Casket Plaque of William Benjamin Rodrick

ClassificationsSculpture-plaques

Date1872

MediumSilver

Credit LineBowers Museum Collection

Object number32790.1

DescriptionDated 1872, this silver plaque was most certainly removed from the end of a casket. William Benjamin Roderick died at 29. This plaque, along with another plaque from the casket of Henry William Metzger, was found in 1965 in the back of the truck of the Bowers Museum’s gardener, Andy Anderson, while he was working on the museum’s lawn. How these two silver plates got out of the ground, across at least part of the continental United States to California and into the back of the truck has remained one of the grandest mysteries of the Bowers.

On View

Not on view