Abraham Lincoln's burial and exhumation
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Abraham Lincoln was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, where a 177-foot-tall granite tomb surmounted with several bronze statues of Lincoln was constructed by 1874. Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and three of his four sons are also buried there (Robert Todd Lincoln is buried in Arlington National Cemetery).
In the years following Lincoln's death, attempts were made to steal Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom. Around 1900, Robert Todd Lincoln decided that, in order to prevent body theft, it was necessary to build a permanent crypt for his father. Lincoln's coffin would be encased in concrete several feet thick, surrounded by a cage, and buried beneath a rock slab. On September 26, 1901, Lincoln's body was exhumed so that it could be reinterred in the newly built crypt. However, those present (a total of 23 people) feared that his body might have been stolen in the intervening years, so they decided to open the coffin and check.
Lincoln's body was almost perfectly preserved. It had been embalmed so many times following his death that his body had not decayed. In fact, he was perfectly recognizable, even more than thirty years after his death. On his chest, they could see red, white, and blue specks — remnants of the American flag with which he was buried, which had by then disintegrated.
All 23 of the people who viewed the remains of Mr. Lincoln have long since died. One of the last, a youth of 13 at the time, was Fleetwood Lindley, who died on February 1, 1963. Three days before he died, Mr. Lindley was interviewed. He said, "Yes, his face was chalky white. His clothes were mildewed. And I was allowed to hold one of the leather straps as we lowered the casket for the concrete to be poured. I was not scared at the time but I slept with Lincoln for the next six months." [1]
Another man, George Cashman, also claimed to be the last living person to have viewed the remains of Abraham Lincoln. In the last years of his life, George Cashman was the curator of the National Landmark in Springfield called "Lincoln's Tomb." He particularly enjoyed relating his story to the more than one million visitors to the site each year. Mr. Cashman died in 1979.
His claim concerning the viewing of Abraham Lincoln's remains was later refuted when his wife, Dorothy M. Cashman, wrote a pamphlet entitled "The Lincoln Tomb." On page 14 of "The Lincoln Tomb," Mrs. Cashman writes, "At the time of his death in 1963 Fleetwood Lindley was the last living person to have looked upon Mr. Lincoln's face." In this statement, Cashman's wife admitted her husband was not present at the 1901 exhumation.
