How many times was the coffin of US President Abraham Lincoln moved after he was assassinated on April 14, 1865?

Mr. Lincoln died on April 15, 1865. He lay in state in Washington, DC until his funeral train left for Springfield, Illinois, on April 21. After passing through 444 communities in seven states, his coffin reached Oak Ridge Cemetery on May 4. There, it went into a receiving vault, then a temporary vault, a temporary crypt, and finally to a sarcophagus in a catacomb, on May 24.

On November 7, 1876, Counterfeiter James Kennally hatched a plot to rob the assassinated president’s grave and hold the body for ransom. But “Big Jim” was unaware that two men he enlisted to help were paid informants. The graverobbers were caught in the act of removing the coffin from the sarcophagus.

Subsequently, the coffin was moved for various reasons, including suspected theft attempts, to improve the location, to identify Mr. Lincoln’s remains (five times), and to secure the coffin. The last time it was seen was on September, 1930, when it was sealed in a steel cage and buried 10 feet beneath the catacomb floor, in concrete. An empty sarcophagus was placed in front of the burial site.

In 1931, it was replaced by a granite marker during the second reconstruction of the site. Mary Todd Lincoln and their children, Eddie, Willie, and Todd, also were buried more than once at the Oak Ridge complex, and were laid to rest for the last time in the 1931 revision.