A Heist at Lincoln’s Tomb and the Snarky Farewell of Mr. Accordion

The History Cache Podcast

In 1876 a bumbling group of Chicago counterfeiters broke into Abraham Lincoln’s tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Illinois, after formulating a plot to steal the president’s body and use it as leverage to get counterfeiter Benjamin Boyd released from prison. Boyd worked for small-time crime boss Big Jim Kinealy, and Big Jim’s attempted heist would, with the help of a secret service informant, go down in history as an utterly bad idea.
Then we jump ahead a century to explore the snarkiest tomb in history. Roy Bertelli, known as Mr. Accordion, regularly stood atop his own grave, which is a stone’s throw from Lincoln’s, to loudly play his accordion for the sole purpose of being as annoying as possible. After a row with the cemetery management over their attempt to seize his grave plot, Roy spent the rest of his life letting them know they wouldn’t be getting it back, even over his dead body. Come hear why his delightfully cantankerous story earns Mr. Accordion the gold in posthumous snark.