?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
(ABRAHAM LINCOLN.) Three evocative items from the week of the Lincoln assassination: a playbill, Green Room ticket, and letter. 3 items, housed with related material; generally minor wear. Washington, April 1865
These papers were handed down in the family of Samuel Hay Kauffman (1829-1906), an Ohio newspaper publisher who came to Washington in 1861 as a Treasury Department clerk, and later became a notable patron of the arts. They include:
Samuel Hay Kauffman. Autograph Letter Signed "K" to wife. 3 pages, 9¾ x 7¾ inches, on one folding sheet; short separations at folds. Describes the scene in Washington on the day after the assassination: "Yesterday was gloomy enough. The day was dark and damp, fit in all respects for the sad scene it looked upon. All places of business were closed, and nearly every house in the city, public and private, was draped in mourning. Even the stores and residences of well-known secessionists and sympathizers bore this outward mark of respect--or fear, it may have been, in their cases. The closing of liquor establishments was a most excellent precaution. But for that, there would doubtless have been blood shed, or at least excitement and tumultuous and dangerous assemblages. . . . Gov. Seward is more comfortable, and it is thought he will recover, but no hopes are entertained for the life of the son. . . . The Governor is conscious and knows all the facts connected with the President's death, but up to last night had not been told of Fred's fate, but how it can be kept from him much longer I can't understand." Washington, 16 April 1865.
Pass for President Lincoln's White House funeral. Engraved black-bordered invitation on card, 3¼ x 5 inches, specifying the Green Room; printer's ink smudging, partial embossed "Bristol Board" stamp, inscribed on verso "Funeral services of President Lincoln" in period hand. Attendance at Lincoln's White House funeral service was limited due to space considerations. The Washington Evening Star described it as "the most solemn day in the history of Washington" and detailed the arrangements: "During the forenoon various bodies had met at the Treasury Department, separate rooms having been assigned to them, and to these Assistant Secretary Harrington, who had charge of the arrangements, delivered tickets of admission to the Executive Mansion. . . . None could enter the mansion without tickets, room having been provided for 600 persons only up on the raised platform steps on the east, north, and south side of the room." [Washington], 19 April 1865.
Playbill for a performance of "Aladdin" at Grover's Theatre, 10 x 5¼ inches, printed in red and blue and illustrated with patriotic motif; moderate wear, paper repair on verso; inscribed on verso "The programme of the performance at Grover's Theatre the night President Lincoln was shot at Ford's," Washington, 14 April 1865. Accompanied by a 3 x 4-inch manuscript note in Kauffman's hand: "This is the program of the performance at Grovers (now the National) Theater the night Booth shot Mr. Lincoln at Ford's. I was at Grover's, and so was Mr. Lincoln's youngest son Tad, in one of the boxes. When the announcement of the assassination was made from the stage, Tad was carried out by a soldier, crying 'They've killed my Papa! They've killed my Papa!'"
With--two early souvenir facsimiles of the Ford's Theatre playbill, one an 1890 photograph on a 10¼ x 3½-inch printed mount; and the other 12½ x 4 inches.
Miniature book: "Addresses of Abraham Lincoln." [16], 139, [1] pages. Original gilt calf, ¾ x ½ inch; minimal wear, all edges gilt. Second edition. Kingsport, TN: Kingsport Press, 1929.
Letterbook copy of Kauffman's letter of resignation from his Treasury Department position, 28 December 1867, and a signed response from Secretary Hugh McCullogh accepting the resignation, 31 December 1867, with manuscript copies of both. Kauffmann became part-owner of the Washington Star newspaper that same year.
Two worn and incomplete children's books, "Sermons to Children" (Philadelphia, 1811) and another of similar vintage lacking the first 4 leaves, with note explaining that they belonged to Samuel Hay Kauffman's mother Jane Hay.
