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Show f Lincolnas Man, President and Martyr ' i i3 ill I : I I I (Copyright. 1S0S, by John Elfrelh Wul-klii3.) Wul-klii3.) fc must be difficult for our fathers Tvho saw him and knew him to realize that had Lincoln enjoyed tho longcvity ivcn to many others he would bo a hundred years old on February 12 next. To the millions whose interest in him has been whetted b3' this approachinc century Washington offers the greatest wealth of material throwing light upon' him as man. president or martyr. After his assassination t Ford's theater on the night of April 14, 1S65, he was carried across Tenth street1 to Peterson's lodging house, where ho died next morning. Twelve years ago the government paid 30,000 for this house, which already contained the Lincoln collections that had been removed from the Lincoln homestead aL Springtlcld, HI., by their owner, O. 71. Oldroyd, a veteran of the civil war. These Oldroyd collections, which have now grown to more than S000 items, and which represent repre-sent fiftv years of indefatigablo collective col-lective enterprise, are still on view in this house, where 'Lincoln died. The Death Chamber Today. Entering tho museum, the visitor passes two parlors on tho left and is ushered into tho death chamber ul tho roar of the hall. It is a narrow room occupied by a. young infantry volunteer, at the time of the tragedy. It contains funeral paraphernalia taken from the catafalque and numerous other exhibits bearing upon the death and funeral; but unfortunately the bed in whicji tho president died was sold at auction after the death of the tailor .who kept tho - J I l0(J2iu bouse. The purchaser sold it in ' Chicago for .550 nud two weeks later . nas offered $1,000 for it. The prcsonfc t owner has agreed to donate it to tho collection whenever the government ti shall make the little museum fireproof. 'B.ick of this room is a larger one oe-fin oe-fin I cupied bv servants of the lodging house .i ! l at the time. Here is installed a library .. v f of 4,000 works and articles bearing on :'. ', Lincoln and the tragedy. Through this . is reached a large roar room in which ,-, is seen the furnituro from Hie Lincoln r ,j , homestead. The most conspicuous of the a, ' many items are the Lincoln cook stove, the walnut cradle iu which Lincoln him- ' I relf often rocked his children to sleep, i-w ! ",s oinco chair, iu which he sat when .3 ( ho wrote his first inaugural address; $W f two horsehair sofas, a settee, his favor-lie favor-lie home chair, a horsehair rocker with pHI very tall back, and a little pigeon-holed f IIj dosk, upon which lies tho framed copy uS it a otter t'i"m tho donor, whose hus-gjfl hus-gjfl ff7 Isnd, slip says, was once visited by Lin-HH Lin-HH r colu, who. entering with the desk in two hJ Pieces, said: "Will you tako my old t$ desk and give it room in your house, as itNl m it is tho first desk J used when 1 com-ii com-ii meneod to do business for myself? Mrs. Srl fc Lincoln, in one of linr passious. threw 1 ' ''ji"'0 stroct becaiihc I upset tho ' Famous Bible Really an Album. ;)j In this room are also fifty distinct st' j photographs of Lincoln, the "last made f;t won the south portico of the White ijj House, a few days before his death, g Vi But that, regarded as the most char- nf actcristic of all his portraits shows the .; - : president and his favorito ''Tad'' ; . glancing over a book, in the attitude i , in which Brady, the celebrated war pho- t.V. tographer, found them when ho entered . f the room. The book which the two aro pernsing has been proclaimed over the '.. ; Jficd ever since, as tho Bible, but in t reality it was a photograph album. Ac- . cording to Mr. Oldroyd, who has traced I si UP he circumstances uuder which each , i of these photographs was taken, Lin- r coin had uouo of them madcvoluntarily, '- 0 E hut was good-natured in posing, espec- , Jj j tally for poor photographers who, ho t realized, would benefit financially by ' K having a negative of him. Thus that r-rx 1 known as the Gardner photograph was m made one day whon tho president was walking up Seventh street. Gardner, who V4; 1 JWOicd to be standing outside his gal- . i T "toy, importuned tho president on the j( ftreol and the latter, although not kuow- 1 J ing tho liustliug photographer, accom- modated him by going upstairs and submitting to tho 6low tortures of the old wct-plattj process of those days. Iu the front parlor of this huose Mrs. Lincoln rested on tho night of tho tragedy when sho was not bosido tho president's death bed. Here ure shown tho original spur which trinncd Booth causing him to break his leg while ho was (.