Like his presidency, President Abraham Lincoln's funeral set the standard for all funerals to come.
That's why more than 150 years after his assassination, Charleston's Barlow Bonsall Funeral Home wants to celebrate Lincoln's life and the influence of his death.
On Sunday, Lincoln's birthday, a replica of his coffin will be on display at the funeral home at 1118 Virginia St. East from 12 to 5 p.m., along with a Lincoln life mask by West Virginia Wesleyan College historian Brett Miller.
Historian Todd Van Beck will speak on Lincoln's assassination from 1 to 3 p.m.
The replica is one of a few produced by the Indiana-based Batesville Casket Company.
Barlow Bonsall Vice President Wayne Johnson said the display is a chance for people to remember an important figure of the past and how much his death affected people.
"It was the biggest funeral anyone had ever seen at the time," Johnson said.
That claim is backed up by Van Beck's report on Lincoln's assassination and funeral, which said Lincoln had "the largest, most impressive funeral" ever seen in the United States. Outside of the burials of ancient Egyptian pharaohs, his funeral was the largest ever witnessed in history when it was held, according to the report.
The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History website said approximately 25 million Americans attended memorial services for Lincoln held across the country on April 19, 1865. Two days later, the train carrying Lincoln's coffin embarked on a journey from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Illinois, making several stops for public viewing of the coffin.
Barlow Bonsall was a furniture and coffin manufacturer during the Civil War. It became a funeral home in 1875, ten years after Lincoln's assassination.