Killing Lincoln - Nat Geo (Reactions)

[Linda Anderson]

(02-23-2013 10:57 PM)John E. Wrote:  John, Robinson's statement has puzzled me, too, but I think that Seward's bedroom was in the southwest corner of the house facing Lafayette Square.

Linda,

I think the sketch is wrong. Seward was in the southwest corner and his son on the northwest corner. Take a look at the diagram again and compare it to photos of the house. You can see that there were three windows on the top floor, not two.


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You're right, John. Pelz left out the center window in the front as Laurie points out in Post 66. In Seward's time there were probably two windows in his bedroom overlooking Lafayette Park to the west and another overlooking Pennsyvania Avenue to the south. Pelz's diagram shows the house after the Blaines added six windows on the south side in 1889.

This is the photograph that is most often used to show Seward's house but it was taken after the Blaines added the six windows. See Seward: Lincoln's Indispensible Man illustration 17 for a photograph that shows the Seward house when the Sewards lived there.

Here are two aerial views of Lafayette Square showing the Seward house in Seward's time. The kitchen and the stable are in the back yard. Thanks, Betty, for sending these to me.



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