Most valuable missing assassination relic

[RJNorton]

(04-13-2014 07:16 PM)Peter Taltavul Wrote:  Having not been here for a long long time - and the subject probably covered in another area - there are so many relics that can be named. For me - though relic may be the wrong term to use - would be the death photo of JWB. It is taken on the order Stanton and then confiscated. Would he have it taken just to destroy it later? Being the eternal optimist that I am can't stop thinking that it may exist - packed away in some box - in some archives - unlabeled - just waiting for someone to find it.

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Having jumped around in the forum it seems that my choice for the 'best relic" has been squashed. LV posted last month that the evidence is that no photo was taken of Booth's body. Glad to be corrected, but sure sad to be wrong.

Hi Peter and welcome back. Please go here for an in-depth thread on this topic.

[jreagon]

My vote would be for the coverlet that was on Lincoln's death bed. My recollection of particulars is that it was around for a time and then came up missing, which to my understanding it is still. There are photos, but no coverlet.
Am I right about this?

Jerry Eagon

[RJNorton]

(04-14-2014 07:27 PM)jreagon Wrote:  My vote would be for the coverlet that was on Lincoln's death bed. My recollection of particulars is that it was around for a time and then came up missing, which to my understanding it is still. There are photos, but no coverlet.
Am I right about this?
Jerry Eagon

Hi Jerry. We had some discussion of this "coverlet issue" in another thread. Please go here.

[jreagon]

(04-15-2014 04:12 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(04-14-2014 07:27 PM)jreagon Wrote:  My vote would be for the coverlet that was on Lincoln's death bed. My recollection of particulars is that it was around for a time and then came up missing, which to my understanding it is still. There are photos, but no coverlet.
Am I right about this?
Jerry Eagon

Hi Jerry. We had some discussion of this "coverlet issue" in another thread. Please go here.

Thanks Roger. Evidently it is indeed still missing.
There were also chairs by the death bed. I've never read what became if them. Are they still somewhere to be found?
Thanks again
Jerry

[Jim Garrett]

(04-15-2014 06:50 AM)jreagon Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 04:12 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(04-14-2014 07:27 PM)jreagon Wrote:  My vote would be for the coverlet that was on Lincoln's death bed. My recollection of particulars is that it was around for a time and then came up missing, which to my understanding it is still. There are photos, but no coverlet.
Am I right about this?
Jerry Eagon

Hi Jerry. We had some discussion of this "coverlet issue" in another thread. Please go here.

Thanks Roger. Evidently it is indeed still missing.
There were also chairs by the death bed. I've never read what became if them. Are they still somewhere to be found?
Thanks again
Jerry

The Chicago Historical Society has the bed, bureau, two prints from the walls, a brass wall sconce and two chairs from Willie Clark's room.

[L Verge]

Are all of these pieces on view to the public in Chicago? I hope they are and are appreciated there because I frankly think they should be at the Petersen House.

[Rsmyth]

Laurie, unfortunately there is about as much chance of that happening as Ford's getting the rocker back or Egypt the Rosetta stone etc.
CHS also has:
• Bloody sheet from the Petersen house – On April 21st, 1865, Frank T. Sands, the President’s undertaker gave the sheet to General Superintendent of the Quartermaster Department, Thomas Thompson who was responsible for the funeral’s surplus goods. Samuel Bridge obtained the sheet from Thompson. Bridge’s wife Julia, who sold the sheet to collector Charles Gunther in 1893. It was accompanied by a letter from Julia:

