Who is this lady?

[Steve Whitlock]

(06-30-2021 04:12 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Many thanks to both Anita and Steve for all the efforts in looking into this matter. Provenance is of vital importance in a situation such as this. From the beginning this situation reminded me of the difficulties the ALPLM had with the provenance of Lincoln's hat in its possession.

We have discussed W. Emerson Reck's book before on this forum. I do not think it's an exaggeration to say it's the gold standard for determining who was at Lincoln's deathbed and who wasn't. There is no mention of Tuckerman in that book.

I once read somewhere (cannot remember where) that Willie Clark was not known to change his sheets very often, so it's likely the sheet was not clean when Lincoln was placed on the bed.

Roger,

While reading some of his book I got the distinct impression Charles Keating Tuckerman was a name-dropper and event-dropper. He did mention seeing Lincoln lying in state, and getting locked in alone with him during a shift change, but no mention of being at Lincoln's death bedside, as Anita said. He would have gone on at length about his interactions at the death watch, had he been there. I'm thinking he got the swatch from someone else, but I need to keep looking. I would have expected him to mention his acquisition in one of his books.

Mr. Tuckerman was a NY based financier, who was involved with Lincoln's attempt to send American Negros to colonize a small island off Haiti, which was a disastrous failure.