#Lincoln Funeral Train

[mourningcrypt]

Funeral Friday: President Lincoln’s funeral process 

When the 16th President of the United States passed away on April 15, 1865 after an assassination the country went into mourning. His funeral, procession and burial was a three week long event, with his coffin being seen by millions of Americans.

Firstly, Lincoln was embalmed, which in doing so made him the first public figure to be embalmed as it was a newer concept mainly used on the soldiers during the civil war. After this, his casket was lying in state in D.C on April 18th and 19th, in the east room of the Whitehouse where hundreds flocked to say their goodbyes. His wife, First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln was too grief stricken to attend the services. Next, The casket was taken to the Capitol Rotunda on the 20th for a prayer service for his cabinet men. 

After, on April 21 at seven in the morning, the casket would arrive at the train station for Lincoln’s “Funeral Train” from Washington to Illinois, passing through 7 states along the way, with its final stop at the cemetery where he would be laid to rest. This was the first funeral procession of its kind, with millions being able to pay respects and mourn as the casket passed. This was a multi car train that held multiple guests- friends, family and officials. The train ride took from April 21st to May 4th.

The first stop was in Baltimore, Maryland on April 21st at the Merchant’s Exchange Building- where 10,000 people showed to pay their respects. The viewing was from noon to 2pm, and all businesses would be closed for those two hours giving everyone an opportunity to say their goodbyes. The train would depart at 3pm and make way to the next city, arriving at 8:30pm

In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania at the State Capitol there was actually two viewings, one on the 21st until midnight, the next day on the 22nd from 7am until 9am. Here a total of 40,000 people would bear the rain for a viewing.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the next stop, arriving on the 22nd at 4:50pm. The viewing would be in Independence Hall, and inside the same room the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. 300,00 would show up for this, waiting several hours though some would not even make it inside the building to see the casket. And, for this part, there was also a private viewing on top of the public viewing. the private viewing took place at 10 pm on the 23rd til 1pm on the 24th, and then the public was at 6am on the 23rd until 1:17am on the 24th.

Onto New York City, where the train arrived on April 24th- then the casket made way to the City hall, with the viewing from 1pm on the 24th until 11:40am on the 25th. A total of 1,000,000 would attend this viewing- and a then 6 year old Theodore Roosevelt watched from the window of his grandfathers house as the procession passed by on its way to the hall.

Arriving next in Albany, New York on the 25th at 10:55pm, the viewing was at the Old Capitol where a total of 60,000 viewed the casket from 1:15am to 2 pm. About 4,000 people would come every hour during the viewing.

Next was Buffalo, New York. Here the viewing was from 10:30 am to 8pm at St. James Hall. A grand total of 100,000 would attend. The train would then depart at 10pm to the next station and city.

Cleveland Ohio would be the next stop for the funeral train, arriving at Euclid Street train station on April 28th at around 7am. Then, the casket would be placed at Public Square in an outdoor pavilion for viewing from 10:30am to 10pm with an overall turnout of 150,000 coming to pay respects. 

Moving onto Columbus, Ohio an April 29th- here a total of 100,00 would flock to the Statehouse for the viewing which took place from 9:30am to 6pm. Many would travel from the different countrysides around Ohio, as well as Kentucky. 

The following day on April 30 in Indianapolis, Indiana- even rain couldn’t keep away the roughly 100,000 that would show up for the viewing at the state’s Capitol building. This was a bit sentimental for Lincoln history, as it’s where he spent a lot of his childhood.

Chicago, Illinois was the next stop, where 125,00 attendees viewed the remains at the Old Chicago Courthouse. This viewing began on May 1st at 5pm, and ended on may 2nd at 8pm. After the viewing, a procession by torchlight led Lincoln back to the train, where it went on to its final stop.

Arriving at 9am on May 3rd in Springfield, Illinois- here only 75,000 where there to view the former president at the Representative Hall at the states capitol. This was considered Lincoln’s hometown, so many mourners in attendance where former neighbors, colleagues and others that have knew him a bit more personally.

When it came time for burial, Lincoln was entombed in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois on May 4 1865. Over time, his remains would be moved 17 times between 1865-1901 and his coffin would be open 5 times. In 1876 there was even an attempted theft of the casket, though the plan was not fulfilled.

Sources: Lincoln's Funeral, Abraham Lincoln's Funeral Train, Funeral Train Route, Abraham Lincoln Funeral, The Lincoln Funeral Train

[usedcarheaven]

thank you..

Declutter Tumblr

The new layout it a whole mess. Thankfully Xkit can already help with a bunch of this! I'm sure it'll give more options soon.

Vanilla Tumblr: (I have marked in red what can be removed. The tabs can be set not to stick, so you will really only see them at the top of your dash. Empty box on the left for hidden notifications and shop sparkle, i just didn't have any. I'm EU so no Live for me).

Xkit Rewritten Tumblr:

The settings I use:

[dean-boese-universe]

So this episode is the first of our 2024 Spooky Season and we begin with a few haunting tales of phantom trains.  We begin in Washington DC for a story about Lincoln's Funeral train and how it would reappear at night years afterwards chugging it's way down the tracks attended by skeletons and sepulcheral figures.  Then we go to Maco Station in North Carolina to meet a signalman killed during a crash whose signal light would appear again and again forcing the company to put a signalman with two lanterns at Maco Station to stop trains from stopping for the phantom signalman.  Then we go back to North Carolina and examine the Bostian Bridge train wreck, and it's phantom that still appears crossing the old bridge.  Finally we go to Frenchtown Road in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and see a ghost train that is still seen to this day.  Arthur talks Detroit: Become Human in her corner and packed full of the usual banter and insanity.  Enjoy!

