Lincoln in PA

[Rsmyth]

First, my wife and I travelled to Allentown, PA (1 hour) to see the Lincoln exhibition at the Historical Society. I got to meet Joe Garrera who did the initial investigation of the Lincoln Flag, Ed Isaccs with his ancestors diary and a lady who was the grand daughter of Laura Keene's grandson. There were talks, slide shows a movie, mourning material and a cane made from the gallows.

That evening we travelled back home (Milford) to see Billy Hipkins perform his one man play on Jeannie Gourlay at the Pike County Historical Society. It was a benefit performance for the conservation of 3 of Jeannie's costumes including the "stars and bars" gown. That was the dress she supposedly was going to wear during Withers musical tribute to Lincoln and the troops. Politically correct, they describe it as the dress that was never worn for the the song that was never sung.

[LincolnMan]

Sounds awesome! Did the Laura Keene relative have anything really interesting to share?

[Rsmyth]

The house the twin boys (Laura's grandchildren) grew up in burned down in 1910. It was located in Hillsdale, NJ up on the hill behind the Shopright on Kinderkamack Rd. The father (Alpheus) rushed back in to save his bible (circa1850). It was the only item to be salvaged. She brought it and showed it to me. The edges of the pages are burned.

[LincolnMan]

Great story. Speaking of Laura Keene, is it known what happened to her piano? The one she was going to play on stage the evening of April 14th?

[Rsmyth]

Yes, it is. I will post when I get to work.

[Laurie Verge]

I know there was a big hunt about that piano about ten years ago, but I can't remember the outcome.

[LincolnMan]

It will be interesting to know where it is-if it still exists.

[Rsmyth]

Sorry, I meant to post yesterday but work intefered. I won't let that happen again!
This is from a few different sources:
The grandson of the person who later repaired the piano says "It was placed back into Laura Keene’s residence. she never touched it’s keys again."
"The piano that was in the Theater that night reportedly was kept in a warehouse in NYC for 100 years, with a hole in the top “like someone put their foot through it”. in 1966 or so, it went to Aeolyan American Piano Works (Rochester,NY) for repair. "
On page 185 of Laura Keene, by Ben Graf Henneke there is a picture of the piano. Henneke says ""The piano photographed here was displayed in the now defunct Chickering Piano Exhibit as Laura Keene's. Whether it was or not, Chickering & Sons President said no one could attest. This piano was destroyed by fire". He attributes that information to B.F. Brooks, Jr., President of Chickering & Sons, 1972-1973.

[Laurie Verge]

You just triggered my memory as to the piano hunt. We were working on it with Dr. Henneke when he was writing his book on Keene.

[LincolnMan]

Interesting information!

[bdornfeld]

Laura Keene's piano is in Kansas City, KS and did not perish in fire. It has been in the Jack Wyatt Museum of the Piano Technicians Guild Foundation for about ten years. Our website is quite new, and not what we would like it to be, but you can see the piano at http://www.ptgf.org/page/8/ All of the other pianos in our collection are historical in terms of the development of the piano and for their interest to piano technicians. The history of Laura Keene's piano as I understand it is as follows. Laura was known to travel with her piano as she traveled from town to town for her career acting and managing. The piano was brought to Ford's Theatre earlier on the day of Lincoln's assassination for the musical presentation of Honor to Our Soldiers. After the assassination, it is unclear when the piano was moved from the theatre. It is known that it was locked up with everything else as evidence in the crime scene. When Laura and her fellow travelers rode the train to Cincinnati, they had gotten their luggage from the theatre and possibly the piano too. It eventually went to her home; both of her daughters were musicians and played the piano, although it is said that Laura never touched her Chickering piano again. Please see the newspaper article from The Royal Centre Record of May 12, 1966: http://rcr.stparchive.com/Archive/RCR/RC...966P08.php This shows that the piano was donated by the heirs of Laura Keen to the Chickering Company "several years ago", presumably in the early 1960s. Chickering was at the time part of one of the largest piano makers in the world, the Aeolian Corporation, who also made Mason & Hamlin, Knabe and about fifty other brands of pianos. Their headquarters and main factory were in East Rochester, New York. When they closed the Rochester factory in 1982, the Keene Chickering piano was given to the Rochester Museum, quite possibly as an afterthought. When the factory was closed, everything was deserted for scavengers and scrap. This included log books from various factories and plans for building their wonderful pianos. Paul Monachino was a factory foreman there and saved many historical items that had been deserted. He helped get the piano into the Rochester Museum and when it did not fit their mission, he got it sent to us in Kansas City. Among the many mysteries are why E.F. Brooks, wrote that “whether it was or not (the piano belonging to Laura Keene) … no one could attest.” or “This piano was destroyed by fire.” There isn't much sense I can make of this, but have a few thoughts. In the early 1970s, the piano business was very bad. Kids were buying guitars and quitting the piano. Many piano builders went out of business around this time. I think Mr. Brooks may have been too busy to look into the questions posed to him. It is known that they had the piano around ten years earlier and historians were satisfied that it was the Keene Chickering. There is no record of any fires in any of the Aeolian properties in this period. He could have mistaken the piano for a similar Chickering upright piano that was destroyed by fire in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI on August 9, 1970. Not only could the "Ford" name cause some confusion, but the Ford Museum also had and still has the rocking chair that Lincoln sat in on that fatal night. Nobody knows why Mr. Brooks would have written what he did, but the piano could easily have been under a tarp or in a crate in a building he walked through everyday and he may not have known about it. I am a full time piano tuner/technician and also serving as president of the Piano Technicians Guild Foundation. I hope this information is interesting and helpful. Bruce Dornfeld

[BettyO]

Thanks for a very interesting story!

[Rsmyth]

Hi Bruce! Thank you very much for the very interesting information. Do you happen to know which Rochester museum it was and is Paul still around?

[bdornfeld]

I do not have the information about which of the Rochester Museums we got it from. I have a number of questions for a number of our members about this piano, including Paul. Paul is up there in years now and I have not seen him for a few years, which tells me he is not well enough to travel to our annual convention these days. I plan to write him with some questions, but it will take time. Everyone reading this is very used to the pace of electronic communications, but two of the members I need to talk with do not do email anymore. One I will see at our convention in Atlanta this July, but there is so much on our plates there too... I will get more info when I can. If you have other questions, I may have an answer. If you looked at The Royal Centre Record article and the PTG Foundation website, you can see the pianos look identical. The color photo of ours shows some very bright red material behind the wood of the piano, it was replaced recently as the original had completely deteriorated. When we got the piano, we knew it was the piano from Ford's Theatre and there during the assassination, but did not know that it had belonged to Laura Keene. It is our hope that bringing this piano back into public view will be of value to historians and lovers of Lincoln.

[L Verge]

Thank you so much for this information. I remember about thirty years ago that one or two of the indefatigable "assassination detectives" - John C. Brennan and Frank Hebblethwaite (latter of the NPS, then based at Ford's and serving as their historian) - were working on tracking down the various claims as to what happened to Miss Keene's piano. I do remember that claims of it being destroyed in a fire was one of the leads, but I don't know whether it was accepted as the final fate of the piano.

Mr. Brennan is deceased, but I did contact Frank, who now works for the NPS in Pennsylvania. Having gone into a different field of history for his job there (as well as the lapse in time), Frank could not remember all the details. However, he did say that whatever they found should be in the archives at Ford's Theatre. That means several "historians" ago at that site, and I'm not sure if budget cuts have even allowed the position of historian to remain there.

For those of us who want to know every little tidbit about the crime, its aftermath, and the whereabouts of its artifacts, please do keep us updated on your work, and thanks again for sharing.