Suspended animation in fiction which is indistinguishable from death. In American fiction, the first story to deal with suspended animation is the tale of Rip Van Winkle, a short story by American author Washington Irving published in 1819 as well as the name of the story's fictional protagonist. In the story, a British subject in the American colonies wanders into the Catskill Mountains in the years before the American Revolutionary War, and finds a group of fairies, whose moonshine he drinks. He then falls asleep for 20 years, and returns to his village in what is now the United States, finding his home town
Peter G. Van Winkle in 1866. Van Winkle died in Parkersburg in 1872, survived by a son and daughter. He was buried beside his wife (whom he had survived by nearly three decades) in Riverview Cemetery. Marshall Van Winkle, Peter Van Winkle's grandnephew, was a U.S. Representative from New Jersey in the Fifty-ninth Congress. His former home at Parkersburg, now known as the Peter G. Van Winkle House, is a contributing property in the Julia-Ann Square Historic District., it's known as. Peter G. Van Winkle Peter Godwin Van Winkle (September 7, 1808April 15, 1872) was an American lawyer, businessman and politician. For many years