-scaping from tho President's box and tho flag in which tho spur caught. Hero arc also relics of (he arsenal prison, in which tho conspirators conspira-tors wcro confined, as wejl as original portraits of all of tho conspirators themselves. them-selves. A ghastly series of relics near by aro photographs showing tho various steps iu the execution of the conspirators conspira-tors and twists of tho ropes; al6o relics of the bam in which Booth was shoU and locks cut from his hair while his body lay in a naval vessel off (ho Washington navy yard. A black locust rail, to which is attached at-tached tho aflidavit of John Hanks, Lincoln's Lin-coln's cousin, that it was split by tho great, rail splitter and nono other, hangs in tho archway botwoon tho front parlor and that to tho roar, in which, on tho night of the assassination, wero gathered tho various oflicials of state who , awaited tho dcatli of the president. In this rour room is a museum of relics of tho Lincoln campaigns, including framed copies of tho scores of notablo cartoons caricaturing Lincoln. Besides these articles named tho little museum contains 1000 Lincoln photographs, 2o0 memorial sermons preached tho Sunday following his death, ninety funeral bearing his likeness and 300U classified newspaper clippings relating to him. Somo of tho most celebrated of his recent re-cent biographers have spent days at tho liouso junking researches among tho j data. Curse on Ford's Theater. Out of tho front windows arc seen, directly across the street, tho great gray facade of tho old Ford's thoatcr, whose curtain, rung down after tho flight of Booth across its stage, nover again rose upon a play. The playhouse was im- ' mediately closed br Secretary of War I inarches dedicated to him, '250 medals Stanton, and subsequently an investigation investi-gation exonerated Jlr. Ford from any responsibility for the tragedy. Ford thereupon sought heavy damages for the suspension of his business and tho dispute dis-pute was ended by tho government's i purchasing tho theater. It was then convortod into a medical museum for tho army, and it was a ghastly coincident coinci-dent that the vertebrae of Booth's neck and tho part of tho spinal cord pone- tratcd by Boston Corbett's bullet wero both exhibited in this museum as curious curi-ous specimens of morbid anatomy from a gunshot wound. When the medical museum was removed to the present building alongside tho National Museum they wero taken there and are now on exhibition to physicians, nloug with thu ' peculiarly enlarged spleen of ttuiteau, the assassin of Garfudd. At tho time of the Mclvinlcy assassination an on- J terprisiug newspaper photographer up- plied for a pormit to photograph these specimcus ior the illustration of a timely article, but ho was informed that permission would bo givon only on condition con-dition that, publication bo limited to t-oieulic treatises. In tho old stablo back of the thenter Booth's remains, rollod iu a blanket, wero stored for a time after having been exhumed from their secret gruve in the , arsonal grounds and before being re- interred iu a stcond secret grave in the. Baltimore cemetery, where they aro bo-lieved bo-lieved to still repose at au unmarked spot, known ouly to tho Booth faiuik and to a few cemetery empl03'ees sworn to secrecy. I Old-time negroes still tell talcs of the j specters long believed to hauut the old theater und to pursue thoso who veu- ! lured upon the adjacent alley leading I to this stable. To thoso phantoms somo ! attributed the terrible fatality which occurred within the theater building some fifteen years ago, after tho removal re-moval of tho medical museum therefrom and after its occupation as an annex to the war department, as it still is at this time. This second tragedy within tho building was a collapse of its floors, which killed many government employees, em-ployees, maimed many more and cost tho government thousands of dollars in damages. H The, chair in which Lincoln was sit- IH ling in the the'itre box when shot IH ou that Good Friday