Model looks

Many people have remarked that 21-year-old Lewis Powell was a "hottie." Unfortunately, he was also a felon. Can you pick him out from the contemporary fashion models above? (Hint: He's the one in the 19th c. handcuffs.) Powell a.k.a. Paine or Payne (1844-1865) was one of the 4 Americans convicted of conspiring in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. The photograph in question (2nd image) was one of several taken by Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner 3 months before Powell's execution by hanging. But as with today's photographers, Gardner seems to have had a knack for capturing his subject at the most flattering angle. You can judge from the 6th image on this page, but Powell may not have been "model material." In particular, his face was slightly disfigured as the result of being kicked by a mule at the age of 12. The accident knocked out a molar and broke his jaw, causing it to protrude on the left side.

Oddly enough, historians didn't know what happened to Powell's remains until about 8 years ago. His body - unclaimed by his family - was buried in 1869, but the cemetery was defunct by the mid-1870's, with no record of Powell's reinterment elsewhere. In 1992, his skull (13th image here) resurfaced at the Smithsonian Institution. After it was authenticated by the FBI, the skull was buried next to his mother's grave in Florida.

A shout-out to Shorpy for the amazing number of inspiring quality images on that site!

Head of Henri IV

Well-loved King Henri IV of France (1553-1610) narrowly escaped the death suffered by thousands of Protestants who had gathered for his wedding to his 1st wife, Marguerite of Valois (1553-1615) in 1572. The king (1st image) was on his way to the coronation ceremony of his 2nd wife Marie de' Medici (1575-1642) in 1610 when he was killed by an assassin (2nd image). Henri was laid to rest in the Basilica of Saint Denis (3rd image), but during the French Revolution in 1793, the royal graves were desecrated. Revolutionaries chopped off Henri's head before dumping his body in a mass grave with the other kings and queens. His embalmed head was snatched and has remained in private hands ever since. It is now mummified (photos here), with soft tissues and internal structures intact. Although the DNA from the few hairs remaining on his chin was too degraded to analyze, 19 researchers in France have announced that they have identified the head through other means:

• Radiocarbon testing confirms that the head dates from the 17th c.
• A healed bone fracture above the upper left jaw matches a stab wound the king suffered during a 1594 assassination attempt.
• The lobe of the left ear is pierced and he is depicted wearing an earring.
• A dark lesion observed above the right nostril is seen in many of the king's portraits.
• Perfumers on the team used their professionally trained noses to identify specific embalming substances noted in an autopsy report written by the king's surgeon.
• A digital facial reconstruction from all known portraits of Henry IV and his death mask matches CT scans of the skull.

Next year, France will hold a national funeral for Henry IV, after which his head will be replaced in his tomb in Saint Denis.

Robert Todd Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln did not have a lot of time to get to know his 1st-born son Robert Todd (1843-1926), but the young man (1st image), a 21-year-old captain in the Union Army at the time, was at the White house when the president was shot and by his father's deathbed - and weeping openly - when he died of his assassin's bullet. Sixteen years later, he was on the platform at the train station in Washington, D.C., and witnessed the fatal shot that felled President James A. Garfield (3rd image) in 1881. Two decades after that, Robert was present at (but not eyewitness to) the assassination of President William McKinley (4th image) at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, in 1901. At that point, he commented about invitations to presidential events, "No, I'm not going, and they'd better not ask me, because there is a certain fatality about presidential functions when I am present." He did, however, attend the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922, which was survived by Presidents Warren G. Harding and William Howard Taft. Even stranger still is a coincidence that occurred prior to President Lincoln's assassination. In 1864 or 1865, Robert almost fell onto a train track in Jersey City, New Jersey, but was held back by none other than Edwin Booth (2nd image), the brother of the man who would soon kill his father. Robert later recalled, "The platform was about the height of the car floor, and there was of course a narrow space between the platform and the car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform." Robert recognized Edwin, a well-known actor like his father and older brother, and thanked him by name, but it was months before Edwin knew it was Robert's life he had saved.

The play that night

The play Our American Cousin was produced by American actress Laura Keene (1826-1873) and premiered in 1858 at her theater in New York. It was a farcical comedy written by Tom Taylor (1817-1880) about awkward American Asa Trenchard (played by Harry Hawk) meeting his aristocratic relatives when he goes to England to claim an inheritance. Its most famous performance came 7 years later on the night of April 14, 1865, at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. The dialog just before the fateful moment follows:

Asa: You crave affection, you do. Now, I've no fortunes, but I'm spilling over with affections, which I'm ready to pour out all over you, like apple sass, over roast pork.
Mrs. M: Mr. Trenchard, will you please recollect that you are addressing my daughter, and in my presence.
Asa: Yes I'm offering her my heart and hand just as she wants them, with nothing in 'em.
Mrs. M: Augusta, dear, to your room.
Augusta: Yes Ma, the nasty beast.
Mrs. M: I am aware, Mr. Trenchard, that you are not used to the manners of good society, and that, alone, will excuse the impertinence of which you have been guilty.
Asa: Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal - you sockdologizing old man-trap.