[uniqueartisanconnoisseur]

History in my Backyard -Springfield, IL

Illinois’ capital city is full of reasons to visit. There are the Route 66 stops, plus all the government draws, but for me, the biggest pull in this Land of Lincoln is the history! While I have lived outside the city all of my adult life, I have learned I have not done, and seen it all! Hosted by Visit Springfield the last weekend in June, my husband Keith and I enjoyed a visit downtown and…

[strathshepard]

Paul Fusco: RFK Funeral Train, 2001 (Magnum Photos)

In tribute to Robert F. Kennedy’s raw empathy, his determination to make our lives better, and his insistence that the government is answerable to all – black and white, rich and poor – hundreds of thousands of people stood patiently in the searing heat on June 8th, 1968 to watch his funeral train travel slowly from New York to Washington, D.C., just as Abraham Lincoln’s had, 103 years before. Paul Fusco photographed the silent, mourning crowds from the passing train. The result, brought to light over thirty-years later, is a moving snapshot of America at a crucial moment of trauma and transition.

An essay by Norman Mailer, as well as a retelling of the events surrounding the funeral of RFK by prizewinning Newsweek editor Evan Thomas, join the tribute given by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, capturing how this man and his vision of America touched us with steadfast idealism and humanity.

[livesinyesterday]

Mass Dumping my Manhunt (2024) thinky thoughts thus far here...

...cuz they have nowhere else to go lol

Let me start off by saying none of this is intended as hate on the show. Manhunt is the first series I've actively enjoyed in a long time, my friend and I gleefully look forward to our Friday Manhunt watch dates and are very sad to know that will soon end. But, that said, as a Lincoln / Lincoln's Cabinet / Civil War nerd I do have frustrations with the show. My primary frustration is the way the show has chosen to allocate time and attention to certain people and events rather than others. My biggest complaint is the entirety of the Wall Street / Knights of the Golden Circle plot. Certainly the KGC were a real organization, they were a significant concern around the time of Lincoln's re-election, and it is also true that Wall Street speculators made money on post-war economic upheaval. At first I appreciated that the show was acknowledging those elements, you don't tend to see them in Civil War film and tv, but then when the show diverted so much time and attention into this Da Vinci Code style plot with a, quite frankly, ridiculous mustache-twirling villain and tried to shoehorn in a whole codebreaking thing I felt so frustrated. Because you already have good villains with Booth, the conspirators, and Johnson, and the things the show left out to make time for this mostly unfounded historical speculation are so much more interesting. We essentially got nothing with the other conspirators. We didn't even get to see Grant who was another intended assassination victim and who rushed back to DC once he received word of the attack on the president. We miss so many of the interesting moments of Booth and Herold's flight into the South like when they have to navigate the river in the dark of night and nearly drift into a federal gunboat.

They also could have followed Lincoln's funeral train, there are so many moments that would have been beautiful to depict, like when a very young Teddy Roosevelt looked out his New York City window to see the funeral procession go by.

We also could have so much more to establish the history of Stanton and Lincoln's relationship. Lincoln and Stanton did not start off on good footing, in fact Stanton brutally humiliated Lincoln when they were both younger lawyers and when Lincoln brought Stanton in to replace his first Secretary of War, Stanton was still convinced Lincoln was crippled by imbecility. To show some of that would have really made their relationship as two men burdened with the weight of this horrible war all the more poignant in the series. Would have shown the depth of their respect and trust for each other and how that was earned. Also I would have loved to see Stanton and Seward's relationship, I would have loved to see some of that friendship. After Seward was nearly killed in a carriage accident (which is why he's wearing the neck brace that saved his life the night of the assassination), Stanton would go to Seward's bedside, bring him news, hold his hand and wipe his lips for him. An attendant remarked that Stanton's kind care for him brought Seward to tears. All of this Tobias Menzies would have played brilliantly and we'd have more of the nuance of Stanton the man. We did not need a fictional scene in which Stanton challenged a man to shoot him in his office. Also we could have had so many more scenes of Lincoln and Stanton which would have been amazing because that relationship is meant to be the emotional heart of the show and I would have loved to see Linklater get to play more of Lincoln at different points throughout the years of his presidency. Some other smaller frustrations are more in the writing and casting choices. I respect Hamish Linklater's performance as Lincoln. I was unsure at first (also I've been burned by a lot of really bad Lincolns) but I feel like it really gets stronger and stronger each episode and he found his stride. He was the best part of episode 4 in my opinion (ep 5 had no Lincoln, like why would they do that to us?) But I feel like some of the choices of the production hurt his performance a bit. The makeup team does not do a good job making Hamish look like a weary, aged, post-war Lincoln, he looks too young and healthy and the actor they chose to play Robert pretty much looks older than his dad, if not the same age. Those things are not Linklater's fault. I also feel like Stanton's wife got shortchanged. They really didn't give her anything to do other than be the nag, to be the wife who doesn't understand why her husband can't step down when he's essentially navigating one of the most important moment's in the nation's history. I feel like Ellen deserved better. Again, don't misunderstand any of this as hate, it is absolutely not intended as hate. It's just so rare we get a well made piece of Civil War media that I would have loved to see them take on these things. To trust that the actual historical material was interesting enough. When the show is good it is SO good, so I just know they could have portrayed those things so well and I'm sad we won't get to see it. Also P.S. WHERE IS THE BEARD???? I will never understand this choice to not have the beard.

