Where'd that shutter come from?

[J. Beckert]

In speaking to Rick Smith today, we both recalled hearing Lincoln was carried from Ford's on a shutter. There aren't many references to this, but it's the only mention that makes sense. A board could have easily sufficed for a thin man like Lincoln, but the shutter is mentioned in at least one account. Where did it come from? Has anyone heard?

Brady's photos from April 1865 don't show any, but photos after the restoration show shutters on the lower boxes. Could the lower boxes have had a type of pocket or removable shutter? The outside of Ford's in Brady's 1865 photo don't appear to show any exterior shutters. See photos. This sounds like a job for Barry Cauchon...

[LincolnToddFan]

For years I thought he was carried from Ford's in the arms of a group of soldiers, but then in "We Saw Lincoln Shot: 100 Eyewitness Accounts"( author Thomas S. Good) it says he was carried out on a board that had been used as a stage prop and improvised as a stretcher for the soldiers to put him on.

[J. Beckert]

That's a nice start, Toia. Which account stated that?

[LincolnToddFan]

It's in the "Overview" in the preface of the book, where author Good discusses some of the many myths that grew around that horrible, historic night. Pages 24-27 in my copy.

It's a GREAT book by the way!

[Gene C]

Rats! That nice eccentric little old lady at the flea market was just certain that the old shutter I bought from her was the one used to carry Lincoln to the Peterson House. Thank goodness I covered my losses and also bought the original photo that's on her facebook page of Booth's horse after they disguised it.

https://www.facebook.com/egilliamglessner

[RJNorton]

(04-14-2014 08:18 PM)J. Beckert Wrote:  In speaking to Rick Smith today, we both recalled hearing Lincoln was carried from Ford's on a shutter. There aren't many references to this, but it's the only mention that makes sense. A board could have easily sufficed for a thin man like Lincoln, but the shutter is mentioned in at least one account. Where did it come from? Has anyone heard?

Joe, this is from p. 126 of W. Emerson Reck's A. Lincoln: His Last 24 Hours:

How the President was carried out on his short last journey appeared differently to many of the witnesses. Leale and Taft in their reports merely said he was carried out. Many other said he was carried out by "several men." James Mills said he was carried out on the shoulders of two men, an obvious impossibility. Thomas H. Sherman and Charles L. Willis saw four men carrying the President. Mrs. Virginia Lucas agreed with Jacob Soles that six men carried the President. William Ferguson and Mrs. Nelson Armstrong - on April 14 Kitty Brink, helping to make up members of the cast in dressing rooms until the clamor drew her to the stage - claimed that the President was carried out in the rocking chair in which he had been sitting. Flood, who was the first person to reach the box from the stage, said four soldiers and the doctors carried Lincoln out on a stretcher. Two members of the cast, E.A. Emerson and Mrs. J. H. Evans, declared he was carried out on a shutter. Several other persons claimed he was carried out on a stretcher, in most cases indicating that it was improvised from a shutter. Considering the fact that the partition normally dividing Boxes 7 and 8 was seven feet high and three inches thick, this interesting question has been raised: Could the "stretcher" on which Lincoln was carried to the Petersen House have been a section of the partition?"

[J. Beckert]

Thanks, Roger. I think we can rule out the partition, as that is visible in Brady's photos, unless that was comprised of sections? Another "who knows?" type of question, I guess.

[Eva Elisabeth]

(04-15-2014 07:02 AM)J. Beckert Wrote:  I think we can rule out the partition...

...and the rocking chair.

[Rick Smith]

(04-15-2014 07:02 AM)J. Beckert Wrote:  Thanks, Roger. I think we can rule out the partition, as that is visible in Brady's photos, unless that was comprised of sections? Another "who knows?" type of question, I guess.

Good post, Son. Using a shutter or a door taken off the hinges would have been an easier way to carry Mr. Lincoln and would have stabilized him to some extent.

Let's see; JWB & Herold are resting at Mudd's now, in a few hours to strike out through the Zekiah to find William Burtles.