Inspired by patriotic interest in the construction of the Washington Monument, Englishman James Crutchett produced souvenir George Washington keepsakes in his “Mount Vernon Factory.” In 1852 Crutchett contracted with John Augustine Washington to harvest wood from Mount Vernon for the purpose of making souvenirs. Crutchett’s souvenirs came with a certificate of authenticity issued under the authority of Crutchett; the Mayor of Washington, D.C.; and John Augustine Washington.
President George Washington’s state coach featured four side panels representing the seasons. This panel, encased in an oak frame, depicts “Spring.” Washington used the coach to travel between the capital and Mount Vernon and on two presidential tours, to the northern and southern states, in 1789 and 1791. Mrs. Mary Dunlap of Georgetown presented the panel to John Varden at the National Institute for the Promotion of Science. The Smithsonian accessioned the panel, along with the rest of the Patent Office’s historical relic collections, in 1883.
Transfer from the United States Patent Office, undated
By late 1864 the war was coming to an end. In December Gen. William T. Sherman completed his destructive march to the sea. Richmond, the Confederate capital, fell early in April, and on April 9, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Over the course of the war, some 623,000 Northern and Southern soldiers died.
This towel was used as a flag of truce by Confederate troops during Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865. It was preserved by Gen. George A. Custer, who was present at the surrender.
Editorial cartoonist Thomas Nast continued the tradition of using animals as symbols in party politics and sharpened it as an art form. In this satirical cartoon that appeared on August 31, 1872 in Harper’s Weekly, Nast depicts New York City’s corrupt Tammany Society as a fierce tiger, being whitewashed by Democratic presidential candidate Horace Greeley.
In chilly weather, Lincoln often wore a dark wool shawl over his shoulders. Many years later Robert Todd Lincoln gave his father's shawl to his own friend, Washington attorney Frederick Harvey.
Gift of Mrs. John Shirley Wood, daughter of Frederick Harvey, 1967
The National Police Gazette detailed the events of Lincoln’s assassination.
John Wilkes Booth’s attack on Lincoln was part of a larger plot to assassinate national leaders and throw the North into turmoil. The conspirators also planned to murder Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. Besides Booth, eight individuals were charged. Because the plot was considered an act of war, a military commission tried the accused. The court sentenced four suspects to be hanged, and the others to prison.
In the early 1800s, tourists visiting Plymouth Rock were provided a hammer so that they could take a piece of the rock as a souvenir. By 1880, what was left of the rock was fenced off within a memorial.
Gift of the heirs of Mrs. Virginia L. W. Fox, 1911
Lincoln used this iron wedge to split wood while living in New Salem, Illinois in the early 1830s.
In 1885 workers found this wedge during renovations to a house that once belonged to Mentor Graham in New Salem, Illinois. Graham was a friend of Abraham Lincoln’s, and Lincoln gave him the wedge as a token of friendship when he left New Salem to begin his career as a lawyer in Springfield, Illinois.
The initials “A L” appear on one side of the wedge. John Spears, a neighbor, recalled the day Lincoln went to a blacksmith and asked to have his initials cut into the wedge. The blacksmith hesitated, claiming he was “no scholar.” Lincoln borrowed the tools and marked the wedge himself.
The opening of the Berlin Wall by the East German government on November 9, 1989, signaled the collapse of Communism and led to the reunification of East and West Germany. Their separation through the center of Berlin dated to the Allied partition of the country into occupied zones after the Second World War. When the end came, portions of the wall were cut into memorial-size chunks of concrete. An apparently limitless supply of smaller bits became available to a global audience who had witnessed the wall’s destruction on television. A vendor in a Berlin flea market sold this fragment to a visiting Canadian student, who in turn sold it on an Internet auction site.
When George Washington’s remains were relocated to a new tomb in 1837, his family planned to make souvenirs from the mahogany covering of his lead-lined coffin. Its deteriorated condition made that idea unworkable, however, so they distributed small pieces of the wood. The note on this piece reads, “Washington’s Coffin presented to Mr. Saltonstall by a nephew, + namesake of Washington residing at Mount Vernon.”
This Mr. Saltonstall is believed to be Leverett Saltonstall, a Massachusetts congressman from 1838 to 1843. Saltonstall often visited Mount Vernon, where he likely received this coffin piece from John Augustine Washington, who was George Washington’s great-grandnephew and Mount Vernon’s last resident owner.