Man Boiled Alive in Vat!

A vat at a dyeing facility in TN, circa 1910

There seems to be an infinite number of ways for a person to die, but the strange death of a Philadelphia night watchman in 1903 has got to be one of the most horrible.  From the May 7, 1903, edition of the Fulton County News:

Philadelphia (Special).-- J. Schlicking, 60 years old, of Seltzer and Salmon streets, a watchman at the Allen Dyeing Company's plant, Frankford avenue and William street, fell into a vat of boiling potash during the night, and the next morning early his skeleton was found by fellow-workmen protruding from the fiery bleaching liquid.  Schlicking was subject to attacks of vertigo, and it is believed that he was overcome immediately after turning on the steam under the big vat and pitched headfirst into the caustic liquid.

(view original newspaper article here)