Moving Lincoln's Body

[RJNorton]

Hi Kevin. I just checked a book called Stealing Lincoln's Body by Thomas J. Craughwell. Regarding November 18, 1878, the author writes (from p. 158):

"Down in the basement on the east side of the tomb Power showed his recruits Lincoln’s coffin concealed behind a pile of old boards and still encased in the wooden crate the marble dealer Adam Johnston had built for it. Abraham Lincoln was exactly where Power, Stuart, and others had left him two years earlier. The new team of gravediggers decided to shift the crate to the north end of the basement, where the water table was not so high. They did not dig deep, just down far enough that the crate would rest a few inches below the surface of the dirt floor. The space was cramped, the air stifling; by the time the men lowered the box containing the coffin into the shallow grave, it was midnight and they were utterly exhausted. Power urged his helpers to go home: he would fill the hole the next day."