What Casket Did JFK, Mickey Mantle, etc. Use (A Sad Story)

Marsellus Casket made fine wood caskets for politicians, celebrities

Published: Wednesday, September 29, 2010, 9:18 AM     Updated: Wednesday, September 29, 2010, 10:28 AM

 By Charley Hannagan, The Post-Standard 

Syracuse, NY -- The Marsellus Casket Co.'s building has a long history as the place where workers made fine wood caskets used in the funerals for politicians, sports figures, religious leaders and celebrities.

Here are some of the people who have been buried in a Marsellus Casket.

Tennis star Arthur Ashe

Composer Leonard Bernstein

Cardinal Terence Cooke

Jacqueline Onassis

President John F. Kennedy and his widow Jacqueline Onassis

Football coach Vince Lombardi

Baseball star Mickey Mantle

Richard M. Nixon

President Richard Nixon

Gov. Nelson Rockefeller

President Harry Truman.

Here’s a history of the company.

1872: John Marsellus founds the Marsellus Casket Co.

1889: Marsellus builds a 70,000 square-foot, four-story brick building in Syracuse on the banks of the Erie Canal. At the time, it’s one of the biggest buildings between Albany and Buffalo.

1926: John C. Marsellus, son of the founder, becomes company president.

1936 John F. Marsellus, the third generation of the family, enters the business.

1978 John D. Marsellus, great grandson of the founder becomes company president.

1993: Lawrence English becomes the first person outside of the Marsellus family to be named president. John D. Marsellus becomes chairman.

1990: The company moves the majority of its casket making assembly plant to Kinne Street in DeWitt.

1997: The company is sold to Service Corp. International, the largest funeral home and cemetery business in the world.

At the time Marsellus had 300 employees and made 17,000 to 18,000 hardwood caskets a year.

2003: Service Corp. International nails plywood over the lower floors of the casket factory on Richmond Avenue before telling 315 employees that it is closing the company, and has sold its brand name, designs, patents and other intellectual property to its chief rival, Batesville Casket Co. of Indiana.

Service Corp. International tells employees that it doesn't want to invest millions of dollars for a distribution system and new equipment for the company.

May 29, 2003: The last casket rolls off the Marsellus Casket Co. line. It is a model 710, “The President, “ a mahogany casket polished to a high gloss and lined with pearl-colored velvet. It went to a Texas funeral museum. 

November, 2003: The original factory on Richmond Avenue and the Kinne Street building are bought for $2.8 million by a group includes Eli Hadad ,of Miami, an investor linked to corporations that have acquired at least 13 local commercial properties.

2007: Richmond Ave. Development LLC, a Westchester County investment groups, buys the building on Richmond Avenue.

Today: Fire destroys the building.