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Houmes · (This post was last modified: 04-02-2015 06:41 AM by Houmes.)

(04-01-2015 01:30 PM)STS Lincolnite Wrote:
(04-01-2015 01:16 PM)RJNorton Wrote: The copy I posted came from a .pdf file that Betty sent me last year entitled "Lincoln's Death Certificate - Excerpts from newspapers and other sources - From the files of the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection." Angela, where did you find yours?

Does it look like James Matheny signed it? I am a little confused if he did as the web page here says Matheny retired as clerk of the Sangamon County Circuit Court in December 1856. So why would he sign as clerk in 1865.

Then maybe it's my eyes - it looks like "Matheny" to me. Maybe some younger eyes than mine can tell.

(Matheney was the gentleman who was best man at the Lincolns' wedding in 1842.)

It looks more to me like "N. W. Matheny" (so not James Matheny). Noah W. Matheny also served as a clerk in Sangamon County at one time. He is probably related to James in some way though I can't say how. I did a quick search and found this bio...haven't had time to read it but maybe it will provide some answers.

http://sangamon.illinoisgenweb.org/1904/mathenyn.htm

That isn't James Matheny's handwriting or signature. Lincoln dealer Norman Boas published a very fine book in 2009 titled Abraham Lincoln: Illustrated Biographical Dictionary Family and Associates 1809-1861. Virtually every entry in the 490 page book has a sample of handwriting and signature.

(03-31-2015 07:35 PM)Jim Garrett Wrote: Yes indeed, Herb Collins (retired curator emeritus of the political collection said that at one time, Lincoln's blood was in the Smithsonian. I believe that Herb read this in a early annual report from maybe the turn of the century. The Smithsonian also had the boat that Booth and Herold crossed the Potomac in. No one at the Smithsonian today can say what has happened to either. The Smithsonian digitized the assention (sp) cards and the dessention (sp) cards. This process was not an exact science and the digitized cards do not have any info on those items and the original cards are in deep storage and in disarray.

Would that be blood preserved in a bottle or merely blood-stained relics? Most embalmers during the Civil War--and ones today--usually send blood down the nearest drain. If the Smithsonian and the Army Medical Museum (the latter collected everything back then) have no samples of his brain, why would they collect a bottle of blood?