On April 29, 1865, thousands turned out to pay their last respects to a fallen president as Abraham Lincoln's funeral train passed through Champaign County.
A much smaller group will be on hand Sunday to catch a glimpse of a "ghost train" that followed in Lincoln's wake, if it exists.
"My (History) 205 class is taking on an endeavor to investigate a long-held myth in Urbana," explained Julieanne Phillips, an assistant professor of American History at Urbana University. "My students and I plan to go to the depot site on Miami Street ... and be witnesses to either support the myth or debunk it."
Phillips said some Web sites dedicated to self-styled ghost hunters, such as www.shadowseekers.com, contribute to the spread of the story.
"Inside the train, a crew of skeletons can be spotted. Halfway back the train is Lincoln's coffin, surrounded by a crew of blue-coated skeletons. It is also said that all the clocks in the area stop while the train passes by," according to one page at the Shadow Seekers site. "Residents of both Urbana and Piqua have reported seeing a ghostly locomotive on the tracks in their area, and unexplained train whistles and smoke (plumes) have been reported."
The Indiana and Ohio Railway acquired the former Conrail line between Springfield and Bellefontaine in 1994, and it's the last active rail line to go through the city of Urbana.
While an I&O spokesperson was unavailable to comment for this story, the records department of the Urbana Police Division confirmed there have been at least six reports of malfunctioning crossing gates at the Miami Street crossing since December of 2006, including one on April 26 and one on April 11.
Is it simply an equipment error, or are those gate sensors being tripped by a paranormal presence?
Ask an expert
A local author, Scott D. Trostel of Fletcher, has written a historical account of the 1,654-mile journey. "The Lincoln Funeral Train: The Final Journey and National Funeral for Abraham Lincoln" was published in 2002.
"I have to consider him the expert," said Champaign County Historical Society volunteer Dick Virts. "Scott's forgotten more about the subject than I'll ever know."
Trostel said Virts assisted him with the research for the funeral train book. He has written 34 other volumes on trains and railroad history, and he's a federal track inspector. Trostel said the ghost stories surrounding the funeral train are the work of people with "vivid and fertile imaginations."
"Those stories started in the Hudson River Valley in New York just a few years after the train came through," he said. "I have read better than 20 Lincoln ghost train stories and people keep encouraging me to write another book about them, but I'm a historian, not a fantasizer."
As for the Miami Street crossing bars and their erratic behavior, Trostel said the cause is more likely simple rather than supernatural.
"Crossing gates don't just go up and down by themselves," he said. "It can be anything, like condensation in the sensors, that causes it to malfunction."
Historical facts
Trostel said the Lincoln funeral train did stop in Urbana for about 20 minutes en route to Lincoln's burial site in Illinois, a fact which is well-documented despite the lack of photographic evidence.
However, it didn't stop at the depot on Miami Street.
"Many people assume there was only one station, but that's not the case," Trostel said. "Lincoln's funeral train actually stopped at the station on North Main Street at 10:40 p.m. At that point in time, flash photos could not be taken (at night), so there is very little photographic evidence of the trip through western Ohio."
The rail line, now abandoned, that carried the train through Urbana was the Columbus and Indianapolis Central Railway, and it did cross Miami Street on its westward path.
"They had a big arch wreath with flowers on it constructed over the tracks, but there was a train preceding Lincoln's that wouldn't fit through it, so they had to take it down, and Lincoln's train was about three to five miles behind the other train," Virts said. "It wasn't a very long stop at all, just enough time for people to lay a wreath to show their respect."
Trostel said it was a "fluke" that the funeral train traveled through Champaign County, because the rail line that went through Dayton was better at the time, and the tracks between Westville and Piqua had the second steepest grade in the state, requiring two locomotives to pull trains.
""The better railroad was through Dayton, but because of the Copperheads (anti-war Democrats) in Cincinnati, security was worried about that route and chose to take it north," he said. "The section of track between Greenville and Richmond, Ind., was only six weeks old when the train came through."
Trostel said the engineer who operated the train through western Ohio was James Gormley of Columbus, an Irish immigrant who had worked for the railroad since he was about 12 years old.
"They also had an undertaker and an embalmer on board, whose only job was to keep (Lincoln) looking good," he said. "When they started out ... they picked him and packed him in ice."
Since Lincoln was not embalmed, the train began making more frequent stops in smaller locales to allow six individuals on board at a time to lay "fragrant floral" wreaths on the casket to mask the smell of decomposition, Trostel said.
"The (funeral train) was actually done over Mary Todd Lincoln's objections," Trostel added. "They had no idea the crowds were going to turn out the way they did. Almost one-third of settled America's population at the time came trackside."
Train route
The train originally departed from Washington, D.C. on April 21, 1865. In addition to Lincoln's body and an honor guard, it carried 300 mourners to the site of his burial, along with the coffin of his son, Willie Lincoln. The younger Lincoln died in 1862 at age 11 and was disinterred to be reburied with his father in Springfield, Ill.
The train traveled up the eastern seaboard to Philadelphia and New York City, then back across New York and Pennsylvania to Cleveland and then Columbus, where it stopped at 7:30 a.m. on April 29, 1865. Lincoln's coffin was transported to the state capitol and Lincoln lay in-state in the rotunda about 12 hours while almost 50,000 people came to say goodbye to the man many considered a national hero.
The train departed Columbus at 8 p.m. and moved on through western Ohio, with several stops in places with names since swallowed by time on the now-abandoned railroad.
Pleasant Valley, now known as Plain City, was one of several pauses in Union County at 8:45 p.m., then it was on to Unionville and Milford Center before the train crossed into Champaign County and stopped at Woodstock.
Tiny northeast villages like Fountain Park, Brush Lake, Cable and Hagenbaugh greeted the train before it stopped in Urbana, and it continued through Rice, Westville, and St. Paris before moving on to Miami County, passing through Lena, Conover, Fletcher, Spring Creek and Jordan. When the funeral train arrived in Piqua around 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, April 30, a crowd of 10,000 was waiting.
Further along the route, the train passed through Indianapolis and Chicago before arriving in Springfield, Ill., on May 3, 1865. Lincoln's funeral service was held the next day and by the time of his burial, the nation had been in mourning for 20 days since his death on April 15, 1865. While most of the mourners gathered at the train stops to pay their last respects, thousands more lined the train tracks in rural areas as it passed through on its way to Lincoln's final destination.
Official state remembrance
The Ohio Historical Society is paying tribute this weekend with a ceremony in Columbus to commemorate "The Repose of President Lincoln" at the Ohio Statehouse.
On Saturday and Sunday, the Statehouse Education and Visitors Center will mark the occasion by placing a mourning wreath on the Lincoln and Vicksburg Monument. Admission is free from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Groups of 10 or more are asked to make reservations at (614) 752-6350. For more information call (614) 728-2695 or visit www.ohiohistory.org.
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