William Warren Durgin and the Abe Lincoln connection

A cousin of Ted L Durgan

William Warren Durgin ::-Source: Newspaper Article. Obit . Stoneham Maine. Lincoln;s Pallbearer. William Warren Durgin, Civil War veteran known almost world wide. was the last surviving member of the company of 40 Escorts and Guards of Honor which accompanied the remains of President Lincoln from Washington, D.C.to Springfield, Illinois and one of the eight Orderly Sergeants to bear them to their final resting place in the tomb there.

Mr. Durgin, son of Levi and Sarah (Parker)Durgin, was born in North Stoneham in 1839. At the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted in Company G., First Maine Regiment, serving the three months there, after which he enlisted in Company K, Ninth Maine, where he was rapidly promoted to the rank of Orderly Sergeant and where he served for the remainder of the war, distinguishing himself by deeds of courage and bravery.

When it became necessary to select the body of escorts for the remains of President Lincoln on their final journey, which body must necessarily be the pick of the army, his superior officers declared Orderly Sergeant Durgin to be "just the man" to help make up the number. In the companythere were three naval Officers, 25 orderly sergeants, three lieutenants, one captain, and eight generals.

In private life Mr. Durgin followed the occupation of spool maker and farmer.living in Stoneham and Lovell. He assisted Judge Whitman of Norway writing a history of Oxford County and other similar writings.

William Warren. Durgin was a great great uncle to Mrs.Hallie Harriman, Lovell, Mrs. John Grover, Sr.,East Stoneham, and Mrs. Winifred Bickford and Mrs. Muriel Brown of Norway , Mrs Hester Mann, South Paris, Mrs.Isma Bachelder, Orlando, Florida . Mr. Durgin died in the early 1930's at the age of 92.

For a number of years Mr. Durgin lived alone in West Stoneham, but at the time of his death, he lived with Mrs. Stella McKeen in North Lovell.

Source: "Biological Review,Leading Citizens of Franklin & Oxford Counties, Maine, 1897." William Warren Durgin was given a good practical education in the common schools. He went to work at farming and lumbering when seventeen years of age, and was steadily employed thereat until his twenty second year, when he responded to the call of his country for me to defend the Union.



Durgin and Lincoln Train

He enlisted April 25, 1861, in Co. G, First Maine Infantry under Capt. George L. Beal, of Norway, and Col. N. J. Jackson. After serving three months he returned home and reinlisted in Co. K, Ninth Maine Infantry.

This company participated in the capture of Port Royal, S.C.; of Fernandin Fla.; of St. Mary's, Georgia; of Talbert Island,Fla. ;and of Yellow Bluff in the St. John's River. In July 1863, Mr .Durgin was transferred from the Ninth Maine Infantry to the tenth Regiment of the Veteran Reserves, being assigned to Company F. In the spring of 1864 he re-enlisted, joining the same company and regiment. He was promoted to the rank of Orderly Sergeant while in Company K, and retained his rank when transferred to Co. F.

He has today more a forcible reminder of his term of military service than his commission, for he was wounded in the ankle, and suffers yet from the hurt. When President Lincoln was assassinated Sergeant Durgin, then in the veteran reserve force, was immediately called into action.

He was one of the military bearers who escorted the body of the President to the rotunda of the Capitol,and was one of the guard of honor that accompanied the remains to Springfield, Ill.

Lincoln casket Ohio State House on way to Illinois

 

He is the proud possesor of a medal presented to him on that occasion, one of twenty nine in the whole United States, and the only one in Maine. He was one of the guards who surounded Mrs Surratt's house, the alleged place of rendezvous for the conspiraters . - He also retains a vivid recollection of the excitement caused by the news that Booth had been shot by Sergeant Corbett on Garrett's farm , near Port Royal on the Rappahannock.

After serving all four years of the War was Casket bearer for Abe Lincoln and was one of the men who helped lower him in the ground.in the old Days they tied ropes to the casket and used man power to lower the casket in the ground.. A large monument was placed at his grave by the G.A.R.

By Theda Skocpol, Author and Harvard University Professor: I start with an anecdote, a story about a place where I live each summer, Maine. It was once part of Massachusetts. My husband Bill was traveling the back roads one summer day and found a cemetery in the woods and was told of the gravestone of William Warren Durgin.

The surprises contained there symbolized the ironies in civic life. It's a slab that towers over all the others. The man turns out to have been a sergeant in the union army. He was a pallbearer chosen to escort Lincoln's remains. The stone indicated he was the commander of his GAR post. It said POH, or Patrons of Husbandry, for the Grange, one of the first gender-integrated associations. There were three loops intertwined, indicating he was a member of the Odd Fellows, the fraternal organization. This man, who had been a participant in a great military and political moment, thought it was important to be a member of these organizations and to put them on his gravestone. He was a farmer and a very poor man and proud of all of these involvements.

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