LINCOLN MUSEUM AND THE OLDROYD COLLECTION OF LINCOLNIANA
Across the street from Ford’s Theater stands a red brick house (No. 516 Tenth Street NW.) to which President Lincoln, after being shot about 10.30 o’clock on the night of April 14, 1865, was carried and where, after an interval of 9 hours, he died at 22 minutes after 7 o’clock the following morning without regaining consciousness.
The room to which the martyred President was brought is a little front one on the main floor. In size and simplicity it was a room like that of the log cabin in Kentucky in which the great man was born. As a man of the people, though they had elevated him to the highest position the Nation could bestow on any of its citizens, he died amidst simple surroundings as one of them.
The house was purchased by the United States Government in 1897 for $30,000; the Oldroyd Lincoln Memorial Collection was purchased for $50,000 and taken over by the Government September 1, 1926. It is now under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, and is visited by many thousands each year.
Courtesy of Leet Brothers
FORD’S THEATER
THE HOUSE IN WHICH PRESIDENT LINCOLN DIED
Mr. Oldroyd gathered in the course of 50 years upward of 3,000 articles pertaining to the martyred President. These can be seen by visitors to the house. The room in which Abraham Lincoln died has been kept as nearly as possible as it was when Lincoln passed away and when Stanton said, “Now he belongs to the ages.”
The following are some of the articles that can be seen: Wreaths that lay upon the casket in Washington and at the final burial in Springfield, Ill., and a rose taken from his bosom just before the casket was closed—faded, but hermetically sealed in a small glass case, it still appears a rose. There is also in the house furniture used by Mrs. Lincoln in Springfield, including her cookstove; the plain office desk and chair Abraham Lincoln used while practicing law with William H. Herndon; a plain black and white shawl that he wore in place of an overcoat, as men did in those days; the last bit of writing he did; the Bible his mother, Nancy Hanks, gave to him before she died, when he was not yet 9 years of age, and from which he was taught to read; the desk upon which much of the Emancipation Proclamation was written; also many documents, prints, and books describing his life.