12/10/1928 AD died
He began to feel ill and suffered increasing stomach pain. In December he entered Deaconness Hospital, where he had surgery for cancer. The surgeons realized that nothing could be done. He died on Dec. 10, 1928, at the age of 48. The doctors, perplexed by the nature of his cancer, requested an autopsy. What it revealed the author does not know. But without question his disease seemed to have been the result of his research, a fate suffered by Marie Curie and others before him. He had worked recently on 61 and on uranium. Both element 61 and uranium in all its forms were radioactive. But it is apparent that, while he had worked on 61 for 14 or 15 years, presumably he had never encountered 61 in its radioactive stage. And his contacts with uranium were seemingly too recent to have produced the consuming cancer that he had developed. There is no answer to this mystery. But it is generally accepted that for many years he had been working with radioactive materials, which had fatal consequences.
Fittingly, on the day of his funeral, the ridge pole of the new chemistry building was put up while the bells for the service were ringing. 14 The building was later named for him.
Still, in connection with his life, there was one more remarkable event to include—one that astounded people and found its way into the Boston newspapers. 15 Because James had died in the winter, the frost prevented his burial in the chosen cemetery lot. The reburial took place in April. A day or two later, a visitor found that suddenly a swarm of bees had appeared on the new grave. The bees belonged to Jesse Helper, two miles away. But these same bees had once belonged to Charles James—as recently as the fall of 1928.
There is an old legend on this subject, both English and American, that someone must tell the bees of their master's death or they will fly away (one view says that they will die). The poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a famous poem "Telling the Bees." But no one had told the James-Helper bees. They flew away—but they flew two miles straight to the grave of their former owner and master. ~
from The Life and Work of Charles James
Lattitude: 43.1338° N
Longitude: 70.9263° W
Region: North America
Modern Day United States
