Did Robert Lincoln Ride the Funeral Train to Baltimore?

[RJNorton]

Kees, Twenty Days says Willie's coffin arrived first. The Kunhardts write, "Willie had been brought to the vault first and had been waiting." I scanned this LOC photo of the two coffins in the receiving vault. The scan came from p. 123 of Robert Reed's Lincoln's Funeral Train: The Epic Journey from Washington to Springfield.

[Eva Elisabeth]

(01-25-2015 02:43 PM)loetar44 Wrote:  Thanks Eva for your remark, but grave robbery, maybe it’s better to speak here of vault robbing was not an uncommon practise in the 19th century. Not in the first place to steal Lincoln’s or Willie’s corpse but to steal artifacts, personal effects or other objects. Body snatching (by "resurrectionists" or "resurrection-men”) was even common purpose, to sell the corpse for dissection or anatomy lectures in medical schools. Remember that the body of Ohio congressman John Scott Harrison, son of president William Henry Harrison, was snatched in 1878 and sold to the Ohio Medical College, where it was discovered by his son president Benjamin Harrison. I know that Lincoln’s vault was guarded, but not all the time and not for years. So, I think it is not unrealistic to think that “certain men” could steal something out of the vault and sell it, simply by unlocking the door with a false key or so, and locking it again after stealing some objects. Or they could break the lock. So, I thought that “locking alone” was not sufficient, that more protection was necessary, because it was Abraham Lincoln, who rested in the vault. Just a thought.

Kees, I agree protection was necessary. I'm afraid I think my concept of a seal needs further education. I know a seal as an official, rather symbolic decaration and sign that a place/an item is not accessible to anyone, and its intactness serves as proof, while a lock provides real protection against violence and robbery. E.g. the police seals crime sites like this:
   
Or water flow readers and electricity meter readers are sealed to prevent the houseowner from manipulating and cheating about his usage:
   
As I've always understood a seal is rather a symbol, an order, and not designed to physically resist forced action - unlike a lock?!?

[loetar44]

(01-25-2015 04:13 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  

(01-25-2015 02:43 PM)loetar44 Wrote:  Thanks Eva for your remark, but grave robbery, maybe it’s better to speak here of vault robbing was not an uncommon practise in the 19th century. Not in the first place to steal Lincoln’s or Willie’s corpse but to steal artifacts, personal effects or other objects. Body snatching (by "resurrectionists" or "resurrection-men”) was even common purpose, to sell the corpse for dissection or anatomy lectures in medical schools. Remember that the body of Ohio congressman John Scott Harrison, son of president William Henry Harrison, was snatched in 1878 and sold to the Ohio Medical College, where it was discovered by his son president Benjamin Harrison. I know that Lincoln’s vault was guarded, but not all the time and not for years. So, I think it is not unrealistic to think that “certain men” could steal something out of the vault and sell it, simply by unlocking the door with a false key or so, and locking it again after stealing some objects. Or they could break the lock. So, I thought that “locking alone” was not sufficient, that more protection was necessary, because it was Abraham Lincoln, who rested in the vault. Just a thought.

Kees, I agree protection was necessary. I'm afraid I think my concept of a seal needs further education. I know a seal as an official, rather symbolic decaration and sign that a place/an item is not accessible to anyone, and its intactness serves as proof, while a lock provides real protection against violence and robbery. E.g. the police seals crime sites like this:

Or water flow readers and electricity meter readers are sealed to prevent the houseowner from manipulating and cheating about his usage:

As I've always understood a seal is rather a symbol, an order, and not designed to physically resist forced action - unlike a lock?!?

I ment a security seal, a mechanism, in this case used to seal the vault in a way that provides tamper evidence and some level of security to detect e.g. theft. Think for example of metal seals, such as bolt seals, ball seals or cable seals.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Kees. I think I even don't know these devices in German...maybe males are just more familiar with such.

[HerbS]

Great research and idea Kees!

[RJNorton]

(01-25-2015 04:13 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Or water flow readers and electricity meter readers are sealed to prevent the houseowner from manipulating and cheating about his usage:

I received a brief note from James Pumphrey, and he says he knows a workaround for this...

[Eva Elisabeth]

Please ask him to come by when he gets around to it...

[RJNorton]

(01-26-2015 10:42 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Please ask him to come by when he gets around to it...

Will do, Eva. He's waiting for someone to pick up a horse, and then he'll come to work on your meters.

