Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1896 — RELICS OF LINCOLN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

RELICS OF LINCOLN.

INTERESTING COLLECTION OF THEM IN CHICAGO ' ,Htar Briac Back to the Memory JCmti in of the Mar«rr President —From Boyhood Days Botho IM-Fated Night to the Theater. Bealndrra of a Great Man. ' Had Abraham Lincoln lived until now It maid have been 87 yean of age. But. Ma taaHny waa not such. In the full jrtai of Oho greatness that he had achiev«d ha was struck down by the assassin’* haadl without the jva ruing of a moment. Thelaac •war that had marked his adminfertraUoo and the-terrible eircuiujfancea attending hi a death made it deeply imyaaalvo. A general gloom pervaded the wheia country. -Flags hung at half-mast •ad public buildings and private resldanem ooeryWhcfe Were draped in black. . c Ltobata was the third President to. die, tehilo occupying the official chair. Wil-

fcoiiii Henry Harrison died April 4, 1841, •bo nonth after inauguration, and Zach*rjr Taylor July" 9, 1850. The death of Lincoln occurred April 15. 1805, and the flonrtb and last President to die in office wu Janie* A. Garfield, who met a fate •fasitar to Lincoln’s in IK-il. Lincoln was President during the most flifficult period of the history of this country, during the greatest Civil war the arorld has ever known. His noble, char•otar, portrayed .during the whole of that memorable struggle, impressed upon the

people a reverence that never will be forgotten, and his birthday will always be fittingly .remembered everywhere in the {United States. ! But, says the Chicago Tribune, while these 'memorial services impress upon the pninds of the people the memories of that fflnstrious martvr, there is no fear that Chicagoans will ever forget him, for right among them .are mere mementos of the tsrar Preaident.-tkan can be found in any •ther city of the Union. The largest of these collections is at the Libby PrisonKVar Museum, and Manager Maeloon believes it to be the most authentic collection of Lincoln material extant. In connection with his early life there are original photographs of the house in .which Lincoln's father lived and died in lOolee County, 111., and also an-.original photograph of the house that Abe Lincoln and Dennis Hanks built end occupied in Mercer County, in 1S&), where Lincoln made fame as a rail splitter. This Itouse was on exhibition at the Sanitarv fair held in this city in 1865, and Mr. agd Mrs. Hacks lived*in,it during its exhibition in Chicago. It will be remembered that Dennis Hanks taught Lincoln his first lesson in reading and writing, and this collection contains a good photograph of the did gentleman. There is also an original copy of the Sangamon Journal of Springfield, 111., of Nov. 11, 3842, which contains the notice of his marriage. The collection contains many Interesting manuscripts of Lincoln, of which, perhaps, the most noted is his fatnons last dispatch to Gen. Grant. In this collection of Lincoln mementos ■t Libby Prison there are many things worthy of extended notice, but to make it brief the following are a few of them: the key, a piece of the curtain, and wall paper of the box in wlm-h ht* was shot at Ford’s Theater: six of the chairs used in the box on the ill-fated night and aboriginal program of the play: Lincoln’s library chair, a sofa from his residence, and the bed npon which the body lay while 'the physicians the autopsy; his old bootjack made by himself, and all of She portraits of himself ever published. Among the original photograph* is pne tint shows what an unusually tall man be was. It is a picture of Allen -Pinkerton, Gen. MeClernand and himself at the of the Army of the Potomac. 4Nw mree men are standing before an tent, Lincoln, in the Center, tower-' ftig tend nod shoulders above his two companions. There are also portraits of lincoln’s wife and family, J. Wilkes

Bootb, and photographs of tha, conaptrators: photographs of tha interior of the theater in which he was shot, photograph* of the execution, the original temporary headboards placed over the graves of the conspirators, and the beam from which they Were hn aged.' The collection also includes a life mash and casts of Lincoln’s hands taken in 180 U by Leonard Volk, the well-known sculptor of this city. It Is interesting to note in tihe hand casta that there iajuch a mat difference in the sire of them* that one would hardly believe they belonged to the same person. The left hand Is of normal proportions, the veins standing put in them very distinctly, but the right hand seems unusually'fat and chubby, not a rein being discrrnihle. This is aeeounted for by the fact that the night before IdflCflllU teuL been given a*reception'snd such a multitude of people had grasped his hand that it was greatly swollen the following morning when Volk made the ensts. In the museum there are two life-size oil portraits of Lincoln, one of which Is by Lambkin, the celebrated Philadelphia nrfJst, nndau oil portrait of Major It. O. Todd, a brother of Mr*. Lincoln. This la notable for the fact that Todd was In the Confederate army and had charge o,f Castle Thunder prison, Richmond, during the war. Beside* this collection there are many other interesting Lincoln mementos in Chicago, the largest private collection being owned by Charles F; Gunther. The. most important of the many mementos that he possesses is a duplicate copy of the emancipation Proclamation. This is not one of the published sac-simile cbpies, of which there nre many, but is an exact duplicate, bearing the original signatures ~o f Lificolh and r his cabinet: Among that other ...original manuscripts in this collection is a poem 'in Lincoln's handwriting writ ten. in_ 1853, a n ad dress on thirteen pages of foolscap, delivered before the Springfield Library Association, a letter to a committee regarding the Boston, Mass., T,hotnas Jefferson celebration in April, 1830; the original record leaves from Lincoln's father’* family Bible in Abe’s handwritings-several pL4he transfer deeds to the differeifUlands owned by Lincoln's father and,mother; a.piece of his copy-book.' used when |je was 16 years of age; the chain of the watch that he carried in boyhood days, a number of inrturesLiig war documents, locks of h>s hair, and many' personal effects, including a number of pieces of clothing worn by him. Mr, Gunther also owns the carriage used by Lancidn !:i Washington, and later by Mrs. Lincoln in .Chicago. This is at the Libby Prison Museum. The watch that Lincoln wore oh the night of the assassination is now owned by Robert Todd Lincoln, and was changed from a key to a stem \yimler fifteen years ago. John Net-

erstrom. of View, owns a cane that was sent to the White House in ISG2 by some unknown admirer. It was carved out of a piece of apple wood, and is a marvelous piece of artistic work. It was so unique and so different from the many other canes sent to Lincoln that he prized this particular walking stick above all others of the many that he had received. Charles Rector is a son-in-law of Mr. Teterson, -who owned the house in Washifigton in which Uneoln died, and he keeps as a valuable and interesting memento the picture that hung over the bed upon which the I’resident died. The picture is not a valuable one except for this fact. A son of Mr. reterson, now living in Baltimore. Md., owns the quilt that was on the Ltd at the death, and Mrs.

Magruder, of Washington, •D. C-> owns the original bed. The house still stands in Washington.

LINCOLN IN '63

LINCOLN, PINKERTON, AND M’CLERNAND.

DENNIS HANKS, WHO TAUGHT LINCOLN TO READ AND WRITE.