Roger Williams was a very accomplished man. He was a Puritan clergyman who emigrated from England in 1631 to what is now Massachusetts. But his strange ideas about religious freedom and the separation of church and state, not to mention his belief in the humanity of Native Americans, got him kicked out, so he founded both Rhode Island and the First Baptist Church.
Williams died in 1683 and was buried on his own property in Providence, next to his wife, who had died a few years before. In 1860 when the graves of Roger Williams and his wife were dug up in preparation for a monument to be erected, a very peculiar situation was found. There were no remains of the couple found except for a braid of Mrs. Williams' hair (and a few teeth, according to Wikipedia). What was found was an apple tree root. The tree had been planted many years after Williams' death, and the root had grown through the grave. The root was found to have taken a shape as if it had grown around a human skeleton, even though there were no bones. That root was preserved, and can still be seen today. Read about the tree that ate Williams at American Strangeness. -via Strange Company
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