The National Lincoln Monument Association hides Abraham…

The National Lincoln Monument Association hides Abraham Lincoln's body in another part of the memorial, first under wood and other debris and then buried in the ground within the tomb, after two Chicago criminals fail  in an attempt to steal the corpse on November 7, 1876, and hold it for ransom.

A group of Springfield citizens had formed the National Lincoln Monument Association on April 15, 1865, the day President Lincoln died, and spearheaded a drive for funds to construct a memorial or tomb.

Upon arrival of the funeral train on May 3, Lincoln lay in state in the Illinois State Capitol for one night.

After the funeral the next day, his coffin was placed in a receiving vault at Oak Ridge Cemetery, the site Mrs. Lincoln requested for burial.

In December, her husband's remains were removed to a temporary vault not far from the proposed memorial site.

The location of the temporary vault is today marked with a small granite marker on the hill behind the current tomb.

The body of Lincoln and those of the three youngest of his sons were placed in crypts in the unfinished structure in 1871, three years after laborers had begun constructing the tomb.

Upon completion of the memorial, which had been designed by Larkin Goldsmith Mead, Lincoln's remains had been interred in a marble sarcophagus in the center of a chamber known as the "catacombs," or burial room, in 1874.