16. A Fancy Traveling Coffin
The inventor of the iron coffin, Almond Fisk, created the first model in the 1840s after his brother died out of state. Almond lived in New York, where he owned an iron stove manufacturing shop when his brother died in the Mississippi. Not wanting his brother buried away from family, he invented an iron coffin to allow the body to be transported by train without offending the passengers. Without any way of embalming corpses, sealing them in an iron coffin was the only safe method of transport.