This column first appeared in November 2008. It was one of the first columns from Alan Hunter. After his busy Halloween Ghost Tours, he’s taking a well-earned rest.
Since the inception of the Irvington Historical Ghost tours six years ago, I’m often asked what it was that sparked my interest in historical ghost stories and folklore. I always reply that it was one story in particular that sparked an interest in me that remains in my life to this day. It was a story told to me by my great grandfather, a lifetime railroad man. When I was a child of about six I recall him telling me about how he saw the infamous “Lincoln Ghost Train.”
Everyone knows the story of how our sixteenth President, Abraham Lincoln, was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. in April of 1865. However, not many know the details of the sad, somber train that carried the martyred President’s body back to his home in Springfield, Illinois over two weeks after his death — a route that would travel straight through Indiana and it’s capitol city, Indianapolis. The Lincoln funeral train arrived at the Indiana state line around midnight on April 30, 1865. After stopping in Richmond for nearly 2 hours, it slowly made it’s way west towards Indianapolis. It traveled through Greenfield at around 4 a.m. and came through Irvington sometime around 5 a.m., arriving in Indianapolis in the rain at daybreak.
In mid-April of 1865, it was hard to find a person north of the Mason-Dixon line that didn’t love Abraham Lincoln. So accessible was Lincoln that any one of us, had we been around in April of 1865, could have walked right up to and in through the doors of the White House to meet the President himself. No appointment, no announcement, no reservations required. If you were willing to sit outside of Lincoln’s White House office and wait, Honest Abe would eventually see you. It was this personal familiarization in the days before the Secret Service that made Lincoln so beloved by his constituents. It was also what would get him killed; shot by an actor at Ford’s Theatre while the ink from General Robert E. Lee’s signature was barely dry on the surrender papers signed just a few days before. These same citizens soon realized that now the only way to see Lincoln was to watch as his body moved silently past by rail through Indy’s east side.
Distraught Americans roused their elderly relatives from their beds and took their babies out of the cribs so that they too might witness this sad spectacle. Wounded soldiers left their hospital beds and lined the tracks to salute their fallen leader, many while standing on their only remaining leg or saluting with their last workable arm. So many citizens lined the tracks along the 1,400 mile route west in fact, that it’s been estimated that the train rarely traveled faster than 10 miles per hour for it’s entire journey. It’s that energy and emotion expended by the witnesses to this sad procession that historians claim as the cause for the Lincoln train’s appearance every April since Lincoln’s death.
The Lincoln Ghost train has appeared to witnesses from every strata of life, retracing it’s original route from Washington D.C. to Springfield, Illinois 143 years after it first appeared in April of 1865. The train ran a route through Indiana that paralleled the old National Road just south of present day Highway 40, now known to most of us as Washington Street — oftentimes running a course through homes and buildings where the tracks have long since been removed. The train appears today much the same as it did in 1865, draped in black with a large picture of the poor martyred President above the cowcatcher on front dimly lit by oil lamps both inside and out. The train is nine cars long with the body of the dead President resting atop a raised platform in the second to last rail car. The main difference is that every person aboard the train, from the uniformed soldier escorts to the passengers and crew, all appear as skeletons. Bleached white boney skeletons with their deep black eye sockets staring blankly and mouths posed permanently in a huge frozen grin.
Hearing this story not only spooked me as a child, it has become the genesis for my lifelong love of history, folklore and ghost stories. As a former history teacher, I learned early that the best way to grab the attention of my students was to add the occasional ghost story to the dry text book style history we learned in class. I’ve also turned the ghostly history of my native state into an opportunity to help the communities of Central Indiana as well. As co-founder of a group called the H.I.T. team (Haunted / Historic Investigations and Tours) we have developed and led historical ghost tours in Indiana communities located along the old National Road including Irvington, Cambridge City, and Greenfield. The tours are a non-profit venture, so the money goes back into the communities we tour. Our feeling is that if ghost stories bring our fellow Hoosiers closer to the history of our great state, then so be it. Not to mention that it’s an excellent way to explore these communities on crisp Hoosier fall evenings.
Most Hoosiers don’t realize what a rich tapestry of history and folklore our state is. In fact, most don’t realize that Irvington is arguably the most haunted location in the entire state, hidden in the folds of Indianapolis’ eastside just waiting to be discovered. History abounds in Irvington; its streets have been walked by many whose names should be familiar to all Hoosiers, ranging from several U.S. Presidents to famed artists, writers and social reformers. Irvington features stories and hauntings connected to John Dillinger, Butler College, Raggedy Ann, as well as America’s 1st serial killer, Dr. H.H. Holmes. I hope to bring you stories associated with many of these personages in these pages over the next several issues.
Irvington’s neighbor, Greenfield features little known stories about the ghost of Billy Kemmer, the victim of a tragic lynching, who now roams the stylish walking/jogging path in Greenfield known as the Pennsy Trail with bulging eyes and the remnant of the noose that took his life strung around his neck like some gruesome necktie. Ghostly wolves that haunt Riley Park, the demented spirit of the Hancock County Sheriff who haunts the old log jail, multiple murders on the courthouse lawn, as well as a jailbreak by America’s Public Enemy # 1 and his gang in 1936 put Greenfield in the national limelight during the depths of the Depression. Not to mention the ghost of Greenfield Poet James Whitcomb Riley, whose statue on the courthouse lawn reportedly comes alive and dances around its base on quiet autumn nights according to some witnesses. All of these stories and much more are just waiting to be discovered and I hope to share them with you in the coming months.
Whether you believe in these ghost stories or you are a skeptic with an interest in these tales for entertainment value only, I highly recommend that you visit your local library, town historical society, or better yet take a walking tour and discover the underground history of your neighborhood. It won’t take long before you get hooked on what you discover. It is intoxicating to the imagination to discover that a famous American, who was before familiar only as a name in a history book, walked through this door or stood in that spot here in our humble state of Indiana.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
