Assasination relics: Clothing, chairs, death-scene stuff, and other macabre items

[DKEast]

How did Milford PA, way up the Delaware River, almost at NY border, come to possess one of these flags? I have been to Milford but never knew the Columns Museum had a flag!

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(06-27-2016 08:28 AM)Diane T. Putney Wrote:  

(06-24-2016 10:36 AM)Tim1965 Wrote:  

(06-24-2016 09:25 AM)J. Beckert Wrote:  Hello, Tim. You need to hear from forum members Rich Smythe and Jim Garrett - the Assassination relic gurus.

I believe they have a book out on this and Rich also has some information on the box itself. If I remember right, it was there until maybe the collapse, but was boarded off.

Hope they chime in.

I've read very little about the post-1865 office renovations, just what's in George Olszeweski's Restoration of Ford's Theatre. And he does't describe in any real depth the changes to the building from theatre to office building in late 1865. (Were one or both boxes ripped out? Did Richard Dunbar extend the Dress Circle and/or Family Circle across the open space of the auditorium to create full floors, or did he just enclose them? Or where Dunbar's changes more minimal than even that?)

As for locks of hair.... One would think Lincoln went to the grave bald, given the vast amount of Lincoln hair floating about.

I have researched the pre- and post-assassination Ford’s Theatre, so perhaps I can provide some information about the building that may be helpful. I think the idea of the preservation of the presidential box beyond 1865 is a myth.
After the government seized the theater and leased it from Ford, the building was gutted. Internally it was a shell. Gone were the stage, overhead walkways, proscenium arch, presidential box and other boxes, dress circle, family circle, and dome. The orchestra and parquette ground floor was torn away.
Richard Dunbar from Brooklyn won the bidding competition against nine other contractors and internally was to construct a “fire-proof building.” Part of the standard fireproofing process was to construct concrete and brick floors instead of wooden floors. After constructing a massive brick foundation in the cellar and building the first floor, Dunbar brought in subcontracted experts to set up the iron framework of columns, girders, and beams to support the heavy second and third floors.
The presidential box was built into the proscenium arch, which framed the stage. When that arch was torn out, the box was necessarily dismantled. Ford was allowed to keep salvageable parts of the arch, which he thought “only valuable as fire wood,” and the iron columns. Nothing of the foundational architecture of the box, the framing of the box, remained in the building. None of the statements of work about the renovation or the records from the files of the quartermaster general, in charge of the project, mentioned preserving, working around, or reinstalling the box.
The original purpose of the renovation was to construct a “giant warehouse” for the “Rebel Archives,” the captured Confederate records under the supervision of Francis Lieber.
The renovation consisted of two stages from 1) theater to warehouse and from 2) warehouse to museum/office building. Once the Army surgeon general asked Secretary Stanton for the building in late November and early December 1865, and he agreed, additional construction had to occur, such as installing a boiler and heating system. Dunbar only worked on the first, main stage of the renovation, and he did more than just build floors.
I think the myth of the box’s preservation started when the Evening Star in October 1865 stated plainly that the presidential box “has been preserved entire, and will be placed as near as possible in its former position.”
This incorrect news article had credibility because the lease stated that if by February 1, 1866 the government did not purchase the building outright, Ford would get it back in its original condition. The government, for example, stored the audience chairs in a warehouse in case of a give-back. Stanton had to wait until Congress reconvened and appropriated the money before he could buy the building.
I have looked at many 19th century government reports and news articles about the 1893 collapse, but found no reference to the presidential box in the rubble.
In 1942 the assistant director of the National Park Service learned from Ford’s grandson that the box was not preserved by the family and that “the only preserved section of the box is the door, already donated to the museum.”
I’m a bit embarrassed about the long entry here, but I hope it helps to clarify what happened to the box and theater.

Good stuff!! I just assumed IF anything remained, it was destroyed in the interior collapse in 1893.