Jun 12 at 12:00 PM - Sale 2708 -
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Sale 2708 - Lot 127

Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(ABRAHAM LINCOLN.) Trade card of "Drs. Brown & Alexander, Embalmers of the Dead," who served as Lincoln's embalmers. Printed double-sized card, 2½ x 3¾ inches, on white coated stock; minor wear and foxing, moderate surface loss from mounting on verso, one corner tender. Washington, circa late 1862
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Additional Details

Brown & Alexander was appointed as the official "Embalmers of the Dead for the United States Army" in April 1862. They maintained branch offices in several northern cities to assist "those having lost friends in the Army, and wishing the remains sent home." The firm achieved a degree of fame in April 1865 by serving as the embalmers of Abraham Lincoln; they accompanied the body on its long railroad tour to Illinois, freshening up their work as needed. The Brown & Alexander partnership dissolved shortly after the war, on 5 July 1865.

The embalmers were located at "Pennsylvania Avenue, between 11th and 12th Streets (opposite Kirkwood's Hotel)." The location is four blocks southeast of the White House, and just 2 blocks southwest of Ford's Theatre. Vice President Andrew Johnson was living at the Kirkwood Hotel. The assassin John Wilkes Booth stopped in there a few hours before killing Lincoln to check up on Johnson's location, and accomplice George Atzerodt got drunk at the Kirkwood bar before abandoning his assignment to kill the Vice President.

The verso of the card is titled "Soldier's Almanac" and has a condensed calendar for 1863 over the firm's address. We trace no other examples in OCLC or at auction. Provenance: noted Civil War collector Norm Flayderman; his Cowan's auction, 17 July 2017, lot 76 (not noting the Lincoln connection).

See also lot 62 for a Brown & Alexander letterhead.

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