Program

NYS Historic

Subject

Event

Location

20 N Main St, Jordan, NY 13080, USA

Lat/Long

43.0667475, -76.4744246

Grant Recipient

Village of Jordan

On the evening of April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theater by John Wilkes Booth. Mortally wounded, Lincoln was transported across the street to the Petersen House, where in the early morning hours of April 15 he passed away. A few days later, on April 21, 1865, Lincoln’s body began the long trek from Washington D.C. to its final resting place in Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln’s funeral train made several stops in different communities along the way, with thousands people paying their respects. On April 27, 1865, as Lincoln’s Funeral train passed through the village Jordan, New York, soldiers from the 3rd New York Artillery fired a cannonball at an elm tree to honor the slain commander and chief. In a February 17, 1909 letter to the curator of the Petersen House in Washington D.C., farmer Isaac Otis describes the tree and the events that transpired that day:

I have on my farm, in the Corporation of the Village of Jordan, an Elm tree about one hundred twenty feet in height and eighteen feet in circumference, situated in the open, with nothing to obstruct the view of it. It is eighty feet from the ground to first limb, has a fine solid top, and is considered very handsome. At the time Lincoln’s body was transported from Washington over the New York Central Railroad, a portion of the third New York Artillery were home on furlough. One of them wished fire a ball at the tree when the train passed. I consented. The train passed at sundown. A six pound ball was fired. The projectile striking the tree about in the center, some twenty feet from the ground and penetrating some eighteen inches, where is still remains. Enclosed find a card showing the tree.

Isaac Otis passed away in 1912, but the massive elm tree remained. It stood until 1935 when the decision was made to cut the tree down. The October 9, 1935 edition of the Marcellus Observer explains:

The high wind of Sunday evening demolished half of the top from the historical Lincoln Elm on the High School grounds, leaving the other half in a dangerous condition. And the School Board has decided to have the famous Elm tree cut down.

When the tree was cut down and processed, the old cannonball was rediscovered.

As of 2021, the cannonball, partially incased by a piece of the elm tree, was on display in local museum housed in the Horace W. Whitely Community Center.