The April 16, 1865 Indignation Meeting in Bloomington, Illinois, after President Lincoln's Assassination.

News of the assassination hit Bloomington, Illinois, particularly hard since residents viewed Lincoln as one of their own. Religious leaders.

On April 16, the Sunday after the assassination, religious leaders called for an "Indignation (righteous anger) Meeting" on Courthouse Square. A crowd estimated at 8,000 gathered to mourn Lincoln's death. 

The only known photograph of the indignation meeting in Bloomington, Illinois, was likely taken by Bloomington photographers Joe Scibird or brother John Scibird. Local religious leaders organized the meeting on Sunday, April 16, 1865.

Jesse Fell, Bloomington's first lawyer, presided over the meeting, and Asahel Gridley and Leonard Swett each delivered several speeches. The Pantagraph's news columns were edged in black (traditional mourning stationery).

On May 3, 1865, Lincoln's funeral train came into Bloomington on its long deliberate passage from Washington, D.C. to Springfield, Illinois. Scheduled to arrive at 3 am, it was two hours late. Over 8,000 people showed up to see the train. Neighbors near and far came to pay their last respects to their revered, now martyred friend.

NOTE: With Abraham Lincoln as counsel, Asahel Gridley won an important Illinois Supreme Court case, giving him control of the local gas company, one of the state's first.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Lincoln's "Progress in Spelling."

Poor spellers may find comfort in the following anecdote that Mr. R. B. Stanton tells in the reminiscences of Lincoln that he gives in the February 1921 issue of Scribner's Magazine.

Mr. Stanton tells the story his Father told him.

On one occasion, said the senior Mr. Stanton, the President gave me what he was pleased to call an account of his "progress in spelling." The incident reveals Mr. Lincoln's remarkable simplicity and open-heartedness, showing the ease and friendliness he could talk to a private citizen.

Having some business at the War Department and knowing my success depended on the President's favor, I called on the President to ask for his aid. At the interview, no other visitor was present. After stating my case, I asked him if he would speak to the Secretary on my behalf. 

"Certainly I will," he said. Pausing a moment, he added, "Or what's better, I will write him a note. Sit down, and I will write it now." He went to his desk and began writing, but in a few moments turned to me and, looking up over his spectacles, he said:

"Obh-sta-cle: is that the way you spell obstacle? I was so disconcerted at the sudden, unexpected question that, for the moment, I was silent. Noticing my confusion, he laid down his pen and turned his revolving chair to face me.

When I had recovered myself, I said, "I believe that is right, Mr. President."

He said, "When I write an official letter, I want to be sure it is correct, and I am sometimes puzzled to know how to spell the most common word."

When I remarked that that was not an unusual experience with many persons, he said, "I found about twenty years ago that I had been spelling one word wrong all my life up to that time."

"What word is that, Mr. President?" I inquired.

"It is very," he said. "I always used to spell it with two r's—v-e-r-r-y. And then there was another word I found I had been spelling wrong until I came here to the White House. It is an opportunity, and I had always spelled it op-per-tunity."

In relating those instances of his "progress in spelling," as he called it, the President laughed heartily and added some words on the importance of giving attention to orthography (the conventional spelling system of a language). Then he finished his letter to the Secretary of War and handed it to me with a warm expression that my mission might be successful. 

"We Knew the Crack of Revolver Was Not Part of Play," Says Charles L. Willis, Who Beheld John Wilkes Booth Leap From Box.

The curtain rose for the third and last act of the comedy, "Our American Cousin," at Ford's Theatre, on Tenth street, 64 years ago, "and hardly one word had been spoken," Charles L. Willis, of the Willard Court Apartments, "said yesterday, "when the sharp crack of a revolver was heard."

Charles L. Willis

Mr. Willis is one of the two or three persons alive today [1929] who was in the historic old Theatre on the memorable night of April 14, 1865. 

"We all knew it was not a part of the play," the octogenarian pointed out, speaking of the "crack "of a revolver," and ''for a few seconds, everything was still. A cry, 'The President, is shot,' and the audience stood and looked toward the point from whence the sound came."

At the time of the assassination of President Lincoln, Mr. Willis was a stripling of 18 summers, born in Baltimore but a resident of Washington for four years.

"I thought the world of that man," Mr. Willis said, reminiscing. "He had the kindest eye I1 ever saw in a man's head. I remember that I would try to see him whenever he appeared in public. And I am proud to say. that I once shook hands with him."

Mr. Willis' story is a first-hand graphic, eyewitness account of the scene at the Theatre the night Lincoln was shot. In his own words, let him tell it:

"On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, the Washington newspapers stated that President Lincoln and his party would attend the performance at Ford's Theatre that evening.

