A mummified man known as Stoneman Willie is set to receive a proper burial after being on display at a funeral home in Reading, Pennsylvania, for 128 years.

The man was an alcoholic who died of kidney failure in a local jail on Nov. 19, 1895.

According to Auman’s Funeral Home, the man whose identity remains unknown but known in death as Stoneman Willie was accidentally mummified by a mortician experimenting with new embalming techniques,

At the time of his death, Stoneman Willie was imprisoned at Berks County Prison on petty theft charges.

When he was arrested, Stoneman Willie gave his name as “Jams Penn,” said the website Berks Nostalgia.

As he neared death, Stoneman Willie revealed to the prison doctor that his name was not actually James Penn — and that he had provided a fake name in order to spare his brother’s and sister’s reputations, said Berks Nostalgia.

Several leads on his true identity did not pan out in the months after his death.

As authorities did not know the man’s identity, they were unable to find family members to take his body.

Pennsylvania authorities gave Auman’s Funeral Home the permission to keep Stoneman Willie’s body, rather than burying it, in order to keep monitoring the effects of the embalming technique.

Over a century later, Stoneman Willie remained at Auman’s Funeral Home on display.

His teeth and hair are intact, said Reuters, and his skin has a hard, leathery appearance.

“We don’t refer to him as a mummy. We refer to him as our friend Willie,” said Kyle Blankenbiller, funeral director at Auman’s Funeral Home, according to Reuters.

“He has just been become such an icon, such a storied part of not only Reading’s past but certainly its present,” he said

Earlier in 2023, Auman’s Funeral Home announced that Stoneman Willie finally would be laid to rest — and that his real name finally had been discovered through careful combing of historical documents.

The day before the viewing began, on Oct. 1, a hearse carrying Stoneman Willie was part of the Reading’s 275th anniversary parade.

“It was nice to have our hometown hero and see him one last time,” Mark May of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, said to local media outlet WFMZ.

May added that the town’s mummy has “just been a celebrity since I can remember.”

Stoneman Willie’s real name will be inscribed on his headstone and revealed publicly during his burial, Reuters said.

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