The funeral train bearing the remains of President McKinley crossed the west line of Pennsylvania and entered his home State and his home Congressional District at 10 o’clock a. m., Wednesday, September 18, 1901.
This is the district he represented for fourteen years in the halls of Congress. Many who had known the President personally, who had shaken his hand and gazed into his genial face, lined the tracks to do honor to all that remained on earth of their neighbor, friend and chief. From the State line to Canton, the President’s home, the line of mourners was almost continuous. Although a stirring depth of feeling had been manifested as the train passed through other States of the Union with its burden, nowhere was poignant grief so evident as it was during the sad journey through the President’s home State.
It is the second time the State of Ohio has been called upon to pay homage to the ashes of one of its sons, elevated to the Presidency and then stricken by an assassin’s bullet in the prime of his career.
The mustering of popular sentiment was awe-inspiring, both because of the numerical strength of the mourners and the intensity of feeling shown. In every sense was the trip of the President’s body to its last resting place memorable. Miles upon miles of humanity were passed, thousands upon thousands of heads were bared. Hundreds upon hundreds of crape-tied flags were displayed, while, in the distance, the emblem of the nation was seen at half-mast upon the schoolhouse or other public building.
Company upon company of State militia presented arms, while peal upon peal of the death knell came from church and courthouse bells. In all there was not a smile seen from the train, and the ears of President Roosevelt and Mrs. McKinley were not jarred by the sound of cheers or unseemly shouts of acclaim. The thousands of school children, lined up near the track, maintained a silence as profound, as sympathetic and as reverent as their elders, who felt more deeply.
Through Maryland and Pennsylvania, where the outlines of black mountains frowned dimly upon the train as it passed in the night, bonfires were seen where they had been lit to keep the watchers awake in their night vigil. The flames lit up the sides of the funeral train and cast flickering shadows against the sides of the great hills. In the towns at night the torches lit up the anxious, sympathetic faces of the mourners, who had lost sleep and braved the chill so as to have a brief look at the train which was hurrying to the President’s burial ground.
An entire regiment of the State troops was ranked along the tracks at Pittsburg near the station. No stop was made at the big sooty city. Against one of the hills were placed several hundred girls in the form of a flag. The long railroad bridge over the Allegheny was solid with men and boys, whose coats almost touched the train as it passed through.
From Pittsburg the train followed the Ohio river for miles. Old river steamboats blew sorrowful, long-drawn-out salutes to the passing train. Flags upon them were at half-mast.
On the shores of West Virginia opposite there were crowds assembled who saw the train speed by in the distance. Many of the towns on the banks of the Ohio consisted of long strings of houses in the gulch. Some of the towns containing only a few thousand inhabitants stretched along for a great distance. All the people were gathered at the track, both from the towns and the country sides for miles around. Doorsteps of every house were filled with watchers, the old folks’ faces were seen gazing through the windows and the roof tops were thronged.
At a country cross-road, where there was not a house in sight, several score of men, women and children were gathered. The buggies and farm wagons a little distance away showed they had come from a distance. Their horses were munching in their feed bags, unaware of what was the mournful occasion of their day’s journey.