Phineas Gage - Death, Burial, and Relocation of Body

Death, Burial, and Relocation of Body

In February 1860 Gage had the first in a series of increasingly severe convulsions, and he died in or near San Francisco on May 21—just under twelve years after his accident. He was buried in San Francisco's Lone Mountain Cemetery.

In 1866 Harlow somehow learned that Gage had died in California and opened a correspondence with Gage's family there. At Harlow's request they exhumed Gage's remains long enough to remove his skull, which was then delivered to Harlow back in New England. About a year after the accident, Gage had allowed his tamping iron to be placed in Harvard Medical School's Warren Anatomical Museum, but he later reclaimed it and (according to Harlow) made what he called "my iron bar" his "constant companion during the remainder of his life"; now it accompanied the skull on the journey East. After studying them for a new paper (1868) Harlow redeposited the iron—this time with Gage's skull—in the Warren Museum, where they remain on display today. The iron bears this inscription:

This is the bar that was shot through the head of Mr Phinehas P. Gage at Cavendish, Vermont, Sept. 14, 1848. He fully recovered from the injury & deposited this bar in the Museum of the Medical College of Harvard University. Phinehas P. Gage Lebanon Grafton Cy N-H Jan 6 1850.

Much later Gage's headless remains were moved to Cypress Lawn Cemetery as part of a systematic relocation of San Francisco's dead to new burial places outside city limits.