Lincoln's deathbed and furnishings from the Petersen House, Washington, D.C. (installed in the exhibition A House Divided at the Chicago Historical Society)
     After being shot at Ford's Theatre, President Lincoln was carried across the street to a boarding house operated by William Petersen, a Swedish tailor. The unconscious president was taken to a room at the rear of the house and placed diagonally across this bed, where he died the next morning.

Also from the same room are the rocking chair, bureau, gas jet, candlestick and lithograph print, The Village Blacksmith. The coverlet (bed cover) is typical of the period, while the wallpaper is a reproduction of the original. Various funerary and commemorative items surround the furnishings; the marble eagle guarded Lincoln's funeral bier as he lay-in-state at the Chicago Court House.
  
Lincoln's deathbed and furnishings from the Petersen
House, Washington, D.C. (installed in the exhibition A House Divided at the Chicago Historical Society)

Click image to enlarge.

Copyright 2002 The Chicago Historical Society
  
Image 41 of 49
 
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