[thefandom-casserole]

Episode 48 Notes-

THE BEETLES MY BELOVED <3333333333333333333

This makes me so happy

I’m in science listening to this

The shade witch my beloved 

TeenFact: Taylor has once constructed for himself a bow and arrow. So he used a red wood tree instead (which was illegal) and then it snapped immediately. He’s an ecoterrorist (JUST LIKE THE REAL ONE). He found the oldest tree in the world

The kattttttt

“You can’t just throw things and just expect the cat to find it!!” 

TeenFact: Lincoln added laxatives to the other kids that joined the homeschooling group with Marco.

TeenFact: Normal has no recollection of his small arms training he apparently learned at daddies hq. BUT he’s always had a very very good trigger discipline

Basically he should just come live near me I genuinely don’t think I know a single person who hasn’t shot a gun

THEY CHEERED FKR SCARYYYYY INSTEAD OF GASPED AHHHH

TeenFact: Hermie’s funeral was the first funeral she’s ever been to, unless you count some AI robots funeral thing

If Beth writes a scifi novela I will absolutely read it and I hate almost every scifi

Anthony Fact: if you live in Canada he was in a charity show called the takeback 

Fuckable Henry Oak Garcia

I fucking love how many things are now ranger things now he’s a rouge

Mae Hailes mention!!!!!!

Ewwwwwwwwwwww this is such a good description holy shit

I fucking hate time shenanigans 

SPARROW’S DOING CODE PURPLE HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT ITS SPARROW 

The whale 😭 

LEGO LINC :D !!!!!!!

Nat one noooooooooo Beth!!!!!!!!

He can’t play soccer without knees :ccccc

Nat twenty yayyyyyyyy Beth!!!!!!

SCARY HOLY SHIT THAT WOILD BE SO GOOD FOR YOUUUU

A notnat one noooooooo Will!!!!!!

:cccc poor Normal the ring 😭 

The bracelet reminds me of the bracelets on the dragon (I can’t think of his name 😭)

He’s mid. I love that

Stepping on Legos really does suck 😭 

PUMP UP THE JAM

Sparrow is such a liarrrrrr omg

NO JEZZ BALL 😭 

IVE BEEN PLAYING JEZZ BALL SO MUCH LATELY

I fucking love jezz ball

TAYLORS FUCKING EX IM DYING HOLY SHIT

The body pillow 💀 

Sparrow omg

TEL THAT TO WALTER

I SCREAMED I GENUKNELY SCREAMED AHAHJAJAJSJAJAJSJSKSJDNSKJAHAJSNS

HES THE REASON ALL OF THIS HAPPENED

(If we don’t go meta and blame Matt)

WALTER THEY FUCKING DOOMED WALTER BECAUSE OF A GRUDGE THAT WAS ABOUT PROTECTINV HIM

“I love you son but I will never forgive you for this”

“I know you did the best that you could but you needed to be much better”

Sobbing

Dang the guilt given to normal from this mannnnnn

Poor dood omg

LINC IS STILL A LEGO GUY I LOVE THIS

The disassociation from Linc is so sad

I love him so much

Scary in this episode is immaculate. Beth May my beloved

NORMAL NOOOOOO DONT LEAVE HIS FRIENDSSSS

“that’s all my family ever does”

Sobbing

“WE’RE ALL JUST KIDS!”

Scary this is amazing

Scary you better fucking listen to your own advice

This reminds me of a rp I did a while ago with Scary and Taylor hmmmm

“Two world for me. And he doesn’t even like me”

Normal is so fucking Adaine coded it’s insane

The firefighters!!! I forgot about them

“And that’s why I don’t even like myself that much”

Normallll

“That sounds like a him problem”

“I didn’t grow up into someone he can be proud of”

Some banger lines today

“Norm we’re proud of you”

“You’re the glue norm” !!!!!!!!!

“Your dad still hasn’t grown up into someone you should be proud of”

Damnnnn Linc that’s good

“At least you feel things”

LINC ARE UOU GOING DOWN GRANTS OATH NO NO NO 

Scary is so Fig Faeth coded I adore herrrrrrrrrrrr

I love how protective they are of Norm ahhhhh

The love wolf is bad at talking about feeling :c

HOLY SHOT

HOLY SHIT

HOLY SHIT

THE MUSIC

CHANGED

AHHHH

IM SO SCATED

WILLY

WILLY

THE COLAR 

ON DOOD

SHIT

OMG

OMG

This music is banger though

Wow Willy’s dc is low

GET HIS ASS LINC

69 nice

Cause why not

I fucking love Taylor and Freddie

Where was sparrow this whole time!!????? Shitttttttt

“Normal thanks, this was all you”

FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

Vibing to the music

HELLO ESTER THIS IS NEW

Huhhhh that does make sense about the elevators

That was certainly an episode 

Surprisingly didn’t make me sad 🤷 

[talenlee]

Do you have any hot takes about people who are dead?

George Lincoln Rockwell, the racist who invented holocaust denial and the term 'white power', was killed by a white guy who he told wasn't white enough to join his racist club and then his coffin on the parade to his funeral surrounded by shitty nazis got crashed into by a train which I think is the funniest example of non-micro trains activism

[morvantmortuary]

me: why am I single though

also me: [spending my precious downtime away from my dissertation about national anxieties watching an hour long youtube video about the lincoln funeral train tour and the burials of the rest of his family while I kick my feet and outline more stories about my fictional serial killer family]

[mmoxie]

Part 9- History Lesson

News was starting to spread about the sudden disappearance of Sean Gracie, the young mayor of Eureka, NV and producer of the popular Mayor Sean YouTube channel, where he cultivated an audience of politically active conservative men between the ages of 18 and 34.

