President Lincoln's Funeral Train Reinactment in Cleveland

On Sunday, April 26, 2015, Members from Dark Shadow Ghost Tours participated in the reenactment of the solemn Funeral Procession representative of the original line of march through Cleveland for president Abraham Lincoln.


On April 28, 1865 the train arrived at Cleveland’s Union Depot from Buffalo, New York at 6:50 a.m.   There the train’s locomotives were switched and the dispatch pulled the 9 car train onto the Euclid Street station, arriving at 7:20 a.m.   The casket was taken from the station by a hearse led by 6 white horses up Euclid Street to Erie (now E. 9th street) to Public Square, arriving at 9:15 a.m.   Lincoln's coffin was placed on a pagoda style catafalque in the square and remained there until 10:30 P.M. The Cleveland committee in charge of the mourning procedures had decided that no building would be suitable for the viewing, so they decided the President's coffin could best be displayed in the park. It was then taken back to the train. Approximately 150,000 people were able to pay their respects to the president.

(src: http://lincolnatcleveland.org/train.html )

(src: http://rogerjnorton.com/photos/lincolnfuneralcleveland.jpg)

One thing that needs to be mentioned.   We we took part in the re-enactment, there were ~120 people within the march, it was nice and sunny out, temperature was around 50 degrees, and we only marched about 5 blocks.   On that day in April of 1865, there were about 150,000 people there.   The march from the train station to Public Square was 65 blocks down Euclid Ave.    President Lincoln's casket was there from 10:30 a.m. - 10:30 p.m. and it was taken back to the train station and they moved onto the next stop.

This is a picture of about where the pagoda was standing on Public Square.   It would of been about where the construction bulldozers and back hoes are now in this picture.   To the right of this monument is the large tower from Tower City.

There were several re-enactment groups that took part in this event from military to civilian.   Although we are not a re-enactment group, we felt that our character costumes from The Wake of Sylvester Conley would blend right in, and it did very well actually.

Although the hears was not completely historically accurate, it was rather impressive and seeing the horses pulling it down the street was a very surreal moment.

All-in-all we had a wonderful time and we all agreed we will do it again for the 300th.

We have uploaded more pictures and a video on our Facebook page:  fb.com/darkshadowGT