Loud laughter erupted, as he knew it would, when assassin John Wilkes Booth entered the state box at the theater and fired his single-shot pistol into the back of the president's head. The performance, which had stopped briefly after 8:45pm to honor Lincoln's arrival, came to an abrupt halt at 10:15pm, and Keene - who was poised to take the stage - is said to have rushed to the president's box and cradled his head in her lap.

After the assassination, the theater was closed and its owner briefly imprisoned until he could be cleared of complicity. Our American Cousin, however, continued in popularity and one of its characters, Lord Dundreary, featured in future spin-offs and added a new word to the language - a word now as obscure as "sockdologizing."

The chair and the car

I was 10 weeks old when President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) was assassinated during the motorcade in Dallas. My Mom left me laying on the couch when a friend knocked at the door to tell her to turn on the TV, and I chose that moment to roll over for the very 1st time and fall on my head (according to family lore, that's "what happened" to me). The limousine in which the Kennedys and Texas governor John Connally (1917-1993) and his wife Nellie (1919-2006) were riding was not decommissioned until 1980. After the assassination, the 7,800lb midnight-blue 1961 Lincoln Continental was modified and reconditioned. Safety improvements included the addition of armor plates, bullet-proof glass, run-flat tires, and a hardtop to replace the removable bubble top. Now topping 9,800lbs, the limo was returned to service in 1964 and used by presidents Richard Nixon (1919-1994), Gerald Ford (1913-2006), and Jimmy Carter (b. 1924). It may now be seen at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

I grew up in Illinois - the "Land of Lincoln" - and have been to New Salem (click here for a virtual tour), his home and the Old State Capitol (click here for a virtual tour) in Springfield, and Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., where President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was assassinated. The chair in which he was shot, a black walnut rocker, was purchased at auction by an agent of Henry Ford and transported to his museum in Dearborn (click here for vintage footage of the chair being unpacked). I have not seen it, but have seen other Lincoln assassination artifacts at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Museum, the Mütter Museum, and the National Museum of Health and Medicine.

Connecticut clock manufacture

My Mom's hometown of Bristol, Connecticut, was a center of American clock manufacturing from the early 1800s. Much of the history centers on Elias Ingraham (1805-1885), who was associated with a series of clock companies during his lifetime:

• Ray & Ingraham, 1841-1844
• Brewster & Ingrahams, 1843-1852
• E. & A. Ingrahams, 1852-1856
• Elias Ingraham & Co., 1857-1860
• E. Ingraham & Co., 1861-1880
• The E. Ingraham & Co., 1881-1884
• The E. Ingraham Co., Inc., 1884+

Elias built thousands, designed dozens, and patented 17 clock cases. He remained head of his company until his death at age 80, when he was succeeded by his son Edward (1830-1892). After World War II, Ingraham abandoned pendulum clocks in favor of electric and alarm clocks. The last incarnation of the company, Ingraham Co. (1958-1967) was sold to McGraw-Edison, which continues to make clocks using the Ingraham trademark. When I was a child, Mom took me to Bristol's American Clock and Watch Museum, established in 1954 by another Ingraham - perhaps the father of a girl she remembers going to school with.

The 1st image shows the factory of E. Ingraham & Co. The 2nd image shows a 22" oak Ingraham calendar cottage clock c. 1900, worth almost $1,ooo today. The 3rd image shows the 2" wide brass key used to wind such clocks, and the 4th image shows the instructions for doing so.

And here's something I have long wondered: Why were clocks in store displays and advertisements set at the time of 8:20 (and now at 10:10)? The 8:20 time, popularly believed to mark the time President Lincoln died, was intended to showcase the clock-manufacturer's trademark, which appeared above the "6." The 10:10 time, thought to be based on the time of death of President Kennedy, was in fact chosen to best frame the manufacturer's logo when it began appearing under the "12." Instilled in viewers' minds during the TV ad campaigns of Timex in the 1960s, it has since been informally adopted as an industry standard. (President Lincoln was assassinated at approximately 10:13pm and lay in a coma for 9 hours before being pronounced dead at 7:22am. President Kennedy was assassinated at 12:30pm and pronounced dead at 1 o'clock.)