Lincoln Discussion Symposium

Thanks for the warm welcome!
I too would love to see him spell out finding the opera glasses in the testimony. But, as you can see in the record, the prosecution was just asking him about the pistol, which he also found. That is what was pertinant to the investigation and trial. I am sure it was irrelevant to the trial that he found some opera glasses that he kept as a souvenir. Many people took wallpaper and other souvenirs from the theater after the event.
I really don't think that lack of mention in testimony offset other evidence that these are the real deal!

Doug

I agree. It's logical to think Kent would have no reason to mention the opera glasses at the conspiracy trial.

Still, I am having trouble grasping the provenance of the opera glasses. Doug, could you as clearly as possible post the details of what is known regarding the provenance? Many thanks.

As intriguing as the opera glasses are, like Roger, my biggest hang up is the lack of any provenance for the piece aside from the inscription. If the glasses had been found in the hands of a Kent descendant who swore to the inscription as a family story, that could help somewhat, but all we know is that it turned up in a random estate sale in England.

The fact that Kent never mentions the glasses is also hard to rectify. Kent testified at the conspiracy trial and two years later at the trial of John Surratt. The only object he mentions finding in the box during those two court appearances is the derringer. But, as you note, this omission doesn’t necessarily exclude the possibility that he might have also found Mary Lincoln’s opera glasses. The courts were both more focused on the derringer, and, at that time, Kent may not have wanted to advertise that he took the first lady’s glasses.

But the issue I have is the fact that Kent went on to live the rest of his life in D.C. and often talked about the assassination, lending his pocket knife, and finding the pistol, but never mentioned anything about opera glasses. In a quick newspaper archive search, I found three different accounts of the assassination that William Kent gave in 1891, 1909, and 1916. Each story is pretty much the same. In one of the accounts, it mentions how Kent keeps the penknife he loaned to the doctors to cut open Lincoln’s shirt as a treasured possession. The lack of any mention of opera glasses is telling to me. By the turn of the century, Kent had nothing to fear about revealing he had picked up and kept Mary Lincoln’s opera glasses. The government wasn’t going to try and confiscate them. And if he had given them away, as the inscription on the glasses implies, he surely would have included this nugget of a detail in his retellings of that tragic night.

An interesting piece, but I still don't feel it's legitimate.

Here are links to the different accounts I found from William Kent if you feel like reading them.
1891
1909 Part 1
1909 Part 2
1916
The 1909 Article had this nice picture of William Kent. I have been to his grave in Glenwood Cemetery in D.C. but had never seen a picture of the man before.

I share the concerns Roger and Dave have expressed about the authenticity of these opera glasses as a Lincoln assassination artifact. There doesn’t seem to be any extensive “chain of custody” to trace here. If what I read is correct, the physical evidence may indicate that the glasses and inscription date from the 19th century, but there doesn’t seem to be any independent corroboration to tie the glasses to William T. Kent or Mary Lincoln. Or at least I haven’t seen any.

To add to the list of Will Kent accounts, he also gave a statement on April 15, 1865 (see Tim Good’s book, We Saw Lincoln Shot) – prior to the trial testimonies and the newspaper accounts. For what its worth, he said nothing about having found any opera glasses in that statement either.

I have a number of friends whose business is in historical artifacts or who are collectors. To a person, they always first approach every artifact as inauthentic – even when they are very interested in the possibilities. There are just so many spurious artifacts out there. They tell me artifacts need to be considered inauthentic until proven authentic rather than considered authentic until proven inauthentic. Lots of potential pitfalls by doing the latter as we have seen somewhat recently in some well-known cases. I have not (yet anyway) seen enough proof for me to consider these opera glasses an authentic Lincoln assassination artifact.

Anthony Pitch wrote in They Have Killed Papa Dead that Kent found Booth's pistol in the box and gave it to Lawrence Gobright.

Pitch's sources are:
Gobright, Recollections,
New York Herald, April 15, 1865
Kent's testimony in both the conspirators and John Surratt trials
Kent's statement, April 15, 1865

What's interesting is that Pitch also included as a source:
William Kent to his mother, April 15, 1865, typescript of lost original letter, provided to the author by Kent's great-granddaughter Virginia Brown.

