Photo of carriage

Lincoln's Carriage

Closed May 31, 2015

A special display of the carriage that transported the President, Mary Todd Lincoln, Major Henry Rathbone, and his fiancée Clara Harris to Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865; on loan from the Studebaker National Museum.

The open barouche model carriage was built by Wood Brothers in 1864 and was presented to Lincoln by a group of New York merchants shortly before the president’s second inauguration. Clement Studebaker bought the vehicle from F. B. Brewer of New York, who had acquired it from Robert Lincoln, the president’s son, who sold it shortly after his father's assassination.

The carriage was on view in conjunction with an exhibition at nearby Ford’s Theatre, Silent Witnesses: Artifacts of the Lincoln Assassination, displaying a collection of items that were in the theater or carried by Abraham Lincoln the night of his assassination.