A group of Irvington residents gathered on April 30, 2015 at 6:30 a.m. at the corner of S. Audubon Rd. and Bonna Ave. to mark the 150th anniversary of the passage of President Abraham Lincoln’s Funeral Train through Warren Township and the area that would become Irvington. The Irvington Historical Society provided a brief memorial service which included an account of the train’s passage. The nine car funeral train arrived at Richmond, Indiana at 2:00 a.m. over the Columbus & Indianapolis Central Railway. An arch alit with red, white, and blue lamps spanned the tracks; church bells tolled; a brass band played a mournful dirge as 5,000 mourners “reverently uncovered their heads.” Governor Oliver P. Morton and a delegation of State officials, legislators, and prominent citizens boarded the train to escort it to Indianapolis. Proceeded by a pilot engine, the funeral train slowly began its journey to the Hoosier capital at 3:00 a. m. It passed through villages and towns — Centerville; Cambridge City; Dublin; Lewisville; Knightstown – with depots draped in black; choirs chanting hymns; men, women, and children holding solemn vigil; large bonfires turning the darkness into day. The train bearing the Great Emancipator’s coffin “passed through a file of free men” at Charlottesville as it made its way to Greenfield and beyond. At 6:30 a.m. the solemn procession entered Marion County at Cumberland, and a few minutes later alerted by the passing of the lead engine the Shanks and Shimers, along with the Ellenbergers, Parkers and other farming families in what would become Irvington who had gathered on that rainy spring morning strained their eyes and peered down the track to the east to get the first glimpse of the funeral train and then stood in solemn tribute to the Martyred President — the Savior of the Union — as it passed. The ceremony also included a recitation of “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman and The 23rd Psalm.