night of' G5 js.nov? . H aturcl nt the national mu.s"'tnn wher': . IH it has never hern placed on c.xlulii1 ; H lion. The national museum, however H displays ;i Prince Albert coat and cravalA ' IH once worn by Lincoln, mid which were , IH obtained from a 'olorcd man to whom " IH they had been giv'n before the traced. H It also has thr high silk hat which Un ' H martvr president wore to the theatre. . iH on the night of the assassination. But' " H more important item" of tin"' national ... H museum's collection am the original Liii- H coin death ina?k mad' by the sculptor. . IH Clark Mills, just nftr the president's ' IH death; also the original life mask made H at Spriugliold in 1S00. just after Lin- H 'obi's fir.t nomination by th sculptor. Leonard Volk, who ncconipaiii-d the no. H tificntinu committer" from ''Imago: At c H the same time Volk made casts of Liu H coin's hands, also shown iu the national f. museum collection. Before placing the IH clay upon tho right hand Volk asked jH the candidate if h" would not clench a IH bit of wood in the palm. Mr. Lincoln. - H at once darted into the woodshed with'""-' H one of Mrs; Lincoln 's brooms and sawed- H about live inches oil the end of the H handle, which cylinder of wood is seen the H .Booth 'r, Mummy Offered to Museum; H Two years ago a Tennessee attor-. . ., H ney, 3vho?r. narno jH withheld, offered I he. H .Smithsonian the alleged body of J. H Wilkes Booth, which, he said, h had. '. H in his pos?r,n?iou and had had miimhii H tied. According to this man. the n: H posed a:sas8in shot bv Sergeant Boston ... H Corbet I, was not really Booth who en- H caped and btvanir a client of his, after- IH ward committing suicido in the Grand Avcnuo hotel, Enid, Okla., January 11, - H "I knew Booth a? John D. Iielc"3' while living in IS72." writes this at- 1 to nicy, "and was associated with him H as my client until the fall of 1S77. when ;'- H we separated iu western Texas, he go H iug to Lead vi lie. Colo., and I return- iug to McnipliiF. Booth left with me a jl small tintvpe for his future idcutiflca- H lion. This picture was taken some 1 twelve yea is after the assassination of H ' Lincoln' and has been identified by H ' Junius Brutus Booth as being the pic- 1 tnre of his uncle. It also has been 1 identified by the famous actor thejate H Joseph Jefferson and many others." H Alleged New Evidence of Escape. H Recently 1 received from a lady a let- H tcr bearing upon this samo case, and the H following paragraphs, extracted from it H without betraying her name, may bo of H "I have recently received a latter H from a friend, , an actor; H who has supported Edwin' Booth. John ' H McCullough and Barrett, also starring H on his own account, and while laying H . in the early this month . - H he write? me t' at he visited Enid.. H Okla., where Wilkes Booth, uuder the ' B name of D. E. George, died, lie did - . H not commit suicide, us widely stated. H but drank himself to death, and Mr. B saw the embalmed body or H mum in v now in possession of the H undertaker there, and is firmly cou- vinced that it can be no other than a H member of the Booth family, whom .he .... has known very intimately, visiting in iH their home weeks at a time. He. says thev never alluded to Wilkes's death.- jH though thev spoke of his nature and . deed. Mr. saw the lawyer to jl whom moncv was sent from the enst for t H George's support, and this D. E. George H confessed to the lawyer on oath that he IH was really John Wilkes Booth. Mr. alio saw scores of people and 1 has their addresses, who have known for v ars that Wilkes was living . . "Mrs. Garrett declared mauy tunes,,. before her death that Booth escaped." continues mv correspondent, who very 1 evidently refers to Mrs. Garrett in H whose barn Booth was shot. "There are manv other proofs which I ivjll not wearv you with. 1 trust you will . excuse my yielding to a sudden impulse io tell vou this. T should so much pre- fer to think he died at once, for what- ' a terrible nemesis were those forty H vears of painful momory. remorse ami" constant fear of discovery and capture.' haunted by the ghastly sceno of Ibo murder and drinking himself to death -- to secure oblivion. Ono is reminded ot-.-' the promise, 'Vengeance is Mine, T will repav.? saith tho Lord: For. he-, was punished in the wor:?t- possible I JOHN ELF RET II WATKIXS. . jH |