. At the Monroe Law Office located near the Monroe Hill dormitories, a “Miss Betty” was looking at the day's shipments. As she lifted the lid of the barrel, expecting a shipment of sweet potatoes, she instead found a dead body inside.¹ The anecdotal context of this story presents it as a silly event that was not especially shocking or revelatory for the time period, though it must have been a moment of horror for “Miss Betty”. What this story does tell us however is one of the methods in which bodies were shipped and that their system of shipment had its flaws.

Photo, Monroe Hill, 1994, University of Virginia Office of Public Affairs, UVA.

1. Charles Christian Wertenbaker, “The Early days of the University,” University of Virginia,  Alumni Bulletin IV, no. 1 (May 1897), 24.