River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1919-04-03
The Smithsonian
Institute
A Letter from Miss Agnes Line
han, Now at Washington, D.
c., to Her Mother, Mrs. M.
Linehan, of This City
Dear Mama, Florence, Billie ard

All:
Today we have seen so many won
derful things that | must write and
tell you all about it. We went to
see the Smithsonian Institute. new
er have seen such marvellous place.
III try to describe it. 1t contains
everything Of interest connected
with our country.
Beginning at the door, with every
thing in glass cases and locked, IS
booth for Abe Lincoln, casts OF his
head, and his hands (open and shut
his vest, coat, trousers and hat. His
Jack knife is opened the way it drop
ned from his hand when he was shot.
It IS an old, bIack-handled knife and
rusty with age. The moulds of his
hands were taken the morning after
the inaugural ball and the right one
is very much swollen and he told the
artist that it was caused by the ex-
cessive hand shaking. 1t is the simp-
lest exhibit of all the presl
dents. His ink we'll which he used
when he signed the Emancipation
Proclamation is there and the old
pen and pencil (half gone) are on a
little rack which he whitfield out of
wood. One couldn't help weeping at
it's simplicity and the sorrOwful ex-
preston on his grand old noble face,
andIat sight Of the hard, big, rough
hands. There is an awful scar on
thumb of his left hand that he got
while splitting rails. So much for
Abe. When one sees all his plain
little things we can realize all of his
hard, sad life-no frills or joys, just
sorrow.
There isn't a thing exhibited for
Mckinley save his face as it was
moulded after death. It is right be
side Lincoln's.
There is a whole room given to
Washington. All Of his tents and
poles used in the Revolution, his fur
niture used at Mt. Vernon, his dish
es. his guns and all his little nick
hacks. Their dishes were plain
white with gold bands around the
edges. They are all Clipped and
cracked, but just to think that the
Washingtons ate off them and slept
in those beds, sat in those chairs,
used those knives and forks (Which
are. only plated), it seems almost i'm
possible. The uniform which he
wore when he gave his farewell adj
dress is just the same as that in
which he is always pictured. The
Star Spangled Banner is there-the
one that foated over the fort of
Boston when the British tried to
capture it by sea and the same one
that inspired Francis Scott Key to
write what he felt in the song, "The
Star Spangled Banner" as he lay
prisoner, watching, on the British
ship.
There are booths for the clothes
and nicknacks Of all the generals of
the Civil War; also for all of the
presidents; Napolean's court attire
that he last wore before the battle
of Waterloo; Richard Mansfield S
robes as he wore them in the court
OF Henry VIII; Thomas Jefferson's
whole household furniture set Call
mahogany; Josephine's fan, that
she used in Napoleon's court; Fred
erick VII of Norway wife's dog col
lar, bracelet, pin, and ear rings of
canoes; the necklace of matched
pearls worn by the Hindu queen in
the 14th century; the uniform of the
first French aviator lost inside tt e
German lines in 1915; the one of the
first American boy lost inside Ger
man bounds; he was 1st lieutenant.
The first railroad engine; Powhat-
ans can {: he original Declaration
of Independence; an honorable dis
charge which Washington signed
and gave private of the Revolution
The writing is almost as faded as the
paper is yellow. The deer-skin skirt
beads and feathers of Pocohantas;
the dresses worn by our presidents
wives at inaugural balls, fromMartha
Washington to Mrs. Taft We are
wondering which Mrs. Wilson will
have one there. The gowns are all
exhibited on life-sized models.
There are five French airplanes
which were used for bombing at
night (19l7) hung up in the top of