Ghosts of Ohio
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Lore & Legends

The Lincoln Funeral Train

In April of 2008, The Ghosts of Ohio had the unique opportunity to participate in the search for the Lincoln Ghost Train. According to the legend, every April 29th, a ghostly funeral car carrying the body of Abraham Lincoln is supposed to rumble through the town of Urbana, Ohio, mirroring the route it took back in 1865 when it carried the fallen President's body back to Springfield, Illinois. For us, it was a wonderful opportunity to try and catch a glimpse of perhaps one of the most famous residual hauntings. Unfortunately, despite setting up all our equipment along the tracks, the ghostly train never showed up. But what did show up were over 90 local residents and students from Urbana University. So while we weren't able to capture any paranormal activity, we were able to become, if only for one night, part of the Urbana community and take part in their annual ritual of waiting for the Funeral Train.

Two of the people who joined us on the investigation were Skip Peterson and James Hannah of the Associated Press. They were originally going to cover the investigation for a story about the Ghost Train, but later switched gears and expanded the article to focus on the recent rise in popularity in ghost groups and ghost hunting. They put together a nice article, complete with pictures and it ran in local papers the following week. But then something interesting happened; news services started picking the article up off the AP Wire. At last count, the article, in different forms and with different pictures, has appeared in 43 different newspapers and news web sites around the world, including CNN, USA Today, CBS News, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, and even the Taipei Times. Several of these articles are available in the Media Mentions section of our web site.



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