I have recently become a bit obsessed with the watches of Abraham Lincoln. Most stories about them involve the fancy gold one he carried, partly because it had a secret message inside it, etched there by a guy who was fixing his watch right after the outbreak of the Civil War:
The message reads:
April 13, 1861 Fort Sumpter was attacked by the rebels on the above date. Thank God we have a government. - Jonth Dillon
The message wasn’t discovered until 2009 at the Smithsonian, where it resides. Presumably a different watch repair person jokingly inscribed “Jeff Davis” on it as well. I guess the inside of watches was where people trolled each other back then.
But anyway, I am less interested in this watch than his other famous one — a Waltham Wm. Ellery model, presented to him right after he delivered the Gettysburg Address in 1863. These Waltham watches were considered some of the first mass-produced watches ever. At the time, they cost only 13 dollars, which I’m sure was a lot of money, but apparently they were the watch of choice of Union Army soldiers.
Lincoln’s Waltham was serial number 67,613. The Smithsonian does not have the watch, but it does have a very similar one — number 67,631 — the 18th made after Lincoln’s.
The Waltham shown above is serial number 67,581, also close to Lincoln’s.
Waltham continued to make the Wm. Ellery model for several decades after the Civil War. If you don’t mind that your watch is from, say 1885, twenty years after Lincoln’s death, you can likely find one on eBay for a hundred bucks or less. And it will be virtually identical to the one carried by the Great Emancipator.
What about you?
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