Lincoln in PA

[L Verge]

I remembered that the Keene piano question had popped up about thirty years ago, so I asked our librarian to do a check of the James O. Hall files at Surratt House. Here's what she found:

In a letter dated September 30, 1984, Mr. Hall wrote to a "Mrs. Young" that he had tracked down a rumor that a man in Fairfax, Virginia, had the Laura Keene piano that was at Ford's Theatre on the night of the assassination. The owner was a piano dealer named Richard McEvoy.

That afternoon, Mr. Hall, Dr. Terry Alford, and a John Anderson (piano history expert) had gone to a warehouse at Tyson's Corner to see the piano in storage. Mr. McEvoy explained that he had purchased the piano (an upright Chickering #26281) from a Mrs. Dillon, an elderly Washington widow whose husband had worked for the Washington Star. He said he had purchased it some twenty years previous. Mrs. Dillon had provided the Keene provenance. Mr. Anderson checked Chickering documents in his possession and found that the piano that they saw had been produced in the 1861-1865 period. Brass handles had been added on each end, obviously put there to facilitate moving it around.

Mr. McEvoy had with him a copy of the 7th Edition of Pierce Piano Atlas, put out by Mr. Bob Pierce, 1880 Termino, Long Beach, CA 90815. On page 331, there is a picture of this same piano captioned "Lincoln piano." In the background there is a picture of Lincoln, and Mr. Pierce as a young man is also shown. Evidently Mr. Pierce was alive and in California in 1984, because Mr. Hall is asking "Mrs. Young" to search out Pierce to determine if he knew how the Dillons acquired the piano, who had owned it before them, etc. There is no indication that Mrs. Young ever replied.

In addition, our files contain two Xeroxed photos of the Chickering Upright Piano, and the captions credit the Aeolian Corp. of East Rochester, NY. There is also a photo from the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan of a Chickering "used by Lincoln in the White House."

The photo of the piano shown on the website that you gave appears to be the same as in the photo mentioned above. Our photocopy, however, is not very clear, and the piano is positioned differently and without the accompanying bench. One can see the handles mentioned at either end.