Extra Credit Questions

[Anita]

Here's hint #1.

Think West of the Mississippi.

[RJNorton]

I think the westernmost point Abraham Lincoln ever went in his life was in Kansas. Does it have anything to do with that 1859 trip?

[Anita]

No Roger. Shift your thinking beyond Kansas.

Hint #2 It helps to think "organically."

[AussieMick]

The transcontinental railroad?

[Anita]

The transcontinental railroad had not yet arrived in the area where this presentation piece was commissioned.

Hint #3 It was presented at the White House.

[L Verge]

Looks like an inkwell, but anything to do with the discovery of gold in California?

[Steve]

The completion of the first Trans-Pacific cable?

[Gene C]

The center figure is very similar to the statue on top of the US Capitol, the letters in the center seem to be E PLURIBUS UNUM.

At the center of the base, it says Abraham Lincoln
The figure on the right seem to be of a woman.
(I enlarged the image on my computer to see it better)
The figure on the left looks like a soldier with a helmet.
The third clue about the transcontinental railroad has me stumped ???
It was completed in 1869

I'll guess the commemoration of the passing of the 13th amendment, which happened a few months after Lincoln died.

[Anita]

Good morning from CA! So many good guesses.

Laurie, you made a keen observation. It is an inkwell but it doesn't commemorate the discovery of gold.

Steve, it's not about the Trans-Pacific Cable.

Gene, yes this beautiful piece was presented to Abraham Lincoln. The helmet you see is not a soldier's helmet. To clarify, yes, the Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869 however it didn't cross this territory. Work here to connect to it didn't begin until 1878.

Hint # 4 This piece is tied to a bill passed by Congress in 1863 and signed by Lincoln.

[Rob Wick]

I have it figured out, mainly due to personal correspondence with Anita (not that she gave me any clues, but certain things led me to the answer), so I'll hold off answering so others can continue to participate.

Best
Rob

[Anita]

Hint #5 Rob is referring to my recent visit to Arizona.

[AussieMick]

I am guessing it commemorated (or held the pen used to sign) the Act to create the Arizona territory? An Act which stated how it was to be governed (including no slavery) ... hence an 'organic' act.

[L Verge]

I'm still thinking something to do with the railroads. That fellow with the WWI helmet makes me think more about head gear worn by those who worked with mining and dynamiting their way through mountains -- and the railroad crews did a lot of that!

Gene, could the other figure to the right be Chinese? Those folks did a lot of work on that transcontinental.

Also, weren't there three separate companies (at least) involved in that tremendous feat? Uniion Pacific gets a lot of press, but there was a Central Pacific element that I think got behind schedule or something?

As you can see, I'm stabbing in the dark, but the railroads just keep blowing their horns at me.

---

OK, I cheated -- and forget my railroad guess. By jove, I believe our man down under is correct about the piece representing the creation of the Arizona Territory. Go here: https://www.dcourier.com/news/2015/feb/1...the-arizo/

I still want to know the meaning of an "organic act" and also what the two figures represent.

[Anita]

Congrats Michael. Well done.

This beautiful inkwell, cast by Tiffany, is made of solid silver mined in Arizona. Note one of the figures is wearing a miner's helmet. It was commissioned by Charles Debrill Poston to commemorate Lincoln's signing of the Arizona Organic Act on February 23 of 1863. The inkwell was presented to Lincoln a few weeks before his assassination. It was donated to the Library of Congress in 1937 by Mary Lincoln Isham. Go here to see the inkwell and read about Charles D. Poston.
https://www.loc.gov/item/scsm001300/

Background. The Arizona Organic Act of 1863 was the legislation that created the Arizona Territory by splitting the New Mexico Territory in two.

"Starting in 1856, the White settlers of this forgotten land had twice petitioned Washington for a separate Arizona Territory, and twice they were told no.

The only thing going for this piece of real estate was the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach, which carried mail, freight and passengers to California. It was a route Southern congressmen had forced through with an obvious eye to the future: This is how the South would get gold from California.

But as Southern congressmen left Washington to form the Confederacy, Northern politicians revoked the Butterfield contract in March 1861, severing small communities like Tucson and Mesilla (now in southern New Mexico) from the rest of the country.

The secession of Southern states gave these rejected folks an alternative, and on March 16, 1861 -- a month before the Civil War broke out -- a secessionist convention was held in Mesilla, pledging Arizona as a Confederate state. On March 28, another convention in Tucson ratified the move, and Arizona again declared itself a slave state.

Historian Robert Perkins surmises that Washington could have stopped this secessionist movement if it had been more considerate. Instead, it did the opposite. It pulled Union troops out of Arizona to mass along the Rio Grande, leaving the population unprotected from Mexican bandits and Apache Chief Cochise, who already was at war with White intruders.

Cochise saw the retreat of the "Blue Coats" as a victory and launched a rampage that terrorized the area.

Help came from rebel Lt. Col. John R. Baylor, who captured Fort Fillmore to give the settlers some protection. He declared the area a Confederate Territory, 670 miles long, with all land south of the 34th parallel from Texas to California, and named himself governor, with Mesilla as the capital.

The people of Arizona welcomed Baylor with open arms, holding another convention on Aug. 28, 1861, to ratify his actions and elect Granville Henderson Oury as its delegate to the Confederate States Congress. By Oct. 1, Oury was in Richmond, Va., seeking formal status for Arizona as the South's only rebel territory.

In early 1862, Confederate President Jefferson Davis created the Confederate Territory of Arizona. That finally got Washington's attention, and President Abraham Lincoln swept in, creating the Territory of Arizona on Feb. 24, 1863. He established the boundary line that divides it from New Mexico to this day. "
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic...z65JA6hKu3

When I travel I enjoy looking for Lincoln connections. A few weeks ago I visited Arizona.

[RJNorton]

This is a screen capture taken from a scene from a recent TV show. What is the name of the show?