Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 March 1892 — LINCOLN’S DEATH BIER. [ARTICLE]

LINCOLN’S DEATH BIER.

A Dilapidated Relic in a Secret Crypt at the Capital. An intereating national relio which the World s Fair will probably want haa been preserved in Washington, writes a correspondent of the Pittsburgh Dispatch, for many years in an unusually ourious hiding place. It is the bier or catafalque upon which successively rested as they luy in state in the rotunda of the Capital the remains of the nution’s martyred President, Abraham Lincoln; those of Thaddeus Stevens, Pennsylvania’s ‘‘great oommonef;”of Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln’s Seorotary of the Treasury and afterward Chiof Justioe; of Senator Charlos Sumner and Vioo President Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts; of Presidjnl James A. Garfield and General John A. Logau. It was made of wood, after an original design by B. B. Frenoh, Jr., Commissioner of Publio Buildings, and consists of a platform and elevated duis covered with fine blaok broadcloth and ornamented at the sides with tasteful funeral trimmings. When not in use all these twentysix yoars since it was constructed,' the bier has been kept iu a secret stono crypt or tomb inside the Cnnitol, away down under ground in the very centre of tho building, remoto from all scenes of legislative strife and political turmoil. This subterreueun crypt was prepared in tho first year of this century as a mausoleum to receive a sarcophagus containing tho remuins of George Washington, under a resolution of Congress passed early iu 1800, when it wus proposed to build a statuoof him in tho rotunda of tho Capitol and accord his dust a national sepulture undornouth. But the crypt was never usod for that purpose,because Mrs. Martha Washington iu her lifotimo objected to iho separation of her remains from those of her illustrious consort to be buriod with him, and beoause Washington also, in his will, signified his desire to lie interred permanently at Mount Vernon. President Lincoln’s remains, after lying in state for two days in tho East Boom of tho White House, wore transferred to tho Capitol, where, resting on this bier, thoy were exhibited in tho rotunda from noon on April ‘JO until six in the evening of April 21.18(15. Astor Lincoln’s funeral the bier was stowed away in George Washington’s unoccupied tomb. Belie hunters located it, and despite all tho precautions taken to preserve it intact they despoiled it of many of its ornamouts and trimmings. Throe years later an explosion was occasioned in the crypt by tho escape of gas from the pipes in tho surrounding wulls, und the man who undertook to investigate the leak was killed und tho bier sad' ly singed. When Thaddeus Stevens died, however, it wus covered iiumv und drawn out of the crypt into tho rotunda abovo. Tho fusees at the four corners, and tho silver ornaments and satin festoons are now totally gone, carried oft' piece by piece in tho pockets of predatory tourists, and what is left of the bier as a whole presents, a sorry appearance, for the broudelo‘h covering is almost devoured by moths, and only one strand of satin braid remaius stretching around ouo cud and one side. But Arohjtqot Clark, who has custody of the treasured relio, now kueps it under strictest lock and key in its narrow cell. * Allow throo pairs of laces foroaoh pair of the 1,600,000 shoes, and set the length of ouch lace at two feet; then tie these together, and you will have a string 3,750mi10s long, or just double the length of the first Atlantic cable. Take the cost of the laces alone, putting it at three cents a pair, and you find it is very near fifty thousand dollars. The cost of button* hooks for tho same time will not run less tlmn sixty thousand dollars. Gaiters or “spats,” as they are called in the old country, are in the very fever of fashion now, especially the dead black or uuvy blue, indeed, from all tliut I can learn, over half the womon that mako any protensions to “style” or fashion woar them; so that wo may put down the total number of these worn here in the year at one hundred thousand, cogting about two hundred and fifty to three hundred thousand dollars; so tliut tho total for outside foot-wear altogether oomos close to $3,400,000; perhaps the full three and u half millions. 1 need hardly add that but a small proportion of “kid” boots are genuine.—[Once a Week.