Craig was keeping Dani apprised of these developments on their weekly visits, but the other six days when she retired to her motel room, she was much happier to put on an Ancient Aliens marathon or professional wrestling.

Work was fine, but Fourth-In-Charge Redd Lake was starting to make more advances on Gina Lincoln. He wasn't bad looking or anything, but he was aggressive in a pitiful way, flexing rank and saying things like, "I think you owe me," as he tried to leverage Dani into dinner-dates and venues outside of Fish Camp.

The thought of reducing him to ash had crossed her mind, but she was supposed to be better than that. She had completely let herself come unglued from the world and its consequences when she immolated Mayor Sean- and according to Craig, the only way to duck those consequences was to go to Peru.

After a while, it dawned on her what she actually had to do. She was up late in her room, sitting on the edge of the bed with a pint of moose tracks and watching Star Trek. Profit and Lace, the episode where Quark has himself a couple sex changes.

Man, people hated this one, she thought, twirling her spoon around in the carton, pushing around the few bits of chocolate she saved for last. I dunno, Quark looks kinda good like that. The writing was disastrous, but the costuming was spectacular. Dani wasn't the turn-your-brain-off style of watcher, but she tended to find something to love about the worst of it, like getting excited over seeing a pug, despite it being a complete ruin of a dog.

Drink Slug-o-Cola, the slimiest cola in the galaxy!

Stupid show. Unforgivably boneheaded writing. Total ass.

She loved it.

And that's when it clicked. She found all this affection in her heart for anything that made her laugh, anything that gave her brain- her complete nightmare of a brain, which fired its neurons wherever the hell it wanted, whenever the hell it pleased- another handhold. Actor names, cameos, slogans- wasn't Andy Dick in Voyager? Must've been around the same time he was in Just Shoot Me. No, wait, that was David Spade. God, I should watch Joe Dirt again- her train of thought snaked through mountains of bullshit to get from any Point A to any Point B.

But by god, it had gotten there. She couldn't un-kill Mark LaGrange, and she'd have to reckon with that. Hell, she wanted to reckon that. The thought had occurred to her of attending his funeral, if ever he had one. No telling if they were still searching, but she'd find out.

No, what she had to do was fall in love with this dangerous new ability, and to do that, she had to make herself laugh with it. It couldn't just be "you ignite when you're suicidal" if it was ever going to be anything other than a means of lashing out in deeply sick circumstances.

Still, she was suicidal from time to time. Mayor Sean being in the news didn't help with the urge to disappear. But she had a feeling that if Craig heard this idea, the old cokehead might get a kick out of it.

She slept, eventually, worked, eventually, and returned to the houseboat on Sunday for her weekly check-in with Seebs.

"I'm glad you've been introspecting, Dani. I've got pamphlets for some retreats you're gonna enjoy. But, uh- tell me again, how I'm supposed to help with this?"

Dani leaned back on Craig's sofa and held Seebs in her hands. The old man was slow and saggy as ever, but excited to see her as always, in his own way. She listened to him purr for a a little while before replying.

"You remember the field test, on firetower road? You said something about not being comfortable triggering... the kind of emotion that would lead to me blowing up."

"I'm still not comfortable with it."

"That makes two of us. But it got me to thinking- I've got perfect recall, but only for garbage. Go ahead, ask me anything about a show from the past forty or so years."

Craig shook his head and opened a bottle of Inca Cola. "Alright, I'm game. We all know Peter Falk played Columbo, but -snif- what about... Missus Columbo?"

"His wife or the spin-off show?"

"You tell me."

"Well, she never had an actress in the Falk show. But Kate Mulgrew played Mrs. Columbo. She was gorgeous in that role, and all those years before she'd pick up in Voyager. Imagine getting your face out there with a show that bad, and then turning around and being the best c-"

"Jesus, Dani."

"See, man? When I like something, it's always like this. I can't just be all, 'Hey, I liked the new Hulk movie," it's always, 'I wish Lou Ferrigno and Arnold Schwarzenegger did more together. They were both in Pumping Iron, can you imagine if they were in this? Arnie could be Juggernaut and they'd just be hucking buildings at each other-"

"I get it, you have brain damage. How does this circle back to the fourth-dimensional pit of repressed anger we're working on?"

"Well, this sense of recall I've got. I know it's a stretch, but if I have this good of a grip on bullshit, maybe there's a way to extend that grip to... all the bad stuff."

"What, you want to watch -snif- Dan Akroyd reenact you vaporizing Sean Gracie?"

Ugh, don't remind me.

"No, man. I just think if I could like myself the way I like all this junk, I might be able to reach into that pit and grab what I want."

"All the more reason to go to Peru! Great place to clear your head. Clean mountain air, friendly wildlife, affordable living..."

"Craig, you called yourself a cocaine engineer recently. Now, I don't know your life, but it sounds to me like you didn't always make the most responsible choices."

"Now Dani, I'm not sure we ought to dig into that..."

Dani chuckled and relaxed her grip on Seebs. He curled up on her legs and was back asleep in seconds.

"I mean, it can't have been that bad, right? I don't think I've ever heard of such a thing. Sounds like a bunch of nerds getting high."

Craig adjusted his glasses and huffed, that big white mustache twitching. "I know what you're doing."

"Then skip ahead to the part where I win so we don't hafta fight about it. Begin at the end and work your way back, isn't that how you said your process usually goes?"

