This was
in accordance with the wishes of the Continental Congress, which, in
1776, had voted the beautiful cenotaph to his memory that now stands
in the wall of St. Paul's Church, fronting Broadway. When the funeral
cortege reached Whitehall, N. Y., the fleet stationed there received
them with appropriate honors; and on the 4th of July they arrived in
Albany. After lying in state in that city over Sunday, the remains
were taken to New York, and on Wednesday deposited, with military
honors, in their final resting place, at St. Paul's. Governor Clinton
had informed Mrs. Montgomery of the hour when the steamer 'Richmond,'
conveying the body, would pass her home. At her own request, she stood
alone on the portico. It was forty years since she had parted from her
husband, to whom she had been wedded but two years when he fell on the
heights of Quebec; yet she had remained faithful to the memory of her
'soldier,' as she always called him. The steamboat halted before the
mansion; the band played the 'Dead March,' and a salute was fired; and
the ashes of the venerated hero, and the departed husband, passed on.
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