Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1892-03-03
LINCOLN'S DEATH BIER,
A Dilapidated Relic in Secret
Crypt at the Capital,


An interesting national relic which the
Worlds Fair will probably want has been
preserved in Washington, writes a cores
pondent of the Pittsburgh Dispatch, for
many years in an unusually curious hid
ing place. 1t is the bier or catafalque
upon which successfully rested as they
iay IN state in the rotunda of the Capital
u Ihe remains of the nations martyred
~, resident, Abraham Lincoln; those of
haudeus Stevens, Pennsylvania ''great
cohimoner;" of Salmon P. Chase, Lin
com Secretary of the Treasury and
atterward Chief Justice; of Senator
Charles Sumner and Vice President
Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts; of
PRESIDENT James A. Garfield and General
John A. Logan.
1t was made of wood, after an original
design by B. B. French. Jr.. Commits
sioner of Public Buildings, and consists
OF platform and elevated dais covered
with fine black broadcloth and ornament
ed at the sides with tasteful funeral trim
mings. When not in use all these TWENTY
SIX years since it was constructed, the
bier has been kept in secret stone crypt
or tomb inside the Capitol, away down
under ground in the very centre of the
building, remote from all scenes of legis-
lative strife and political turmoil. This
subterrenean crypt was prepared in the
hrst year of this century as mausoleum
to receive a sarcophagus containing the
remains of George Washington, under a
resolution of Congress passed early in
lS0O, when it was proposed to build
statue of him in the rotunda of the Capt.
| fol and nnnnrd h;s
ulture underneath. But the crypt was
never used for that purpose, because Mrs.
Martha Washington in her lifetime OBJ
Jected to the separation of her remains
from those of her illustrious consort to be
buried with him. and because Washing
ton also, in his will, signifed his desire
to lie inferred permanently at Mount
Vernon.
President Lincoln's remains, after ly-
ing in state for two days in the East
Room of the White House, were trans
ferred to the Capitol, where, resting on
this bier, they were exhibited in the ro-
tunda from noon on April 20 until six in
the evening of April 81, 1865.
After Lincoln's funeral the bier was
slowed away in George Washington's un-
occupied tomb Relic hunters located it,
and despite all the precautions taken to
preserve it intact they despoiled it of
many of its ornaments and trimmings.
Three years later an explosion was occa-
stoned in the crypt by the escape of gas
from the pipes in the surrounding walls,
and the man who undertook to investi
gate the leak was killed and the bier sad
ly singed. When Thaddeus Stevens
died, however, it was covered anew and
drawn out of the crypt into the rotunda
above.
The fasces at the four corners, and the
silver ornaments and satin festoons are
now totally gone, carried off piece by
piece in the pockets of predatory tourists,
and what is left of the bier as whole
presents sorry appearance, for the
broadcloth covering is almost devoured
by moths, and only one strand of satin
braid remains stretching around one end
and one side. But Architect Clark, who
has custody of the treasured relic, now
keeps it under strictest lock and key in
its narrow cell.
Allow three pairs of laces for each pair
of the 100000 shoes, and set the length
of each lace at two feet; then tie these
together, and you will have string
8, $50 miles long, or just double the length
of the first Atlantic cable. Take the
cost of the laces alone, putting it at three
cents pair, and you find it is very near
fifty thousand dollars. The cost of button
hooks for the same time will not run
less than sixty thousand dollars.
Caters or "spats," as they are called
in the old country, are in the very fever
of fashion now, especially the dead black
or navy blue. indeed, from all that /
, can learn, over half the women that
make any pretensions to 'style" or
fashion wear them; so that we may put
down the total number of these worn
here in tho year at one hundred thousand,
costing about two hundred and fifty to
three hundred thousand dollars; so that
the total for outside footwear altogether
!. comes close to 50 400, 900; perhaps the
full three and half millions. need
hardly add that but small proportion
of "kid" boots are genuine. -lOnce q
E Week.