Craig sat in his boxy old easy chair, sinking into the orange-and-brown plaid. After some digging in the side pocket, he found the remote and turned on The Weather Channel. They were running the ball lightning story again.

"God, are you ever Jolene's kid. You know she used to play peaknuckle whenever she wanted to prove a point."

"Pinochle, like the card game?"

"No, the one where you lace your fingers together and then thump each others' knuckles until someone wants out."

Dani rolled her eyes, and they sat idle for a moment, watching the weather radar. The chyron across the bottom simply asked- MAYOR SEAN, BALL LIGHTNING VICTIM?

"Look, we would ride the rails back in the '70s, yeah. But we did it so we could talk to computers. That was how we partied, eheh. We got tore up and hooked a Xerox Alto into a ham radio aerial, then coded ourselves up a cosmic bluebox and started cold-calling anyone in the galaxy who was out there listening."

There was a nostalgic glint in the grayish eyes behind those thick, grandfatherly bifocals. He only sniffed at the end, and even then, regarded Dani with a toothy grin.

Oh, those are weirdly perfect. Probably false. My man looks like Teddy Roosevelt with those choppers.

"Alright," she finally replied. Her tone was even and patient. Moreso than she could usually muster, certainly. "And was anyone out there?"

"Ohoho, yes. Yes, yes, yes. I never met him, but Andi did. Sat in his chair, too. I never had that sort of impulse. Takes a real uninhibited flower child type."

"And that's... Andi?"

"Andromeda Rainflower, god bless her. Never did find out her birth name, but I suppose that's none of my business. She and the rest of The SLAPP would get zooted on mushrooms and go out-of-body, seeing what they could see."

"Do you know anyone who isn't doing hard drugs?"

"I mean, none of us are doing them now. At least not regularly. Most of us eased off, some of us died, and- hell, the real loss in our little community came when 'ludes got the axe in '85. All of a sudden none of the Dreamboats could get their fix, and they just... disappeared. They didn't have anything like beaver math or spiritual astronomy to fall back on, so anything they knew, we lost."

"Any more weird little team names?"

"Come on, you're into this. We used to get away with a hell of a lot. --But no, far as I know, it was just the three of us. And we only touched base and started working because of the craziest kind of coincidence."

Dani raised her eyebrows and took a drink. If Craig was going to talk, there was no sense stopping him.

"We- Milton, who you've met- and a man named Reese Castle, and myself- were up late one night playing with some data from the Big Ear. We were experimenting with something that we'd later name the Langolier Mechanism- had to wait for Steven King to help us out- basically it's time shear, if you move across a fourth-dimensional axis against the grain, you invariably incur damage that isn't undone by the reversal of time. This is why it's so hard to build a time machine that doesn't just strand you with the dinosaurs."

Time machines, now? She stopped herself from speaking, and drank again. Pretend it's not bullshit. He's crazy, but he's gotta be getting at something.

"I'm getting off track."

"See? Happens to everybody."

-snif-

"Long story short, we ran into them while they were tripping out. We fired off our signal expecting to bounce it off some space rocks and write down some numbers, but instead, we hit people. And they were out there at the edge of everything, checking out some... structure."

"What was it?"

"Now Dani, I respect you, but take my word for it that you aren't ready to hear that. It'll just make you mad at me. Maybe I'll get Andi on the phone sometime and she can tell you."

"Alright, sure. So you were just, sending signals off into space, and you happened to hit... as you say, people."

"Sure did. And they followed the signal back to us, and next thing you know, we've all got pen pals. So, to circle aaaaaaall the way back," he held out his arms dramatically, then flit a little ash into the ashtray. "Sometimes when you reach out, you find something. In our case, it was something good. In yours..."

What if there's something good in there?

"...In your case, I suspect there's only pain in there."

"Are you willing to help me check, Craig?"

At that, he grinned.

"I'll get the Alto."

<-Prev Next->

[holycatsandrabbits]

Hey, y’all, it’s Weird Wednesday! Where on some Wednesdays, I blog about weird stuff and give writing prompts.

Today: The Haunted Rail: Ghost Trains

“It is said that on that night, every year, all the train men that are on the road at a certain hour…hear and see and feel the spectre train rush by them. It sounds hollow and awful. Its lights are yellow, pale and funeral. Its train hands and passengers are sepulchral figures. … It even carries with it a whirl of wind as fast as trains do, but it is a cold, clammy, grave-like atmosphere, all its own. As it passes another train the shriek of its whistle and clang of its bell strike terror to the hearts of those that hear them.”

— “A Railroad Ghost Story” about the phantom funeral train of Abraham Lincoln, printed September 13, 1879 in the Rockland County Journal (New York)

When we’re talking about the haunting of mass transportation, whether it be plane, ship, bus, subway, or train, there are actually several varieties of legend. The first is the classic ghost vehicle, as described above: the train itself is a ghost, traveling on tracks still in use, or (more eerily) areas where tracks used to run. You can see and hear this train well enough to be terrified, but you can’t go on board. Usually these ghost trains are recreations of funeral trains or trains which crashed. Sometimes you get the crash itself reenacted, with the sounds of crunching metal and screaming passengers. The train may also be a death omen for anyone who sees it.

Check out the blog post for the whole story and some on-track writing prompts, such as:

Memento Mori. Hauntings that replay tragedies are called residual hauntings. They’re like an old movie, where none of the actors are actually present in your living room, but you can watch them over and over. Grieving characters might be drawn to the scene of a train crash on its anniversary for a last glimpse of a loved one who died on the train. Or they might hear rumors of vanishing-hitchhiker passengers and hope they might recognize one. A character could even contact a necromancer (a person with the magical skill to summon the dead) to try to keep the hitchhiker from vanishing.

