The Spur Question

[L Verge]

(02-12-2018 12:49 PM)Rsmyth Wrote:  Just because Dr. Leale said later in life that he invented CPR does not make him full of beans about everything else he did and said.

In your research on various artifacts related to the Lincoln assassination, Rich, what did you determine about the provenance of this spur at the Naval Academy? I know that you and Jim Garrett worked together a lot, and Jim has already posted that a spur expert that he dealt with pooh-poohed the spur as even being of the right era.

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As a side note: It is amazing the amount of relics/artifacts/antiques that are still out there with families who have inherited them, along with stories. Within the past month, I have corresponded with a very nice gentleman who owns a boot scraper that comes with the story that it was originally at a "house related to the Lincoln assassination." That gives one three possible leads right off the bat -- Petersen House, the Surratt boardinghouse, and the Seward home.

The logical starting place with the best records was Petersen's, so I contacted the collections manager for the NPS at Ford's. After searching the files, she could find only a ca. 1920 postcard showing a boot scraper, but it did not match the one in the photo that the gentleman had sent me. I also found out from her, however, that there had been an incident years ago where a car took off the lower portion of the steps at Petersen's -- where any boot scraper would likely have been.

I do not have any inclination to hunt down the prospects of the boot scraper ever being at the boardinghouse. The Seward home, of course, was demolished many moons ago. It is safe to assume that both sites had boot scrapers, but even if we had photographic proof, it would be nearly impossible to prove that this orphan boot scraper actually belonged to either, imo.

Second case: Last week, I was in communication with a woman out West whose family has passed down a rather fierce looking door knocker - what appears to be jungle cat with a snake in its mouth, the snake being the knocker. Her ancestor participated in the demolition of the old penitentiary where the conspirators were housed during the 1865 trial. He claimed that this door knocker was on Mrs. Surratt's cell door. I immediately said that I was not aware of cells having door knockers, and the lady said that supposedly the doors to female cells did for privacy.

Knowing that Betty O and Barry Cauchon (both of this forum) had worked with the military on the recent restoration of the courtroom at what is now Ft. McNair, I immediately turned to them for help. Betty had never heard anything like this, but Barry went a step further and actually shared some of his research. I was amazed to find out that the penitentiary was the architectural work of Charles Bulfinch, the acclaimed capital city architect of yore. Further, however, Barry supplied the Harper's engraving of the cell block at the time of the trial, and an enlargement showed the cell doors being solid at the bottom half, but open with bars at the top half. He then sent file photos from other early prisons showing the same types of doors, including the famous Sing Sing, but also the penitentiary at Albany, which is where the four conspirators whose lives were spared were originally sentenced to serve their time -- until Sec. Stanton wanted them a little more difficult to get to and changed the destination to Ft. Jefferson.

In a nutshell, I had to disappoint another descendant, but I tried to be nice and suggest that perhaps the knocker came from another building (a residence?) on the old penitentiary grounds. Both owners of these relics were very gracious.