“Sir, I send you by express today the sheet upon which our lamented Lincoln died on. The blood stains are the true blood of A. Lincoln.
• A feather bolster from Lincoln’s deathbed was obtained by the CHS from the heirs of Louise A. Petersen (Mrs. Charles Rector), daughter of William Petersen accompanied by a note: “I shall shortly deliver to you the picture that was in the room when President Lincoln died and a bolster that was on the bed which he lay…They will come as a gift from Mrs. Charles E. Rector, widow of the hotel man of this city…
• Straw mattress from the bed the President died in at the Petersen house. It was obtained by William H. Boyd from the heirs of William Petersen. It was then passed to Andrew Boyd before coming into the possession of Charles F. Gunther. It was purchased from the Gunther estate by the society.
• Blood stained towel – A piece used to cushion the President’s head at the Petersen house was given to W.S. Kaufman by William Fred Petersen, William Petersen’s son. B.F. Weishampel obtained the towel in 1865 and transferred it to the manager of the Libby Prison Museum in Chicago (Charles Gunther). Kaufman served with Fred Petersen on the Federal ironclad Roanoke. Fred cut up other towels for distribution to friends and visitors alike. An additional piece of toweling was obtained by Charles Gunther from B.F. Weishampel. This piece is also in the CHS collection. The Boston Transcript described the towel: “Mr. B.F. Weishample of this city has had in his possession since 1865 a memento of the Lincoln Assassination. It consisted of a portion of the towel that was placed under the Presidents head when dying, the blood stains still being visible. It was framed along with affidavits and a court certificate vouching its genuiness. Mr. Wieshampel has recently disposed of it to the manager of the Libby Prison Museum, Chicago, for exhibition in the relic department.” Along with the towel was a folded note with “Proof” written on one side and on the other the statement “Pieced of towel used to staunch blood of A. Lincoln. Given to W.S. Kaufman by young Petersen, son of the man into whose house Lincoln was taken from theatre in which he was shot.”
• 34-Star United States flag – worsted, backed with shear material used to cover Lincoln’s body as it was transferred from the Petersen house to the White House.
• Other items from the room in which Lincoln died at the Petersen house purchased by Charles F. Gunther and obtained through the Gunther estate by the society include:
 Chest of drawers with four drawers and wooden knob handles.
 Victorian, Boston style rocking chair, wide top rail with gilt stencil floral design, saddle seat, turned spindle arm supports and six spindle chairback.
 Brass, gas light wall bracket, engraved with a diamond pattern.
 Pewter candlestick with saucer base and adjustable slide in shaft.
 Pillow fragment from the bed on which Lincoln died at the Petersen house.


• Towel – Off white cloth fragment with light brown stains set into rectangular glass and wood frame with black tape around edges. Handwritten in ink on the beveled mat is “This is the Blood of Abraham Lincoln.”
• Piece of board from the room in which Abraham Lincoln died. Piece of stained wood attached to a 3” X 5” card on which is written “A small piece of board from the flooring of the room in which Abraham Lincoln died. Authenticated by Lewis G. Reynolds, Custodian, Lincoln Museum, Washington D.C.”
• Small, round, stippled, gold locket containing lock of President Lincoln’s hair.
Two silver, half-dollars, dated 1854 & 1861 placed on Lincoln’s eyes when he died in the Petersen House. Passing from General George V. Rutherford to Charles Gunther to Chicago Historical Society

[L Verge]

This is great. I had never seen (nor thought to look for) this detailed a list. How many of the items are on public view?

[RJNorton]

Wow, Rich. I had no idea all of that was there. For many years when I was teaching in the Chicago area I took classes to the Chicago Historical Society on field trips. I remember the display itself but didn't realize all they really had there.

[Rsmyth]

I really do not know what is on display or put away. Jim and I were told a few years ago that if we made an appointment we could see the items that were in storage. That is still in our plans but not scheduled.

[LincolnToddFan]

Whoa...that is a mind boggling collection of relics! Roger, do you remember that in my first post here I wondered what happened to the flag that AL's body was wrapped in when he was transported from the Petersen House to the WH?

Now I know!

[L Verge]

Several days ago, I was contacted by the Chief of the Division of Medicine and Science at the Museum of American History (Smithsonian Institution) wanting information on the pair of field glasses that we have on display at Surratt House. Dave Taylor mentioned the real missing glasses in a previous post on this thread, and of course we know that Mrs. Surratt got into a lot of trouble by bringing those glasses to John Lloyd in the late-afternoon of April 14.