DannyeChase.com ~ Ao3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

Image credit

[uglygirlprettyboy]

HIYA SPOOPY THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME TALK ABOUT THIS MWAH

okay okay okay so garfield was only in office for six months before he was shot and killed (though he would end up dying nearly two months after the actual wound) by charles j. guiteau, a disgruntled office seeker who felt he was owed a position as ambassador to france after giving a couple speeches in support of garfield’s campaign—and when he was denied the position by someone working for garfield, he supposedly had a vision from god, who told him he needed to kill garfield in order to reunite the republican party and save the country.

but what’s particularly neat about garfield is that he never has explicit political ambitions. he grew up incredibly poor, as his father died when he was 2, and dreamt of becoming a seaman—until, i believe, he fell into the water while at his job at the docks, and those dreams kinda went away lmao.

he was a classics professor (amongst other things) for a long time, which is how he met his wife, lucretia, and he worked on the beginnings of the pythagorean theorem.

he served in the civil war, and eventually was asked by lincoln himself to serve in the ohio state senate, which he did for nine terms—until he was nominated for president at the republican convention.

but here’s the fun part—he never signed up for it. he was giving a speech at the convention in support of another candidate, and when he finished, the crowd was so impressed that they chose to nominate garfield instead of the other dude, despite the fact that he was never even in the running. (on the podium, he actually laughed off the suggestion after someone in the crowd yelled out that they should just vote for garfield)

he barely did any campaigning, and still managed to win by a sliver of the vote as a dark horse candidate.

frederick douglass, a huge abolitionist leader and an escaped slave, was a massive supporter of garfield throughout his campaign, telling black americans that garfield was the man to support. he would later lead the procession at garfield’s inauguration.

he was a truly genius man, and was amazingly well-liked by the entire country, considering the fact that it was only twenty years after the end of the civil war. he was actually considered the first president to really feel like the president of the entire country again, as opposed to just the north :)

when he was on his deathbed, and was being taken to a home on the coast of new jersey (if i remember that correctly) for his final days, people lined up along the railroad for miles, tossing hay onto the tracks to soften his way. volunteers actually extended the train tracks all the way up to the house to make his journey easier on him.

his funeral was one of the largest presidential funerals in american history, if not the largest.

he was a genuinely good man, who, i’m his brief term, worked to end the spoils system and improve civil service reform in the country—and also happens to be my biggest special interest EVER. love talking about him.

oh, and charles guiteau, the man who killed him (and who later said at his trial that “the doctors killed garfield, i only shot him”, which is actually really true but i can’t go into it because my phone is rapidly dying lmao)? he got kicked out of a “free love” colony (ie. sex colony) because no one liked him or wanted to sleep with him, which is just insanely funny to me.

ONG THATS SO COOL I DIDNT KNWO ANY OF THAT SHIT

(also i may have voted for the shitty guy in the assassination vs president thing my bad)

[gholateg]

This would be so fucking *easy* to do too.

First pass bullshit under the break!

First movie: Bruce has been Batman in Gotham for a year. The rogues are just starting to spin up, Gordon is still a lieutenant, rampant police corruption. Dent moves back to Gotham as the new DA, works with Wayne enterprises since Bruce and him swam in the same social circles before Bruce went Training. Mad Hatter and Penguin are the main villains. Hatter brainwashes people to pull heists, some of them Waynetech people, which draws Dent and Bruce together even more. Hatter gets caught, but Penguin gets off, but does so by throwing the bulk of the GCPD under the bus.

Extra credit Scene: The Ventriloquist (one of the last Hatter brainwash victims) is seen shaking down the owner of a Circus.

Second movie: Random non-cape crime skyrockets as the GCPD is gutted from corruption charges. Gordon gets promoted to Captain, gets the unlucky job of being Liaison to the DA. Dent starts to drag in non-Gotham cops to fill the void, but it's not going well because Reasons.

Bruce goes to the Circus to look for clues about daredevil thief Roxy Rocket, since her heists are in the same towns the Circus is going though. While there, the Ventriloquist's goons murder the Flying Graysons. Afterward, Dent makes the call to work with Cobblepot to stop the street violence. Penguin makes a note that he's not the only game in town anymore though.

Bruce takes in Dick, as the Circus disbands. Roxy continues her one woman rocket rave, stealing things and going after wise guys, as we now know Roxy is the daughter of the Circus owner, who stole things to keep the circus afloat.

Dick figures this out, and goes after her himself, eventually meeting up with Batman. A large warehouse fight between Team Ventriloquist and Roxy explodes out into the open. Roxy streaks off and her rocket explodes, Bruce and Dick are unmasked while crawling out of the rubble.

Extra Credits scene: While the *person* holding Ventriloquist's puppet is killed in the warehouse fire, the puppet itself is utterly unharmed, and brought to Arkham in a Lector Box.

We see Calendar Man marking another line on the wall of his cell.

Movie Three: Bruce and Grayson are working on being a team, Alfred is being The Dad. Bruce doesn't want Dick to fall into the same place he has, and wants better for him, while Dick doesn't want Bruce to go about his one man crusade alone. Insert hope stuff here. Alfred is being Alfred throughout all the movies as needed.

