Genetic Lincoln

[Steve Whitlock]

(05-06-2020 05:13 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Steve, here is the information I have on the chair.

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Va. Family Donates Relic to Ford's Theatre

Chair Was Removed From Lincoln's Box After Assassination

By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 12, 2005; Page B03

Inside the box at Ford's Theatre where President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, most of the furnishings are carefully chosen replicas: the heavy gold drapes and tassels, the red, gold and white floral carpet, the presidential rocker.

But last week, the National Park Service got hold of the real thing. A carved-back, cane-seat parlor chair that was in the presidential box the night Lincoln was shot by actor John Wilkes Booth -- perhaps the one Mary Todd Lincoln was sitting in -- was donated to the government by a Virginia family that had kept the artifact for 140 years.

The carved-back, cane-seat parlor chair was taken when the theater was converted to an office building. (Gloria Swift)

"This is a fabulous thing we've been given. We're very excited about it," said Gloria Swift, the Park Service's curator for Ford's Theatre.

After the assassination darkened the theater in 1865, the government bought the structure on 10th Street NW and turned it into a three-story office building. One of the workers dismantling the theater claimed that his boss had told him to take anything he wanted out of the presidential box. He removed the parlor chair and gave it to the Virginia family, where it was handed down for generations, Swift said.

The family, which Swift said has asked to remain anonymous, tried to sell the chair to the Park Service in the 1950s, when the theater box was being reconditioned as a historic site. But the agency didn't have the cash to buy it and made a replica instead, Swift said.

The current matriarch of the family told the Park Service recently that ownership of the chair was weighing on her.

"All her friends told her she is crazy, that she should sell it on eBay," Swift said. "But she said that giving it to us felt like the right thing to do."

Historians checked the chair for authenticity; the age, markings, style, material and documentation all checked out. And it perfectly matches the chair that Mary Lincoln is sitting on, as well as one empty chair, in a sketch of the assassination in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, the period's paper of record.

The chair was put back in the box last week and can be viewed from behind plexiglass on tours of the theater or during performances. It was reunited with two other authentic pieces from that night -- a tufted settee and a portrait of George Washington.

The crown jewel of that tableau, however, remains out of reach for Swift.

"We'd love to have the rocker that President Lincoln was sitting in," she said, sighing. That chair, seized as evidence by the U.S. War Department for the conspirators' trials, was returned in 1921 to the family who owned the theater, then sold in an auction to Henry Ford (who is no relation to the theater Fords).

It remains in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.

"Our replica is pretty good, though," Swift said.

Roger,

Suzanne Hallstrom asked me to advise you that your photo of Mary Todd Lincoln's chair at the Ford Theatre has been added to Genetic Lincoln, crediting you, and includes a link to the Symposium. She also asks that I convey her "Thank you!" to you.

Suzanne, who used to run an antiques business also cleared up my question about Mary's chair for me, which is the item in the upper right corner of the first attachment. It appears that the chair has been misidentified, according to Suzanne, who writes "Here is A closeup of an example of a chair with rush seating. I should have recognized Phil’s fragments as pieces of rush from his photos but I was so caught up in his curtain swatch that I didn’t think. I sold quite a few rush seated chairs when I had my antique business."

And in a following email, "Ford’s Theatre is incorrectly identifying the chair as cane-seated which would be a flatter, more open weave material. Rushing material was made from a variety of different natural reeds and straws. Today’s replacement rush is usually a manmade paper product. But I always loved the real deal."

I included a photo of a rush-seated chair and have a better, closeup photo of one, but can't add it due to size. Suffice it to say that the material matches the sample shown for the first attachment. When I magnify the photo for Mary's chair I can see the cord-like distinction in the seat, as the image blurs. Suzanne is trying to get the curator at Ford's Theatre to provide a magnified image of the seat for Mary's chair.

Meanwhile, the relic has further historical significance in that there is a question as to who provided the relic, Lt. William Bower, who was in charge of a guard detail around the theatre after the assassination, or his cousins, the Gatch brothers, who were in attendance.

There is a historical society document re: the Gatch Bros. at Lincoln's assassination, but the size is too big to add it. The several other news articles will have to suffice.

I've read other accounts that didn't include Dr. C. D. Gatch, and gave Dr. Charles Augustus Leale the responsibility for the mortal wound call, so I can't say with any certainty that the news articles supporting Dr. Gatch's assessment of Mr. Lincoln's wound are wholly accurate. However, there is mention that the Gatch brothers returned to the theatre after Lincoln died. Could that be when they got the relic? They might have supposed it was the president's blood on Mary chair. If it was the Gatch brothers who acquired the relics, I would suppose it also lends some credence to the story that Dr. Gatch did participate in trying to assist president Lincoln, and that they were in fact present.