3-071-069 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Funeral of President Garfield; lying in state at Cleveland [USA], with the Queen's mourning wreath on the coffin, 1881. 'We present Illustrations of the scene at the lying in state of the closed "casket," or outer coffin, beneath the catafalque in the temporary pavilion erected in the Monumental Park at Cleveland, at the head of Superior-street. It was laid there upon a platform six feet high, surrounded with banks of choice flowers; and upon the black coffin, at the head, rested the beautiful wreath of white roses, stephanotis, and smilax given by Queen Victoria, while two crossed palm-branches lay over the foot of the coffin. The soldiers had cleared about ten acres of the public square around the catafalque, the guards keeping the multitudes outside of a temporary fence...The line of people waiting to enter stretched at times nearly a mile westward. Perfect order prevailed, everyone being impressed with the solemnity of the occasion. Thousands wept as they passed the coffin, above which was President Garfield's portrait...Our Illustrations are supplied by the photographs taken by Messrs. E. B. Nock, E. D. Sprague, and J. F. Ryder, of Cleveland, Ohio'. Garfield was shot by Charles Julius Guiteau. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.