Meanwhile, street crime is back under control, but it's given Cobblepot an even firmer hold on Gotham's underbelly *and* on Dent. Penguin starts to squeeze Harvey to get away with more things, and Dent's slowly getting more and more angry. Lashing out and going for harsher sentences on the guys he's "allowed" to prosecute. Dent starts to distance himself from Bruce. Bruce makes a point that Dent "Can't just flip a coin about how you treat criminals"

While this angst parade occurs: People are being found dead in odd and disturbing ways. Eventually Dick figures out it's all based on holidays. Belly laugh day gets a corpse found with a split open belly, someone gets shot in the back of the head in a theater on Lincoln's birthday, Peter Dinklage gets brained in the head by a pot of real gold on St Patricks day, ect.

Dent eventually has enough, and turns on Cobblepot. Cobblepot takes it surprisingly well and "washes his hands of all this trouble."

This of course leads to Dent's car being bombed out, after he's lost a *very* public trial against one of Penguin's higher level goons. For fun, he was a counterfeiter of dollar coins.

Bruce and Dick go to his funeral, closed casket. They feel for Harvey and Bruce wishes things could have gone differently. Dent *was* making a dent in the crime and the corruption (at least to the general public eye) of Gotham. Gordon is there, notices them sitting together and you see his eyes go huge as he realizes.

inter cut with the funeral, we hop back to Wayne Manor, where Alfred is is in the kitchen, dressed in a baker's apron and his hands covered in flour. he's humming to himself as he listens to the rain.

A door swings open, and we see Calendar Man creeping about, an old sheep herder's knife in his hand. Swaps between the funeral and the manor as the music swells.

As we get to Gordon figuring out who Bruce and Dick are, we hear the loud CRACK of a shotgun going off. Calander Man lays sprawled in the floor, torso smoking. Alfred, still covered in flour and now holding a pump action shotgun, keeps the barrel pointed at the body.

We cut to later with calendar man being handcuffed to a stretcher and Bruce and Dick both hugging a still be-flour'ed Alfred who is fretting about getting their suits messed up, on Passover of all days.

Extra Credits scene:

We pan into Penguin's swank bird themed office. Someone is sitting in their chair, but we can't see them. Oswald walks in, flamingo girl on his arm, both looking horrified as he stares at the person in the chair.

we hear a coin flip, and land. and then a shot rings out.

I will give so much money to the first Hollywood Batman director who has the guts to give me:

- onscreen Robin

- a Harvey Dent who shows up at least one full movie before Two-Face

- a secretly soft and tender Bruce who hopes so much it hurts to watch

- Alfred with a shotgun

- not so much as a single Joker mention

[xtruss]

Séances At The White House? Why These First Ladies Turned To The Occult

From Mary Todd Lincoln to Jane Pierce, They Were Swept Up in the Spiritualism Movement of the 19th Century—a Belief That Living Souls Can Contact the Dead.

— By Parissa DJangi | April 24, 2024

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, sits with his wife Mary Todd and three children. Mary Todd turned to Spiritualism, the belief that departed souls can interact with the living, to process her grief after the death of her second youngest son, William, in February 1862. Photograph By New York Historical Society, Bridgeman Images

The White House has hosted its share of prominent people: politicians, writers, musicians, scientists––and mediums.

Reflecting Americans’ belief in spirits unseen, some of the country’s first families held séances at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They nursed their grief with the help of mediums, demonstrating that séances aren’t only about the deceased; they’re also about the living.

Spiritualism Comes To The White House

On January 6, 1853, newly elected president Franklin Pierce and his wife Jane experienced every parent’s worst nightmare. Their only surviving child, 11-year-old Bennie, died in a horrific train accident in Massachusetts.

Jane Pierce struggled to adapt to life without her child. She even WROTE him letters as she secluded herself in her private quarters in the White House.

Having endured the deaths of two sons prior to her husband Franklin Pierce’s presidency and witnessing the death of her sole surviving child just two months before Franklin’s inauguration in 1853, First Lady Jane Pierce turned to Spiritualism to reconnect with her sons. Photograph By Library of Congress

As Pierce fiercely mourned her son, a new religious movement took root across the country: Spiritualism, or the belief that the living could communicate with the dead. As historian Molly McGarry wrote in Ghosts of Futures Past, “a faith in Spiritualism and the experience that the dead continued to connect with the living” resonated in an America with an extensive mourning culture and “allowed some 19th-century Americans a new way of being in the world.”

Letter from Jane Means (Appleton) Pierce to her deceased son, Benjamin Pierce, 1853 January 30

Spiritualism’s popularity stemmed partly from 15-year-old Maggie and 11-year-old Katie Fox, sisters from Hydesville, New York. Though the pair lived relatively ordinary lives with their large family, they soon began making extraordinary claims. In 1848, they alleged that mysterious rappings in their family’s home came from a supernatural source: discarnate spirits. The sisters insisted they could communicate with them, interpreting the noises as a spectral form of Morse code.

The Fox sisters’ allegations electrified Americans eager to connect with deceased loved ones—individuals such as Jane Pierce. Fascinated by their narrative, she invited them to Washington.

No one knows what exactly occurred between Pierce and the Fox sisters. But the White House session may have mirrored the Fox sisters’ other séances, which commenced with guests sitting in a circle, holding one another’s hands, and reciting a prayer. Then, the rappings would begin, and the sisters would allegedly lift the veil on the spirit world.

The Lincolns’ Many Tears

National and personal tragedy converged in the thick of the Civil War when Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln buried one of their children. On February 20, 1862, 11-year-old Willie Lincoln died in the White House after battling typhoid fever for weeks.

The boy’s death devastated both his parents, but Mary Todd Lincoln’s grief was especially debilitating. She stayed in bed for weeks and couldn’t bear to attend his funeral. But even when she rejoined society, Lincoln longed for a reunion with her deceased son.

Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the 16th president, was known to openly dabble in Spiritualism. Photograph By Library of Congress

So, she turned to mediums. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Lincoln biographer David Herbert Donald used surviving documents to calculate that the first lady may have held eight séances in the White House.

One occurred in December 1862, when Lincoln hosted the medium Nettie Colburn for a séance in the Red Room.

Colburn later claimed that the president joined the séance––and that, in her trance-like state, she didn’t limit herself to communicating with Willie Lincoln. Instead, the spirits she channeled urged the president to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which they predicted would “be the crowning event of his administration and his life.”

In April 1863, President Lincoln allegedly hosted a séance in the red room of the White House to call upon the spirits to guide him in political matters. Photograph By France Ben Jamin Johnston, Library of Congress

Sessions with Colburn and other mediums stoked the first lady’s faith that souls survive death. She even saw Willie in her dreams. “Willie lives,” she told her half-sister Emilie Todd Helm. “He comes to me every night and stands at the foot of the bed with the same sweet, adorable smile he always has had.”

The Last Gasp of Spiritualism

The White House was again in a state of mourning during the presidency of Calvin Coolidge in 1924. Coolidge’s 16-year-old son Calvin played a game of tennis––but he wasn’t wearing socks with his shoes. A blister formed on a toe and festered, and the infection turned septic. He died on July 7.

So, did the Coolidges employ a medium to contact their son? Harry Houdini, the famous illusionist, believed they had. He deplored spiritualism, séances, and mediums, all of which underwent a revival in the wake of World War I and the influenza pandemic. He was on a quest to expose mediums and psychics as the charlatans he believed them to be.

Illusionist Harry Houdini (left) spent the last years of his life debunking paranormal claims. In 1926, he testified in a Congressional hearing considering a ban on fortune-tellers. Photograph By National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress

His greatest show in 1926 was when he testified in a Congressional hearing considering a ban on fortune-tellers. During the hearing, it was alleged that Jane Coates, a medium in Washington, D.C., had said, “I know for a fact that there have been spiritual séances held at the White House with President Coolidge and his family.”

Coolidge’s friends vehemently denied the allegation, drawing a clear line between what was acceptable––and what wasn’t. Séances, it seemed, crossed the line of respectability in a changing America.

By World War II, spiritualism no longer attracted the acolytes it once had, and White House séances became a curious footnote in history.

[historydailyfrancischappellblack]

A train transporting the coffin of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln departs Washington, D.C., on its way to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be interred on May 4. April 21, 1865.

Subscriber Content Add content here that will only be visible to your subscribers. Payment The funeral train, dubbed “The Lincoln Special,” traveled through 180 cities and seven states, and scheduled stops were published in newspapers so mourners could gather. On this day in history, April 21, 1865, a train transporting the coffin of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln departs Washington,…

[lightdancer1]

Wrapped up the next volume of the Oxford History of the United States:

This and Battle Cry of Freedom remain the best two of the entire series thus far, and they are this because they both share a specific point none of the others really try to do. They do not merely recap the views and experiences of the time in a narrative history, they note and expose the sheer mass of self-deception and willingly buying into their own lies that underlay the hearts of some parts of this era, along with the casual barbaric brutality that was another part of it.

This book had a great many potential places to begin, but elected to do so with the funeral procession of Lincoln's train. It argues that the victorious Republicans of 1865 took from that victory vindication of the original Mk. I Free Soil vision and the very self-deceptive delusion that the scale of military defeat moderated the former rebel armies and their leaders. Neither proved to be true and in 873 pages precisely why that proved to be the case is illustrated. The book also notes the ironies that Black people were given specific rigged realities that have shaped their lives ever since, the Southern white elite through fire and sword recreating a pale ghost of the old order through night-rider terror and through wholesale destruction of the principle of rule of law. No land transfers were made on any scale that mattered for Black people, but the US government retained its fundamental nature to that point as a huge land transfer machine in the last phases of the old Indian Wars.

The country of George Washington vanished at Appomattox, the one envisioned by the Republicans of 1865 died a slower but no less total death to produce the corporate-state conglomerates that become recognizably that of our time, and where the avarice and greed of empire produced endless failures rewarded with lavish subsidies while official rhetoric, of course, pretended none of this was true. This was also the last golden age of Senatorial leaders as its main and most powerful political figures, men like Roscoe Conkling and James G. Blaine, were products of the Senate of that era who never translated that actual power into the Presidency.

The world of free labor became that of the particularly US pattern of industrial capitalism and even the advocates of that classical liberal view found the reality of the world forged in the fires of Reconstruction and then the convulsions of shifts from free soil to the reality of class struggle on the one hand and the efforts of the Bourbon South to re-establish a very specific kind of white supremacy in the South as the Army and politicians did so against first Indigenous peoples and then Chinese people in the West.

The reality was a USA whose air became filthier, whose cities were death traps where the very rich and the very poor engaged in strife that could and did turn horrifically bloody, where height shrank, lives got shorter, and misery increased to sufficient levels that in 1896, where the book ends, a signal crisis and the last gasp of Jeffersonian-Jacksonian politics died with a whimper in the Bryan vs. McKinley election. Modernity was very real, and for all the deep limitations the United States at this time really did become the juggernaut in the making that would become first a rival for global empire in 1945 and then last rat standing in 1991. But that process only began in the 1860s and was still in further motion in the 1890s and owed itself to a huge amount of luck and circumstances nobody could have foreseen short of omniscience.

10/10.