76 Grand Marquis no fire

I was given a 76 Grand Marquis, it has the 351M engine in it, and now I'm trying to get it to crank. This is my first experience with a Mercury (except my boat motor, but that's another Mercury!) and I'm not sure where to start troubleshooting this problem. Here is the history of what I have run into so far. Day one I decided to just see if it would crank to put it on the trailer because that would have been so much easier. It tried to fire once and that was it. Upon a little inspection I noticed that during my efforts to crank it the ignition control module melted. The backing of it melted anyway, can't tell if the board fried or not, but I feel sure it did. I thought for sure that this was the problem so I pulled one off a donor Mercury. I am still not getting any fire at all. I did check voltage to the coil and am getting good readings there. Any ideas on where I should start troubleshooting? Maybe the donor ICM is bad also? Any help is tremendously appreciated. This was my Grandfather-in-Law's car which he dearly loved. He gave it to me after he had a stroke because he knew he would never be able to work on it again (paralyzed) and now he has altzheimers. I just want to get the old car going again to show him my appreciation for such a thoughtful gift as soon as I can before his health gets to the point where he won't be able to ride in it. Thanks again.

Just an update on what I figured out today. The coil was bad. I researched the net and found a way to test the coil and determined that it was bad. Then I scounged around and found an old coil that I had stashed away, hooked it up and got the old car to run for a few seconds. I'm having to pour gas into the carb to get it going because it doesn't have a drop on gas in the tank, at least I hope it doesn't and the gauge is reading dead empty. I tapped on the tank a few times and it sounded empty, then I poured a very small amount in and could hear liquid moving around when I tapped the tank again. Within the next couple of days I'll go fill up a can and put enough gas in to see if it will draw it by itself. At least it fired up though, thats a major step in the right direction!