Evidently, the Smithsonian has quite a collection on the history of opera/field glasses/binoculars. No one appears to know what happened to Booth's pair after they were part of the testimony of Luther Byron Baker at the 1867 trial of John Surratt. From what some research that has been done on them seems to indicate, however, is that the pair we exhibit is probably identical. Here's some of the information from our files:

They came to us as a donation from the late John C. Brennan of Laurel, Maryland, in 1985. He had purchased them several years earlier from a Steve Bunker, who ran an antique store on Fells Point in Baltimore that specialized in antique naval goods. Upon research, he and Mr. Bunker concluded that they matched exactly the description of those involved in the Lincoln assassination story.

“These particular binoculars, near the conventional larger lenses, had a turnscrew bearing the markings FIELD, MARINE, and THEATRE that revolved another set of bulbous lenses within the device for better focusing.”

Mr. Brennan also compared “our” glasses to a pair owned by another acquaintance, W.F. Mathers of Glen Burnie, Maryland. They had been purchased by him from a Civil War dealer who knew nothing about them except that they had turned up for sale in Maryland. Mr. Mathers provided a drawing of critical points on his pair. In citations for an ensuing article on the Booth binoculars that Mr. Brennan did for our museum’s newsletter, the following description is given:

“They bear the imprint of “Colmont Ft..Paris” and, with the bottom 1 ¾ inch sunshades extended, they measure about nine inches in length (as do ours). At first glance, they appear to be the ordinary pre-World War II glasses, with twin barrels that move up and down within slightly larger leather-covered casings at the touch of a knurled wheel. But on the right of the Mathers glasses, close under the eyepieces that ordinarily press against the cheekbones of a user, one find a serrated brass wheel the size of a collar button. When turned, this wheel rotates a spindle transfixing the binoculars that holds, within the tubes, three matching minuscule matching sets of lenses. When the brass wheel is turned, these tiny “contact lenses” almost brush against the rims of the open holes in the eyepieces. The flattened-out middle portion of the spindle that lightly rests on the ridge of a user’s nose, on its four faces shows the words MARINE, THEATRE, FIELD, and (blank). The revolving lenses, delicately grasped by the ribs of metal spheres within the two tubes, correspond with the fixed lenses that cap the conventional binoculars or opera glasses. To clean the Mathers lenses, one unscrews and removes the eyepieces and lifts the dumbbell-shaped arrangement out of slots cut just below the eyepiece threads on the barrel.”

I should add that both the Mathers pair and the ones we have on display measure nine inches in height. I have no idea what happened to Mr. Mathers’s field glasses. He may still be alive and may still have them - but, thirty years have gone by.

I double-checked the history of Booth's field glasses from when they were left at the Garretts. Lucinda Holloway (Garrett’s sister-in-law) found them on a bookcase and took them to Mr. Garrett to see what to do with them. His reply was, “Take them out of my sight.” Thinking that the glasses were too valuable to be destroyed, Lucinda gave them to her brother to take to their mother’s house. When Lt. Luther Byron Baker came back later, Garrett’s son (Jack) took him to that home (about nine miles away) to retrieve them. Miss Holloway recounted this in a little booklet that is in the Confederate Museum in Richmond. Francis Wilson reproduced it in his 1929 book, John Wilkes Booth.

Now, commit this information to memory and be on the look-out for old field glasses whenever you visit a likely antique shop or flea market. If there is any provenance that mentions Luther Byron Baker, snap them up and call me...

[SSlater]

A long, L - O - N - G time ago, before my "historical" ethics were fully developed, John Brennan showed those glasses to me. I tried to convince him to be a little cunning and say "I think they belonged to Booth" (Who could prove otherwise?) He would have no part of that.
I suggested then that he not be so dogmatic. As an alternative, he smiled at "he did not know for sure that they were not Booth's". I have never told that story, ever. Laurie's story Made me talk.

[L Verge]

I'll check the papers we have, John, but I think he made a similar (or same) comment in those. However, James O. Hall and John C. Brennan were part of the dying breed of historians who tracked down every minute detail on something before declaring it TRUTH. We often said that Hall was Sherlock Holmes, Brennan was his Watson, and they referred to our "gang" as the Baker Street Irregulars. We got a lot done using those fictional characters as our guide posts.

[BettyO]

Indeed we did, Laurie! Indeed we did....!