Clark Mills' Lincoln Life Mask

[Dave Taylor]

Scott recommended I search out some newspaper records to see if that might help with this mystery. I'm still in the process of doing so, but I have found a few interesting articles. Here's an article from 1970 when a cast of Clark Mill's life cast was donated to the Library of Congress:



As the article states, this early cast of the Mills' mask came with a letter from Theodore Augustus Mills dated May 26, 1886, which stated, "The cast of President Lincoln which I have today conveyed to Mr. John Hay, was taken by my father the late Clark Mills from the head of the President thirty days before his death, and so far as I know no copy has been made from it except the one made by me last week." The article then notes that an additional letter was provided by Theodore Mills' younger brother, "T[heophilus] F[isk] Mill,s" dated June 15, 1866 [likely meant 1886]. While the article doesn't quote the exact words of Fisk's letter, it relates that "He [Fisk] volunteered a statement that he had assisted his father in making the original cast 60 days before President Lincoln's assassination." This sixty-day timeline puts the mask's creation on February 14, the same day Fisk claims on his patent application in June of 1865.

While Theodore Augustus Mills is often given credit for helping his father make the mask (and seemingly claimed as much in later years), it seems more likely to me that Theophilus Fisk Mills was the actual assistant. The above article makes it clear that Theodore was off about when the cast was made. In the quoted portion of Theodore's letter that we are given, he does not then make the claim that he was part of the process. Fisk, however, did claim to have taken part in its creation in his 1886 letter.

In addition, here's an article from the Buffalo Weekly Express from March 21, 1865, about a visit to a sculptor's studio within the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. The writer visits Clark Mills' studio inside the building and remarks upon the recent works of his son, T. F. Mills:



At the end, the reporter notes that he was "struck with the fidelity of a bust of President Lincoln, from the chisel of the younger Mills. It is exquisitely perfect as a work of art." This is no doubt a bust based on the Lincoln life mask, and likely the same one included in Fisk's patent application in June of 1865. It seems likely to me that Fisk was allowed to utilize the mask to create his bust since he had a hand in creating it. This article also places Fisk Mills in D.C. at the time.

Clark Mills was also known to be in D.C. at the time, with articles noting that he was working on a sculpture of Lincoln and his Cabinet based on the Emancipation Proclamation, as well as another sculpture of General Benjamin Butler.

In March of 1865, a story came out that accused Clark Mills of having Confederate sympathies:



Mills subsequently denied the claim and called the so-called letter a forgery. Yet some may have believed that he was a bit disloyal. According to a few newspapers, after John Wilkes Booth was killed and returned to Washington, Clark Mills asked Secretary of War Stanton for permission to make a death mask of the assassin, with the following result:



Lloyd Ostendorf's name comes up a bit in articles about these masks and he relates that the mask was made on February 11 and the first positive casting occurred on February 12, Lincoln's birthday. He cites this information as coming from Theodore Mills, but I have yet to find the original source he is basing this on.



The names of Theodore A. Mills and Theophilus F. Mills are so similar that this may also be causing issues in identification.

I'm still more liable to trust the earliest document we have, which is Fisk's 1865 patent claiming the mask was created on February 14, but the confusing nature of Theodore Mills' claims makes this a hard one to rectify.