Killing Lincoln - Nat Geo (Reactions)

[L Verge]

Linda,

I'm confused (what else is new?). In Seward's time, if one stood in the Square and looked straight at the front door of the house, would the third floor have three windows across the front or two? I thought the additional windows were added on the side of the house during the Blaines' residency -- not on the front.

My point is that the middle window on the third floor, if there in 1865, was likely not in either front bedroom. Federal and Georgian architecture often had a small, unheated room at the top of the stairs that served as a closet - or there may not have been a room there at all, just a window in a blank space to give light to the stairway. I can name quite a few of the historic houses here in my own county that have just that same layout. Around the 1920s (or earlier depending on the wealth of the family), that area became the inside bathroom.