German Combustion
The Legend:
Sometime around the year 1853, a German liquor-shop in Colombus, Ohio, mysteriously burst into flames and was consumed.
The source
My only source of this ephemeral account is from no one less than the great author Charles Dickens. In the preface to the second edition of his novel, Bleak House, he defends the death of a character named Krook by spontaneous combustion, citing several cases in real life to support himself. In a later footnote added to this preface, he writes:
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"Another case [of spontaneous human combustion], very clearly described by a dentist, occurred at the town of Colombus, in the United States of America, quite recently. The subject was a German, who kept a liquor-shop, and was an inveterate drunkard."
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This footnote exists in an 1853 printing of Bleak House, so "quite recently" is presumably near that year. I will do some newspaper surfing to see what I can find.
Sources:
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