Pitch also used Kent as a source earlier in the book when he (Pitch) wrote that Laura Keene had pushed through the crowds and carried a glass of water to the box. "When Leale granted her request to cradle the president's head, she sat on the floor and gently caressed the sad face. William Kent looked on in horror as bloodied brain tissue appeared to ooze from the dying man's head wound onto her lap."

Pitch wrote in his acknowledgements that "After C-SPAN filmed my tour of Lincoln assassination sites in Washington, I received from Virginia Brown, in Florida, a typescript copy of a letter written by her great-grandfather, William Kent, who had helped cut open Lincoln's clothes in Ford's Theatre moments after the shooting so a surgeon could look for wounds. Later that night Kent returned to the president's box to search for his mislaid keys when he stumbled upon Booth's Derringer pistol on the floor. Virginia Brown described the original letter, written by Kent to his mother the day Lincoln died, as a 'cherished part of my childhood.' However, it disappeared after the death of Brown's grandfather and subsequent sale of the family house and possessions in Jackson, Mississippi. Brown said she had given a typescript copy to Lincoln enthusiasts at Kennesaw Mountain National Park, Georgia, exactly half a century before contacting me - a statement verified by park officials who sent me a copy of her letter to them dated 1953. I have quoted from the typescript copy because I do not have any doubts about its authenticity, based upon her lineage and Kent's language, vivid descriptions, and the dateline, Washington, April 15, 1865."

Perhaps this letter mentions the opera glasses?

(03-28-2023 01:10 PM)Dave Taylor Wrote: [ -> ]As intriguing as the opera glasses are, like Roger, my biggest hang up is the lack of any provenance for the piece aside from the inscription. If the glasses had been found in the hands of a Kent descendant who swore to the inscription as a family story, that could help somewhat, but all we know is that it turned up in a random estate sale in England.

The fact that Kent never mentions the glasses is also hard to rectify. Kent testified at the conspiracy trial and two years later at the trial of John Surratt. The only object he mentions finding in the box during those two court appearances is the derringer. But, as you note, this omission doesn’t necessarily exclude the possibility that he might have also found Mary Lincoln’s opera glasses. The courts were both more focused on the derringer, and, at that time, Kent may not have wanted to advertise that he took the first lady’s glasses.

But the issue I have is the fact that Kent went on to live the rest of his life in D.C. and often talked about the assassination, lending his pocket knife, and finding the pistol, but never mentioned anything about opera glasses. In a quick newspaper archive search, I found three different accounts of the assassination that William Kent gave in 1891, 1909, and 1916. Each story is pretty much the same. In one of the accounts, it mentions how Kent keeps the penknife he loaned to the doctors to cut open Lincoln’s shirt as a treasured possession. The lack of any mention of opera glasses is telling to me. By the turn of the century, Kent had nothing to fear about revealing he had picked up and kept Mary Lincoln’s opera glasses. The government wasn’t going to try and confiscate them. And if he had given them away, as the inscription on the glasses implies, he surely would have included this nugget of a detail in his retellings of that tragic night.

An interesting piece, but I still don't feel it's legitimate.

Here are links to the different accounts I found from William Kent if you feel like reading them.
1891
1909 Part 1
1909 Part 2
1916
The 1909 Article had this nice picture of William Kent. I have been to his grave in Glenwood Cemetery in D.C. but had never seen a picture of the man before.

Thanks for the links, Dave, and your input, to which I agree. I would love to hear Ed Steers comment on this thread btw...

@ "my biggest hang up is the lack of any provenance for the piece aside from the inscription" - did I miss something, by whom and when was the inscription made??? Is it said anywhere? Kent obviously didn't do it (he wouldn't have talked Cesar-like about himself in 3rd person), and it sounds as if it was done a long time after the assassination. And how was it done? The letters look so perfectly equal, machine-like, not handmade. So what does the inscription prove? Anyone who wanted to sell them (and that was certainly the purpose to inscribe them) could have done it. If there had been a way to really proof them original (like a handwritten statement by Kent) - why possibly "damaging" or altering the glasses by such a lengthy inscription instead of keeping them original?

