Ogle County News

President Lincoln was assassinated 9 years after speaking in Oregon

This stone marks the location where Abraham Lincoln spoke in Oregon on Aug. 16, 1856.

During the Black Hawk War, Lincoln spent at least five nights in Ogle County: three times at Stillman’s Run and two east of Oregon.

Lincoln spoke in Oregon in August 1856 while on the campaign trail for Republican Presidential hopeful John Fremont. Lincoln came to Polo the night before the meeting and was the guest of Senator Applington.

The Lincoln Boulder, located in Oregon and dedicated Dec. 8, 1904, was sponsored by the Oregon’s Women Council. This dedication date was chosen to coincide with the Soldiers and Sailors of Northwestern Illinois 20th annual reunion.

At this reunion, they helped dedicate the Lincoln Boulder, which had been placed upon property owned by Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Leager, near the place where Lincoln and John Wentworth spoke in 1856, five years before the Civil War.

Nine years after his speech in Oregon, President Lincoln died from a bullet wound on April 15, 1865.

The headlines of the Cleveland Morning Newspaper for April 15, 1865 were, (Assassination Of President Lincoln!!!, He is shot Through The Head, While in the Theatre, Mortal)

On April 21, 1865, a train carrying the coffin of Abraham Lincoln left Washington, D.C., on the way to Springfield, where he was buried May 4.

The train carrying Lincoln and his son Willie’s bodies traveled through 180 cities and seven states on its way to Lincoln’s home state.

Millions of Americans bade farewell to the assassinated president as his body made the 7,700-mile journey home.

This is the course taken by President Lincoln's Funeral Train.

After a 24-hour public viewing in the Illinois state capitol, Lincoln’s coffin was finally closed on the morning of May 4. Following the funeral ceremony at Oak Ridge Cemetery, which included an hour-long eulogy, the coffins of father and son were placed inside a limestone vault and the doors and iron grating shuttered.

Nearly three weeks after he was killed, Lincoln was finally laid to rest.

Before I researched Lincoln’s Funeral Train I didn’t realize Lincoln was killed 9 years after he spoke in Oregon. I knew the Civil War was over; however, I didn’t know Lincoln was shot the day before Easter.

The Funeral Train route retraced Abraham Lincoln’s Journey in 1861 to Washington, D.C., to take office as President.

• Otto Dick is a retired teacher and has researched Ogle County history for several years.