Timepieces and Abraham Lincoln
There has been a rumor about Abraham Lincoln circulating for about one hundred and fifty years. Well, perhaps the rumor is not so much about Lincoln as it is about his timepieces. The rumor was that there was a secret message about the Civil War embedded somewhere in his timepiece.
That rumor is now a reality. It was proven to be true when George Thomas, an expert maker of timepieces came to the National Museum of American History and before a crowd of museum workers and reporters, he looked inside this rarest of antiques. And indeed, upon unscrewing and prying open the pocket watch, he found a message written by Mr. Jonathan Dillon, dated April 13th, 1861. It was written in small cursive letters that occupied the tiny space between the gears and the screws. The message was so small, in fact, that it required a magnifying glass to read it. It said: “Fort Sumpter was attacked by the rebels on the above date.” The inscription also said: “Thank God we have a government.”
Jonathan Dillon was a watchmaker in Washington DC. He was in possession of President Lincoln’s pocket watch when he found out that the first gunfire of the American Civil War was reported on the battlefields of South Carolina. Mr. Dillon, an Irish immigrant, later remembered that he was the sole believer in the Union cause working in his shop.
Mr. Dillon’s story circulated among his friends and family and went down to subsequent generations before it landed in the hands of a reporter for the NY Times. In the article, Mr. Dillon, then eighty-four years old, said that to his knowledge, nobody including the President himself ever laid eyes on the inscription.
Doug Stiles, who is the great-grandson of Mr. Dillon, initially heard the story of the message to the President from his own great uncle many decades ago. Stiles said the tale had reached family members all the way to Ireland.
Then several months ago, Stiles used the Google search engine to track down the NY Times article, and subsequently he relayed the information to curators at the Smithsonian who did not know anything about the message.
The moment of the confirmation of the inscription was not without its drama. First, Mr. Thomas said: “The moment of truth has come. Is there or is there not an inscription?” Then, upon revealing the message, Mr. Thomas called for Mr. Stiles to join him and read his great-great grandfather’s words to the President. After he did so, Stiles joked: “My gosh, that was Lincoln’s watch… and my ancestor put graffiti on it!”
President Lincoln’s family held the watch before, in 1958, they gave it to the Smithsonian. It was one of the President’s everyday timepieces, and one of his only possessions of value that he took to Washington from his home in Springfield, Illinois.
The famous watch will be displayed in the museum’s current exhibit on Lincoln’s life.
But the exhibit will now include Mr. Dillon’s amazing story about timepieces.
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