Thursday, April 30, 2009

2009 Lincoln Pilgrimage

Every year at the end of April boy scouts from all over the United States come to Springfield, Illinois to parade from Lincoln's tomb to the Old State Capitol where Lincoln often worked when he lived here. The day before, many scouts participate in a trek from New Salem to Springfield, a walk of nearly 30 kilometers (almost 20 miles).


Here is Johnny Smith carrying the American flag at the end of the pilgrimage, near the corner of Jefferson and 6th.



Here is a view of the scouts marching through the streets of Springfield on their way between the tomb and the historic center of the city.




Here are the scouts leaving the cemetery where they assembled at Lincoln's tomb. One boy or girl from each troop or pack carries an American flag at the head of the parade.
















Here is Sebastian marching in the parade.














This is Sebastian the night before the parade, when he was cleaning up dishes after dinner out at the campground in New Salem.














Here I am, one of the assistant scoutmasters.

5 comments:

EnjoyIllinois said...

Great to see all the Bicentennial activities in Springfield.

I really like the first shot of the scouts holding up the American flags.

If you're up to it, I'd like to post the photo to our Flickr page at Enjoy Illinois, brought to you by the Illinois Bureau of Tourism.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/enjoyillinois/

We'll of course give you full credit and will list your blog in the photo's caption. -- Roland

Eric Hadley-Ives said...

Glad to help anything to bring more people to Illinois and Springfield. Permission is granted to use any of my images in any way you like, Roland.

Eric Hadley-Ives said...

Roland,
That is a fantastic collection of images. I'm so glad you shared your link here.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/enjoyillinois/

EnjoyIllinois said...

Thanks for the comments, Eric! Glad we found you. -- Roland

EnjoyIllinois said...

Eric, you can found two of your photos at these links:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/enjoyillinois/3544080152/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photo/enjoyillinois/3544080440/in/photostream/

If you have a Flickr account, let us know and we can link them back to you.

Sorry we couldn't link back to your blog! Turns out Flickr doesn't let you posts URL's in photo captions. Again, my apologies.