"Miss Laura Keene, a favorite actress, was to appear in the comedy, 'Our American Cousin.' I was then a young man, 18 years of age, and very fond of the Theatre. I suggested to my chum that we go to the theatre that night. He readily acceded, and we were a part of a large audience present on that occasion. The Theatre was well filled, and the audience was appreciative and happy. The first two acts passed off pleasantly, and when the curtain dropped at the close of the second act, I suggested to my friend that we go out during the intermission." 

As the two young men were on their way out of the Theatre, it might be well to interrupt the continuity to explain that the boyhood chum to whom Mr. Willis refers was John A. Downs, who has been dead for at least twenty years. His survivor estimated. Going on after the interruption. Mr. Willis said:

"While standing on the pavement in front of the Theatre, we saw John Wilkes Booth come out and enter a small restaurant adjoining the Theatre. Booth was a great favorite of all Theatregoers, most especially the young. He was a handsome man with very white skin, piercing eyes, and jet black, curly hair. Only a short time before, I had seen him perform in the same Theatre, with Miss Alice Grey, his last public performance.

"My friend and I reentered the Theatre and resumed our seats in the orchestra pit, our chairs not more than seven rows from the stage and nearly beneath the box occupied by the President and party. As we entered the Theatre, I saw Booth talking to John Buckingham, with whom I was personally acquainted."

Buckingham, Mr. Willis paused again to explain, puffing one of the three cigars he permits himself each day, was the doorman at the Theatre and "an employee of my father, Cornelius L. Willis." 

"The curtain rose io: the third and last act," the old man took up his narrative, "and hardly one word had been spoken when the sharp crack of a revolver was heard. We all knew it was not a part of the play, and everything was very still for a few seconds. A cry, 'The President, is shot,' and the audience stood and looked toward the point from whence the sound came. I saw a man climbing over the rail in front of the box he leaped to the stage a few feet to his right. As he landed on the stage, he staggered; raising his right arm, he muttered a few words and quickly disappeared into the scenery on the left of the stage. 

"A man sprang from the audience, climbed to the stage and made pursuit. The audience was now all standing and with little or no shouting or disorder. I suggested to my friend that we go out, and we did so.

"As it appeared that very few were coming out, we reentered the Theatre. In my excited condition, I went directly onto the stage where actors and part of the audience mingled, gazing up at the box where the wounded President lay. Amid all this excitement, to the best of my recollection, there was not much noise: all were shocked, talking in subdued tones.

"The audience began to leave the Theatre. On the outside, the crowd was great, and I made for a place to avoid the gathering. I took refuge on the porch in front of a house across the street, and in a few moments, four men carrying the wounded President went up into this same house with him [The Petersen Boarding House].

The President died the following morning, April 15, in this house, between 7 and 8 o'clock. 

The crowd by this time was great. Shouts of "Lynch him," "Hang him," "They've got him," were heard all around, and the crowd surged from side to side.

I started toward Pennsylvania Avenue to take a car for my home on Capitol Hill. A man said to me, "What's the matter?" My teeth chattered; I could not speak. I reached the car, and all were talking about the assassination. They said Seward was killed, Grant was killed. The excitement among all was intense; there was more loud talking in that car than in the Theatre. 

When I reached home near midnight, my mother, hearing some tumult, asked me what the matter was. I said, "Nothing." I feared if I told her what had been done, she and my father would sleep no more that night. The next morning I went to the Government department where I was employed and asked to be excused after telling my experience. I walked directly up P street northwest to the corner of Tenth Street and looked toward the house where the President lay, and what seems strange to me now, there were no crowds around the place. Later in the day, all the Government departments closed until after the funeral, which occurred on the following Thursday.

When the body of the President was lying in state in the rotunda of the Capitol, thousands passed through to review the remains, entering on the west front, passing in double file and leaving on the east side.

I forced myself through the crowd, and for the last time, I saw President Lincoln.

Mr. Willis has read more than once, he said, of the death of someone of whom the statement was made, "He was the last person who was present at the Theatre on the night of the assassination of President Lincoln." Mr. Willis characterizes such announcements as absurd: "I was a little more than 18 years of age, and among the audience of more than 1,000 there was, no doubt, many of my age or under. There may be some others living who were present." 

The 18-year-old boy present at Ford's Theatre to see the comedy, "Our American Cousin," one of the very last, at least, of "the audience of more than 1,000, was born in Baltimore on October 17, 1846. A bookbinder by trade, he worked in the Government Printing Office here for 46 years, retiring when the retirement law went into effect in August 1920. Since then, he has been taking things easy, living for his wife of more than 50 years, their sons and their daughters, thinking of the past and the present, and who will win the baseball game today.

                                                                                  —The Washington Post, March 14, 1929

ADDITIONAL JOURNAL READING:

A Comprehensive Account of President Lincoln's Doctors' Beginning from the Assassin's Gunshot on April 14, 1865, through Abe's Death on April 15th.

Did John Wilkes Booth Really Break a Leg Jumping from Lincoln's Box at Ford's Theatre?

The Rage of John Wilkes Booth