Surratt Commission and Anna Surratt

[L Verge]

The chief undertaker in New York who was in charge of the Lincoln funeral preparations there was a man named Peter Relyea. I did not know this until about twenty years ago when a couple who lived near Surratt House asked me to take a look at a deteriorating water color pasted to a piece of cardboard. It showed a good duplication of the NY hearse with horses pulling into position and was signed by a Peter Relyea.

I asked for Harold Holzer's help, and he identified who Relyea was and guessed that what these folks had found in their neighbors' shed was a rough draft of what later became an advertising piece for Relyea's undertaking business. I have no idea what happened to that piece, but it was one of my Antique Roadshow moments.