Posted on 03/10/2009 3:15:49 PM PDT by nickcarraway
For nearly 150 years, Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch has been rumored to carry a secret message, supposedly written by an Irish immigrant and watchmaker named Jonathan Dillon.
Dillon, working in a D.C. watch repair shop in 1861, told family members that he -- by incredible happenstance -- had been repairing Lincoln's watch when news came that Fort Sumter had been attacked in South Carolina. It was the opening salvo of what became the Civil War.
Dillon told his children (and, half a century later, a reporter for the New York Times) that he opened the watch's inner workings and scrawled his name, the date and a message for the ages: "The first gun is fired. Slavery is dead. Thank God we have a President who at least will try."
He then closed it up and sent it back to the White House. Lincoln never knew of the message. Dillon died in 1907.
The watch, meanwhile, was handed down and eventually given to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958. It didn't run anymore. No one had pried open the inner workings in ages. The old watchmaker's tale was just that.
And then Douglas Stiles, Dillon's great-great grandson, alerted Smithsonian officials to the family legend last month. He was a real-estate attorney in Waukegan, Ill., he explained. He'd heard the legend around the dinner table as a kid, but had just discovered a New York Times article from 1906, quoting Dillon as telling the story himself.
Truth? Lore?
This morning, in a small conference room on the first floor of Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, officials decided to find out.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I didn’t read the whole thread before I posted either; hate when that happens.
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world."
Isn’t it interesting to have a little tie to the folks of the past?
I have always tucked away something of ours and about us in the places we have lived.
I would love to see what has fallen in the cracks in our current home throughout the years. We live in a mid 19th century farmhouse, the upstairs flooring is from an older structure and has some cracks and gaps. There is a hollow space between the floor and the downstairs ceiling. I would love to know what is in there.
FUBO
When we remodelled our house, we ripped out a built-in desk. In the back of the drawer a child had written “I hate homework”. I met the woman who is now in her 50’s.
Indeed.
None of that has anything to do with the thread, you didn’t read the article and made a stupid sounding post.
“story, and your partially correct”
you’re
I remember hearing a similar story, except that the child was named ODumbo and in the back of the drawer he had written, "I hate America". I hear that the guy is now President or something...
Again I admit I did not read the whole article the first time. I merely engaged in preemptive thread hijacking. Sort of like the Austrian Empire's decision to invade Serbia in 1914.
We live in a 40 yr. old house on 10 acres. Until we had the various holes and cracks patched up, there were mice everywhere. Most likely you would find a graveyard of tiny skeletons.
cool.
sometimes myths turn out to be more truth than fiction
Feeling silly yet?
I call BS. Lincoln may have had many things in mind at the beginning of the war, but even he stated that ending slavery was not one of them.
ML/NJ
Better for me to be the first injector of silliness here prior to a decent into denunciations of “Dishonest Abe” and “Tyrant Lincoln”.
Time to show your Birth Certificate??
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