[LINCOLN, ABRAHAM] Clerestory window from Lincoln's funeral train. A wooden clerestory window frame of mortise and tenon con...

Description:

[LINCOLN, ABRAHAM]
Clerestory window from Lincoln's funeral train. A wooden clerestory window frame of mortise and tenon construction, built 1863-1865, the front with a functioning latch and remnants of both a brown and white paint, the back with two original hinges, overall 10 x 16 inches (25 x 41 cm). The window also with a later but early chromolithographed portrait of Lincoln with wood backing, the latch with remnants of a red, white and blue silk ribbon, and a nail on the verso with a black mourning ribbon. Some wear and small losses.

An interesting and rare relic of Lincoln's funeral train, one of sixteen clerestory windows which ventilated the car which brought the President and his son Willie from Washington to Springfield, Illinois in April 1865. The frame is accompanied by two newspaper clippings picturing the frame and a 1953 letter from the director or the Union Pacific Historical Museum offering a history of the train car. Designed and built as Lincoln's presidential car, it was not ready until April 1865 when it was put into service for the twelve-day funeral tour. The car was bought by the Union Pacific Railroad in 1866 and the car brought to Omaha, Nebraska where it was used as a private car for directors. The car was subsequently sold and modified but was reacquired by the Union Pacific and was displayed in Omaha at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in 1898. Sold several more times, the car eventually burned in a prairie fire in 1911 in a yard in Minnesota. The earlier newspaper clipping here is dated from January 1926 and pictures the frame alongside its proud owner, Union Army veteran E.W. Kerr of Omaha, and it is very likely the frame was acquired there, likely between 1870 and 1903. We trace another example of a clerestory window from the car in the collection of the Nebraska History Museum which is visually a match to this example and interestingly also held a color lithograph of Lincoln suggesting the two relics to have been assembled simultaneously. A 1962 newspaper clipping shows the frame as the proud artifact of Los Angeles area school children mentioning that the frame is part of the Lincoln collection formed by Mrs. Kenneth Simpson and Mrs. McIntyre Faries. Relics of Lincoln's funeral train car are scarce.

For the window in the collection of the Nebraska History Museum see: https://history.nebraska.gov/blog/window-abraham-lincoln%E2%80%99s-funeral-car

C Collection of a California Family
Estimate $4,000-6,000

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