Abraham Lincoln
Bristol, Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
On Feb. 21, 1861, the train carrying the President-elect from Springfield, Ill., to his Inauguration in Washington, D.C., stopped briefly near this point. Mr. Lincoln appeared on the rear platform and spoke to the assembled crowd, estimated at more than a thousand people.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
On February 21, 1861, the train carrying President-elect Abraham Lincoln from Springfield toward his inauguration in Washington paused near this point in Bristol, where he stepped onto the rear platform to greet a crowd of more than a thousand. His long, winding journey east came in the tense weeks after Southern states had begun to secede, and such whistle-stop appearances let anxious citizens glimpse the untested leader on whom the Union's fate now rested.
Why it matters
Lincoln's inaugural journey was a fragile, public passage into a presidency that would decide whether the nation held together, and moments like this one connected ordinary Americans to that unfolding crisis.
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Related people
- · Abraham Lincoln
Related events
- · Lincoln's inaugural journey (1861)
Themes & tags
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