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+--- Thread: White House photo during Lincoln mourning (/thread-1424.html)
White House photo during Lincoln mourning - Rhatkinson - 01-06-2014 04:41 PM
This picture is new to me and may be new to some of you as well. It is from the White House Journal that the WH Historical Society puts out. There is no specific date (other than 1865), but based upon the fact that mourning colors are only partially up/down on the windows, it is BELIEVED to be a photo taken on the last day that Mary Lincoln lived in the White House. The buggy shown is believed to be the one that took Mary, Tad, and Elizabeth Keckley to the train station.
It's a haunting picture.
Heath
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RE: White House photo during Lincoln mourning - Rsmyth - 01-06-2014 05:45 PM
That is very cool. Didn't Mary's doctor and friend accompany them? I assume a wagon was filled with Mary's clothes.
RE: White House photo during Lincoln mourning - RJNorton - 01-07-2014 05:19 AM
Heath, thanks for posting that poignant photo. I had no idea such an image existed.
Rich, I have read that Mary was accompanied by Robert and Tad, her two good friends, Dr. Anson Henry (doctor and personal friend of the Lincoln family) and Elizabeth Keckley, and by two White House guards, Thomas Cross and William Crook. The train ride to Chicago took 54 hours, and Mary spent much of it crying. The rest of the time she was in a daze and hardly ever spoke to anyone. Her grief was still overwhelming. They had a private car on the train.
Sadly, a few months later, on July 30, 1865, Dr. Henry drowned when the steamer Brother Jonathan, on which he was a passenger, sank off the coast of northern California.
RE: White House photo during Lincoln mourning - Rhatkinson - 01-07-2014 11:43 AM
I wonder if the coachman who is pictured is Francis Burke, who drove the Lincoln's to Ford's?
Note also the rampway leading out of the East Room window just beside the carriage. This is actually evidence that the picture may have been made when the bunting was being put UP (not down), as those ramps were used to allow people to exit the East Room after Lincoln's funeral and lying in state. Still, it may still have been in place when Mary left.
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RE: White House photo during Lincoln mourning - Jim Garrett - 01-08-2014 11:20 PM
Heath, that is a great picture. and a great question about is that Burke. There is a great story about Burke's predecessor. AL had asked him one morning if he would go around the corner and get a newspaper. The carriage driver, feeling it was below his noble station, responded to the President that it wasn't his job. The next morning, AL told the driver he needed to have the carriage ready first thing in the morning. This entailed brushing the horse(s), picking out their hooves, putting on the harnesses and all the accoutrements, hitching up the carriage and bringing it around to the north portico.........So the president could go around the corner and get a newspaper. Then unhitch the carriage, take off the harnesses, brush off the horses, and put them back in their stalls.
RE: White House photo during Lincoln mourning - RJNorton - 01-09-2014 01:21 PM
The Lincolns seemed to have continual issues with the coachmen and stable personnel. On February 10, 1864, the White House stable caught fire. John Nicolay wrote to John Hay, "Put crepe on your hat. Tonight, at about 8:30, while Cooper was gone to his supper, the stables took fire and burned down. The carriages and coupe alone were saved - everything else went - six horses, including the President's, ours, and Tad's two ponies..."
There was a strong suspicion that Patterson McGee, a coachman who had been fired by Mary Lincoln on the day of the fire, was responsible for the blaze. However, despite being arrested, the evidence against McGee was insufficient, and he was released.