[Donna McCreary]

(01-12-2015 10:10 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  

(01-12-2015 10:34 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(01-11-2015 05:24 PM)loetar44 Wrote:  Accounts I've read vary, the history isn't easy to find, at least for me ..... On May 4, 1865, AL’s (and Willie’s) remains were placed in the receiving tomb at Oak Ridge. But where was Robert Todd Lincoln at this very moment? Had he rode in the procession, accompanied by a cousin (John Hanks ?). I remember that I once read this story, and I also read that he and some of the closest friends and advisers (who ?) of AL flanked the doors (of the vault) during the placement of the coffins in the vault. The problem is that I can’t recall where and when I read this. Additional question: where was Tad? Was he with RTL or with his mother in the White House?

Kees, I found some information in Jason Emerson's bio. He writes that RTL rode in the procession accompanied by Elizabeth Grimsley. At the cemetery the obsequies took approximately an hour, and then the receiving vault was locked. The key was given to RTL who then gave it to John Stuart for safekeeping. Jason also writes that after the funeral a Springfield resident went to Stuart's home where she found RTL so despondent that her "heart ached for him." Robert stayed in Springfield for the next three days and then returned to Washington.

Thanks Roger, that's very sad. Poor Robert! Wasn't John Todd Stuart a cousin of Mary's? I wonder why RTL gave him the vault keys instead of keeping them himself? Also in the book "Lincoln's Boys" that was released last year, it said that John Nicolay went into a deep depression after the funeral and remained in Springfield with RTL a few days.

John Todd Stuart would have been the keys because he was a male-blood relative to Mary. Robert first returned to Washington, and then resided in Chicago. As a member of the Lincoln Monument Association and a family member, he was the most logical person to hold the keys. When Mary came to the cemetery, it was JTS who took her and comforted her during her visit.

[loetar44]

Charles R. Page, of the New York Daily Tribune reported May 4, 1865:

"Up to this morning it had not been finally determined whether the remains would be deposited at Oak Ridge Cemetery or in a vault hastily built on the “Mother [Mather] Place,”..... Preparations were made at each place, but this morning, ON THE ARRIVAL OF CAPTAIN ROBERT LINCOLN AND JOHN G. NICOLAY, late private Secretary, from Washington, the question was decided in favor of Oak Ridge, ...."

[loetar44]

Who knows on which wall in the Lincoln Tomb exactly is this stone (RTL's cenotaph) ?

   

[RJNorton]

Hi Kees. I do not know, but I found that the gentleman who writes this site mentioned the RTL cenotaph.

[LincolnToddFan]

It always saddens me that RTL and his only son are at Arlington Cemetery in virtual anonymity, separated for all eternity from the Lincolns. It is definitely not what RTL envisioned or wanted.

Shame on Mary Harlan.

[Eva Elisabeth]

(05-02-2015 01:13 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  It always saddens me that RTL and his only son are at Arlington Cemetery in virtual anonymity, separated for all eternity from the Lincolns. It is definitely not what RTL envisioned or wanted.

Shame on Mary Harlan.

Toia, I used to think and feel the same. But upon reconsideration, my understanding is that Mary Harlan probably didn't like Mary Lincoln very much. From M. H.'s point of view I can understand the decision - I would like to be buried with my husband and child, but would you like to rest for all eternity next to a person you don't like? Quite many people I suppose wouldn't like to be buried with their mother-in-law.

Robert had left the Lincoln Home at quite young age to make his own way, he was not parental-home-bound. I know in 1922, Robert wrote to a friend about Oak Ridge that "...it is arranged that my wife and myself shall be entombed there", but maybe Mary Harlan hadn't dared to utter her objections to Robert, and Robert just made the decision for "practical" reasons, without much considereation regarding alternatives?

I think Mary and Robert loved each other and took marriage serious, so the most important is they are together. Jack died non-adolescent before he could make his own way, so he still belonged to the core family and it was right to bury him with his parents.
Had Jack had a family of his own, he also might not have been buried with either of the former generations (nor was Abraham Lincoln buried next to his beloved mother).
And Mary Harlan had her own quite prestigious family and didn't insist in being buried with them either, so maybe a neutral place is fair in the end.

[HerbS]

Eva,I agree 100% with you! I also know that the death of a loved one is very difficult to deal with.So,perhaps RTL had his own deamons in his own life that formed his actions.