Starke County to Celebrate Lincoln Funeral Train Anniversary

Abraham LincolnThe western Starke County community of San Pierre will be the focus of area attention the afternoon of  Saturday, May 2nd. Starke County’s Historical Society has planned a program to commemorate the travel of President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train through the area on May 1, 1865.

Local historians recorded that the train, traveling from Washington, D.C., where Lincoln died from an assassin’s bullet, on April 15, 1865,  to his final resting place in Springfield, Ill., made a stop in San Pierre at 6:25 a.m. that morning.

The program at San Pierre is set for Saturday, May 2nd at 2 p.m. The event will be held on the grounds of the former Little Company of Mary Hospital, just south of San Pierre on U.S. 421. A group of students from Culver Military Academy,  dressed as Union soldiers, will perform as will a Pipes & Drums group. North Judson-San Pierre High School senior Jacob Dessauer will recite the Gettysburg Address.

The National Geographic, in its April 2015 issue, featured a story on the 150th anniversary of the 16th President’s assassination, telling how Americans along the route of the funeral train reflect on Lincoln’s life and his legacy.