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+--- Thread: Fred Petersen "sold" relics (/thread-750.html)
Fred Petersen "sold" relics - Rhatkinson - 03-16-2013 08:43 AM
I hope everyone at the Surratt meeting is well. I am jealous I could not attend.
Anyway, I just finished "Lincoln's Last Battleground" and read where Fred Petersen sold several scraps of paper blotted in Lincoln's blood with an inscription of the same in his hand on the morning of the 15th before he realized how unseemly that appeared. (Although since he got his samples from the main hall floor, I would bet that it was actually Rathbone's blood, but who knows.)
Are any of these relics known to survive?
Heath
RE: Fred Petersen "sold" relics - RJNorton - 03-16-2013 12:32 PM
I could try contacting Robert Bain and see if he knows anything about the relics. I exchanged a few messages with him many years ago; at that time he was trying to sell a coverlet from the Petersen House that he said had been in his family all these years. (As I recall Rich Smyth once told me the coverlet went missing after it was on display in Springfield for the 50th anniversary of Lincoln's death; thus there may be questions on the provenance of what Robert Bain told me he has.) If I receive a reply from Robert Bain I will post it here.
RE: Fred Petersen "sold" relics - LincolnMan - 03-16-2013 07:41 PM
I would think the blood was actually Rathbone's.
RE: Fred Petersen "sold" relics - Wesley Harris - 03-16-2013 09:13 PM
I check some of the auction house sites periodically and have seen numerous blood-stained articles from the assassination offered for sale. Don't know if any of them came from Peterson.
Some examples:
http://www.cowanauctions.com/auctions/item.aspx?itemid=58934
http://historical.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=6014&lotIdNo=6256
RE: Fred Petersen "sold" relics - Rsmyth - 03-16-2013 10:00 PM
A few years ago Bain had a buyer for the coverlet. Gloria Swift (Fords) saw what I believe was a picture of it and doubted its authenticity. The item was then taken off the market.
RE: Fred Petersen "sold" relics - J. Beckert - 03-16-2013 11:37 PM
Twenty Days , which was written in the 1960's, stated the coverlet has been missing since it was displayed for Lincoln's 100th. birthday in 1909.
RE: Fred Petersen "sold" relics - Jim Garrett - 03-17-2013 12:50 PM
The picture of the coverlet in "Lincoln's Last Battleground" appears different than the coverlet in "Twenty Days". That doesn't mean there couldn't be two coverlets on the bed. Rich and I have been unable to find the coverlet from "Twenty Days".
As for the Bloody Relics originating from Fred Petersen, I've never seen one. I believe just about every bloody relic on the market in the last few years have been on cloth.
RE: Fred Petersen "sold" relics - Rsmyth - 03-21-2013 11:36 AM
Piece of paper taken from the house of Mr Peterson on 10th street,
on which is some of the blood of Pres. Lincoln; with affidavit by C. H. Morse, Apr. 15, 1865. This is from the Oliver Barrett collection auctioned in 1952.
RE: Fred Petersen "sold" relics - Lincoln Wonk - 03-21-2013 01:10 PM
There's also a much-later report from Charles "Carley" Petersen saying someone offered him $10 for a very small piece of towel stained with the president's blood, but he said his father thought it unseemly to sell it.
It's much more likely that the towel carried the president's blood, because the doctors used towels and napkins in the death room. It's less likely that the blood Fred blotted up from the hallway is the president's, because multiple witnesses reported Mr. Lincoln did not bleed much until he was lying in the bed. But Rathbone bleed profusely before and after he fainted in the front hallway. In fact, his future wife, Clara Harris, probably saved his life when she wrapped a handkerchief around his wound to stay the flow of blood.