The evening times., 1896-07-23
ien. N. u Force was at one time the colonel.

Gen. NJ. F. Force was at one time the colonel.
He served four years. His interest in Presi-
dent Lincoln was first awakened in 1850,
during the campaign that led up to his
nomination in 1850.
The captain was then living at Mount
Vernon, Ohio, boy of eighteen.
1t was his first experience in pholitics,
and he said when Lincoln was chosen as
tile national standa rd bearer OF his party,
he realized from the circums taDces, at
an age when 1t made the deepest impress
upon his mind, that man OF the humblest
parentage and surroundings may attain to
the highest station in The government, and
he at once conceived the idea of preserving
relics of the campaign and mementoes OF
the man. That is the origin OF his most
wonderful collection.
Not a single one of the 5000 objects in
those four roons but is associated directly
with some event in Lincoln's life, and not
one but is duly attested as genuine, its
history closely traced and authenticated.
ALL OBJECT LESSONS.
He saved every scrap he could get OF
campaign literature-medals, badges, carl
catures even, photographs and Iictures
almost without number, stationery and ar
ticies of endless variety, gathered in the
thirty years the collection has been build
ing, aud all stored in those rooms, and
each one tells a separate story or forms
n link without which some narrative
would lie incomplete. Each separate piece
admitted to case, or shelf, or niche, to make
n.,rta in hat ,sy,,
or fraud possible.
The account of Lincoln's death is graph
ically told in a group OF illustrations
without the aid of a liue of explanation.
The interior view of the theater is shown,
where on the 14th of April j. Wilkes
Booth fired the fatal shot; the almost life
less form of the President is being borne
across the street from theater to dwell
ing, the room in which he died, with
low, sloping ceiling, Is presented next;
then the conveyance of the body to the
White House; the East Room, where
funeral services were conducted on the
18th OF the month: next, the hearse in
which the body was conveyed to the Cap
itol, and the Capitol building, where it
lay in state until the 21st: the departure for
Springfield, with the stops made at Bal
timore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, New
York, Albany, Buffalo. Cleveland. Co.
lumbus, indianapolis. Chicago, and finally
the arrival OF the funeral party at Spring
field, May 8; the remains in state at the
State capitol; the hearse employed there,
and fine representation of the tomb
In like manner, the deed of the assassin,
his frightful leap from the box to the thcater
stage, his tragic defiance as he passed off
the stage, and his subsequent flight, cap
ture, death, burial and reinterment for
transfer OF the body to Baltimore, are
given pictorially, with a vividness that is
startling.
SOUGHTHISTORICALDATA.
Capt. .Oldroyd has endeavored to obtain
as much as possible of the history of each
article exhibited, and to that end he raid
personal visits to the scenes from which
his material was obtained. He spent
weeks at time interviewing the old
farmers in the vicinity of New Salem,
Illinois, where Lincoln enlisted for the
Black Hawk war, and at Petersburg, the
town surveyed by him when it was in its
embryonic stage, and gathered data with
which to verify his history.
He purchased for $40 at New Salem
a little log structure that opce served us
the raiI-Splitter's clearinghouse. Subse-
quently this building was destroyed by
storm, and the greater portion of it was
used by the people of the neighborhood for
ffrewood. This thwarted Capt. Oldroyd's
design, for when he returned to have the
house taken down and removed to Spring
field, to become a part Of his collection, he
found but one sill Of it remaining OF
this he had manufactured the frame work
of a stand upon which there now rests
colored marble slab, the latter presented
by Col. Culver, of the Fifth Illinois In
fantry.
The slab bears an inscription penned by
the poet Whittier, and Capt. Oidroyd has
the pen with which 1t was indicted. The
words, written at the request of Capt.
0ldroyd as memorial, are:
Let man be free; the word
He spake was not his own.
Thespirit OF the Highest stirred
His mortal lips alone
The legs OF this stand are fashioned so
as TO exemplify the sturdy oak In the char
acter of the man it represents, and the
article is above price--Gov. Dick Oglesby,
then living, attested the facts alleged as
TO the use of the humble little house from
which the sill was taken. and its owner
is today able to ASSURE the observer that
it was in reality q part OF the efstwhile home
OF the great coinmoner.
THE RIGHTFUL OCCUPANT.
Very many persone have at times laid
claim to the distraction of being the occu-
pant at the time of the tragedy Of the room
In which the President breathe his last.
It remained for the present occupant of the
building and the owner OF the relics to
trace the one actually entitiedeto the mel
auciioly privilege, and that one was Will
lam 7. Clark, member of Company d, Of
the Thirteenth Massachusetts Infancy, who
was ut the. time an attache of the quarter
master generals office.
Capt. Olt;roy d has N liispossession copy
Of letter addressed by Clark to- his sister.
at the old home, Immediately after the as
sassiDation.- In it he says, in part: