The Ticking Tomb
(London Tract Baptist Church)
The following article was written by Jimmy J DeHart Sr, March 12, 2016, enjoy:)

Most of us have heard of the “Ticking Tomb” whether you are from this area or not. I have seen people from around the U.S. stop at the London tract Church located on Southbank Rd to visit. I wanted to get to the bottom of it, figure out how this story begun. I found online many opinions and speculations, but were they true. Very rarely will you ever find how a story started or where it originated from and how it’s changed over the years. While searching threw old newspapers “weeks of reading” I stumbled upon it’s beginning. Crazy as it sounds it started from John Evans sons gravesite John Evans Jr., this was surprising.
It was called “Whispering Tomb” it is the grave of John Evans Jr. who died in the year 1738 at the age of 38, the son of the original John Evans. A large slab of sandstone covers his remains. The story has it that when the ear is placed to the stone strange noises are heard. The circumstance has brought many distinguished men of scientific pursuits to the spot. After review they believed the sound came from an underground spring, water trickling through the limestone that is slowly going silent over the years.
As the story gets told over and over the years it morphs into the “Ticking Tomb” about a local kid who swallowed a watch owned by Charles Mason and to this day you can here the watch still ticking, I’m sure there are many other versions of the story. I attached the original newspaper clipping posted in the year 1896 from the Harrisburg Telegraph. This legend became so well-known that it attracted the attention of Edgar Allan Poe, who visited the Landenberg graveyard in the early 1840s. It is said that the Ticking Tombstone was the inspiration behind Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart".
To finish off the story of the ticking tomb, I took a drive down to the cemetery at London Tract church. I was intrigued by what I found. Most, no all of the images that I found online are not even of the correct tombstone. The correct stone is just two stones over from the stone most believe to be the tombstone of the ticking tomb, a quick google search you will see the stone that is thought to be the ticking tomb. I have also seen images of the heart shaped stone next to this stone as also being the ticking tombstone. The tombstone that it originated from is just two stones from the stone that was thought to be the ticking tomb. It is the large slab of sandstone marked John Evans Jr. this is the “Whispering Tomb” later known as the “Ticking Tomb”. While there I placed my ear on the stone, sadly the sound has now gone silent:( just as the story comes to an end. On another note, His mother Lydia Evans is buried next to him. His fathers grave the original John Evans Sr. is below him marked in red bricks.

"Here Lyeth the Body of JOHN EVANS Jr / Who DeParted this life Aprile the 14th / Year 1738 AGED 38 years"