A replica of President Abraham Lincoln’s custom-made coffin is on center stage at the Manteca Historical Museum.

One of five replicas made a decade ago by the Batesville Casket Company of Indiana, it was built based on the “only known surviving 1865 photograph of the one in which President Lincoln is shown lying in state,” said Scott E. Gatze of P.L. Fry & Son who came up with this idea as the topic for the next monthly program at the museum set for Thursday, Aug. 9 at 7 p.m.

Gatze, who is also on the board of directors of the museum, said some people consider the subject “morbid.” However, the program and the display is intended to be educational and informative because not only will it be a discussion on The Great Emancipator’s coffin but on the history of embalming and why Lincoln’s death is intertwined with it, he said.

Gatze said Lincoln’s death on April 15, 1865 marked the beginning of modern-day funeral services. His body had to be embalmed for the nearly two-week funeral train from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Ohio, where he was buried on May 4, 1865.

Before the Civil War, embalming was not being done at all. Ice was used to allow the body to be viewed for an extended period of time. But during the Civil War, the bodies of dead soldiers had to be embalmed so they could be transported home and families were able to “received their loved one in good state” before the burial. The embalming technique that was used on the body of the late president was the same one that was used on the deceased soldierrs, Gatze explained.

Prior to that time, people considered embalming as a “barbaric violation of the body,” he said. But Lincoln’s funeral changed all that perception. Large crowds of mourners turned out for the public viewing at each of the major stops along the funeral route from D.C. to Springfield. The experience “introduced the population to the benefits of embalming,” Gatze said. “It made (embalming) popular. Mourners were able to see the late president for 20 days and embalming made it possible. Over one million people were educated” from that experience.

Here’s another trivia about Lincoln’s coffin. It is not a casket. And herein lies – no pun intended – the difference. A casket has just four sides. A coffin is diamond-shaped and has six sides.

It is also one of the four replica coffins that are on traveling display throughout the country. The fifth one is part of the permanent collection at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois.

In addition to the Lincoln coffin, the museum display which will run Aug. 5-30 will include “old funeral artifacts” including items that were used for embalming.

Included in the program on Aug. 9 will be a talk on the history of P.L. Fry & Son Funeral Home which partnered with the historical museum for this month’s display. This part of the evening program will be given by Ken Summers, a managing partner of P.L. Fry & Son whose great-grandfather, P.L. Fry, and grandfather Paul Fry, started the business in 1932. Summers became manager after his grandmother, the late Lucille O. Fry, retired.

The museum’s monthly program is open to the public. Admission is free.

The museum is located at 600 West Yosemite Avenue, corner of Sequoia Street. It is open Tuesday and Wednesday from noon to 3 p.m., and Thursday and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.