Contents of Lincoln's pocket

[Anita]

Thanks Roger. Just ordered Reck's book.

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After reading Donna's post #4 I found this article on the Lincoln watch owned by the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort. The ticking sound of the watch was used in the movie Lincoln. In the article, Trevor Jones, the society's director of museum collections and exhibitions is quoted. Seems there's no direct provenance this watch watch was the one he carried that night.

" The timepiece — described by the society in its record as a "yellow gold key-wind hunting-case pocket watch" with a porcelain dial — was bought at Tiffany and Co. about 1860 and would have been a high-end, expensive piece.

"This fact makes it probable that Lincoln either purchased it or it was a gift after he became president," Jones wrote. "We do not know how often he used it, but he definitely owned it during the Civil War."

The watch carries the inscription of its maker, "J. Jacqueson, Copenhagen." It has a chain, and an attached fob has the gold initials "AL" in onyx.

There has been some speculation that the watch was carried by Lincoln on the night of his assassination.

"We have not been able to find any evidence to support this assertion," Jones wrote, "but the contents of Lincoln's pockets from that night do not include a watch, so it is at least possible."

After Lincoln's death in 1865, his son Robert inherited the watch. Robert gave it to his cousin Benjamin Hardin Helm Jr. In 1943, Helm presented the watch as a birthday gift to a leading Lincoln authority, William H. Townsend, who passed it to his daughter Mary Townsend Murphy. The Murphy family gave it to the society in 2002, Jones said.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/entertainment/mo...89515.html