Ashtabula Bridge Disaster memorial lithograph drawn by W. J. Morgan & Co. of Cleveland, Ohio.
The following is the official summary of the memorial services as recorded in the Ashtabula County archives:
A choice spot in the beautiful village cemetery was chosen for the interment of the unrecognized dead. No more loving ceremonial could have been performed for them by those who were bound to them by the closest ties of nature than was performed by the citizens of Ashtabula. The business houses were closed. All flocked to the house of God to pay fitting tribute to the dead. Services were held in the Methodist church and in St. Peter's. Discourses truly eloquent, because eloquent with sympathy the profoundest the human heart can feel, were delivered; prayers were uttered, sad requiems chanted. A procession was then formed, with a prominent citizen as marshal, followed by the clergy, by the members of the Masonic fraternity, then by friends of the dead, then by St. Joseph's society, by the Ashtabula light guard, by the Ashtabula light artillery, and by citizens generally. The procession, which was an imposing one, and was more than a mile long, slowly marched to the cemetery, and the nineteen coffins containing the charred remains of those whose souls were so suddenly transferred from time to eternity were lowered to the receptacles prepared for them.
Return to the Ashtabula Bridge Disaster Page