Help Support History

On the night of April 25, 1865, ten days after the death of Abraham Lincoln by the hand of an assassin, the train bearing the President's body from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Illinois, stopped briefly in Hudson. What happened that night was recorded in the journal of Assistant Adjutant General Edward D. Townsend, the commander of the funeral train:

At Hudson . . . elaborate preparations had been made. Beneath an arch hung with black and white drapery and evergreen wreaths, was a tableau representing a coffin resting upon a dais; a female figure in white, mourning over the coffin; a soldier standing at one end and a sailor at the other. While a band of young women dressed in white sang a dirge, two others in black entered the funeral-car, placed a floral device on the President's coffin, then knelt for a moment of silence, and quietly withdrew. The whole scene was one of the most weird ever witnessed, its solemnity being intensified by the somber light of the torches at that dead hour of night.

A hundred and fifty years later, elaborate preparations are being made to re-create this scene, at the very place and hour it happened, on April 25, 2015. Some very able and accomplished people--Mary Deyerle Hack of Diamond Opera Theater, Stephanie Monseu of Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, Jamison Teale, Windle Davis, Melissa Auf der Maur of Basilica Hudson--and a cast of more than sixty are donating their time and talent to reproduce this moment in history, but monetary contributions are needed to acquire the materials to costume the "band of young women," construct the tableau, and create the torchlight. 

A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to raise the needed funds: Help Re-Create History. Historic Hudson is the not-for-profit sponsor of the event, so all contributions are tax deductible. Checks can also be mailed to Historic Hudson at 611 Warren Street, Hudson, NY 12534. Please note on the check that the donation is for the Lincoln Funeral Train event.
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