S. Ind. mortuary with Lincoln ties gets new owners

VINCENNES, Ind. — A southwestern Indiana funeral home considered the state’s oldest and where Abraham Lincoln sometimes overnighted is back in local hands after being sold by a Texas company.

Vincennes’ Goodwin Funeral Home recently bought the Gardner-Brockman Funeral Home from Houston-based Service Corporation International. Co-owner Tim Goodwin tells the Vincennes Sun-Commercial the company plans to renovate the brick building, which was built between 1795 and 1822.

Andrew Gardner founded the Gardner Funeral Home in 1816 and moved it to its current location in 1916.

One of the mortuary’s casket-selection rooms carries a brass plate proclaiming it the Lincoln Room. Lincoln would periodically stay in that former bedroom in the mid-1800s when it was a residence owned by Col. Cyrus McCracken Allen, a friend who was Indiana House speaker.