---

(09-27-2019 11:43 AM)Dave Taylor Wrote: [ -> ]I have some serious doubts. There is no provenance aside from the inscription which could easily have been faked (IMO). It would only take a bit of research to find the name of William Kent and attribute these glasses to him. Yet nowhere in Kent's statement or testimony does he mention anything about these glasses. Kent also lived his life in D.C. dying there in 1917, which makes it harder to explain how the opera glasses got to England.

My main question is if the auction house made an effort to see if these opera glasses fit in Mary Lincoln's opera glass case in the Ford's Theatre collection?

Though, to be honest, I don't know the provenance of that artifact off the top of my head either.

I'm surprised Ed was so emphatic in his opinion it was genuine. There's not enough provenance to make me a believer.

If she owned three or more further opera glasses, where are the other cases? Any still existing?
Interesting these were from Berlin. Where did she get them?

Linda, I agree that Kent's letter of April 15, 1865, would be fascinating to read! Did Pitch include the entire text of the typescript of the original letter in his book?

Eva, I do not know who wrote the inscription, but I think the "believers" think Kent wrote it (or had it done).

I also wish Ed Steers would post as he seems much more "accepting" than what I would have guessed.

I continue to be surprised by what seems like a lack of specific provenance, and I remain skeptical of the authenticity of the glasses being Mary Lincoln's at Ford's. In truth, I'd love to be proven wrong on this matter.

Roger, Pitch did not quote from Kent's letter, just summarized what Kent had written.

Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park may still have Kent's letter in their archives.

https://www.nps.gov/kemo/learn/historycu...chives.htm

Thank you, Linda. I will write Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

(03-31-2023 05:09 AM)RJNorton Wrote: [ -> ]Eva, I do not know who wrote the inscription, but I think the "believers" think Kent wrote it (or had it done).

In third person? Into the ivory? Weird. I couldn't have it destroyed. I wonder if Dave knows more about the Berlin origin of the case. We're those available in DC? Mary visited Germany quite awhile after the assassination.

Many thanks to Mr. James Pratt of the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park for sending the full text of William Kent's April 15, 1865, letter. There is no mention of finding Mary Lincoln's opera glasses.

Thank you, Roger, for contacting the park.

As you said, there's no mention of Mary's opera glasses, but if Kent did find them, maybe he didn't think them of sufficient importance to mention them in his letter. Of course, like Dave wrote, it's odd that he never did mention them as far as we know if he did indeed find them.

The description of Laura Keene holding the dying president's head in her lap is ghastly. It reminds me of Jackie Kennedy holding her husband's head in her lap after he was shot.

(04-01-2023 01:53 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote: [ -> ]The description of Laura Keene holding the dying president's head in her lap is ghastly.

Yes, and it also provides further evidence Laura Keene was in the box in contrast to what Clara Harris stated.

An article titled "Laura Keene at the Lincoln Assassination" by Billy J. Harbin is available for free with registration from JSTOR. Harbin writes about the many different witness accounts and he concludes that whether or not we believe Keene was in the box holding Lincoln's head in her lap (as Dr. Leale said she did) or was not there at all (as Clara Harris said) depends on which eyewitnesses we believe.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3205119?sea...ca1c5e5758

The article lists Lincoln's Final Hours by Kathy Canavan as a citation which in turn cites Kent's April 15, 1865 letter to his mother. The source is "Lincoln Assassination Eyewitness Accounts, N.P.S.files."

Dave, it's possible that if Kent did indeed take the opera glasses that he never spoke publicly about them because he didn't want anyone to know, even years later, that he had stolen the bereaved First Lady's opera glasses and never returned them to her.

He may have only mentioned the knife because it belonged to him and the opera glasses belonged to Mary Lincoln.

(04-04-2023 01:59 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote: [ -> ]Dave, it's possible that if Kent did indeed take the opera glasses that he never spoke publicly about them because he didn't want anyone to know, even years later, that he had stolen the bereaved First Lady's opera glasses and never returned them to her.

Linda, I think what you say is possible...Kent may have wanted to keep it private. My question is: wasn't he watched while he was searching the box? This was a crime scene, and would Kent have received permission to search the crime scene all alone? Maybe I have been watching too many crime dramas on TV, but it seems strange to me that Kent would have received permission to search a crime scene privately.

I do not know how long Kent was gone from the theater before realizing his keys were missing.