WAUPACA COUNTY POST

May 31, 1990

 

Mead skull to be buried – after 97 years

 

            The famous – or infamous – skull at the Waupaca County Courthouse will soon rest in peace.

            Waupaca County Circuit Court Judge Philip M. Kirk has signed an order officially releasing the skull of the late Henry C. Mead to funeral director Tom Holly of A. J. Holly & Sons Ltd., for burial, some 97 years after the skull was exhumed for use as evidence in the trial of a group of men accused of Mead’s murder in 1882.

            After the men were acquitted, the skull was apparently kept in the clerk of courts office at the old Courthouse for evidence in a possible future trial.  Over the years, it became a celebrated novelty because the murder was never solved.  Teachers would have their students come to the Courthouse to study the evidence, including the skull, and when the new Courthouse opened, the Mead murder case evidence was put on display on a special glassed shelf.

            “There’s been so much interest in the case over the years that we felt it would make it more available for people to simply display everything we have,” explained George Jorgensen, clerk of courts.

            But Holly disagreed, contending that the skull of Mead, a longtime banker, should instead be interred with the rest of his mortal remains.

            Jorgensen, who had developed some misgivings about having the skull on display, took the matter to Judge Kirk, who promptly signed a court order turning it over to Holly.

            “For the first time,” the judge wrote in his order, “a request has been made for permission to properly dispose of the Mead skull.  It serves no further evidenciary purpose.”

            Holly said he will most probably have the skull cremated next week and then buried in Mead’s grave at Lakeside Memorial Park Cemetery.

            Henry C. Mead was 60 years old at the time of his death.  He had moved to Waupaca in 1854 and since that time was said to have accumulated a handsome fortune, estimated by some to be between $100,000 and $200,000.

            The Exchange and Savings Bank of Waupaca, of which Mead was proprietor, was founded in 1862.  The institution enjoyed the utmost confidence from the public.  A general banking business was conducted, interest paid on special deposits, a saving system maintained, foreign and domestic currency exchanged, and a general collection business provided.  Passage tickets to and from Europe were also sold.

            Although Mead had a good business and was widely known, at the time of his death he was generally described as peculiar and isolated.  A big man, being about six feet four inches tall and with long hair and a beard, he had never married and lived alone in the small, rear portion of his bank building, which at the time was located where Bank One (the former Community Savings and Loan) now stands.  Mead’s bank building, relocated to Jefferson Street, stands next to Stiebs Jeep Eagle.

            Mead apparently had no relatives in the Waupaca area, although he had relation living in New York City, Buffalo, NY, Ripon and Sheboygan (where a banker named James Mead donated money to start the community’s public library, which to this day is the Mead Public Library).