The Willard Hotel

[RJNorton]

Laurie, I do not know if this is the same story, but I found this on pp. 70-71 of Lincoln's Secretary: A Biography of John G. Nicolay by Helen Nicolay:

"Lincoln’s slippers had been left behind in his luggage when he departed suddenly for Washington. Ernest B. Furgurson wrote in Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War, “This set off Willard’s first test as host to the incoming president. His own slippers would not do for Lincoln; Abe’s feet were too big. Nor could Willard think of any guest whose slippers might fit. Then he remembered that his wife’s grandfather, seventy-eight-year-old former congressman William Czar Bradley, who was visiting at Willard’s house across the street, had ‘a good large foot.’ The old man was delighted to have the honor of lending his slippers to a Republican he greatly admired, and so Lincoln wore them for days, perhaps weeks, before returning them with a note of appreciation."