Lincoln and his First Visit to Albany- 1848 – the Political Connections

Lincoln’s  first visit to Albany happened in 1848.  It wasn’t  nearly the extravaganza as his  pre-inauguration visit to Albany in 1861 as he made his way to Washington D.C. (most people assume that was Lincoln’s first visit to the city – not so much)  But it was much more important.

In September 1848, while Lincoln was in Congress, he ventured on a series of speaking engagements on behalf of the Whig presidential candidate Zachary Taylor in and around Boston.

He was a political nobody, but late in his tour he met William Seward, former NYS governor, who would become U.S. Senator from NY the next year. They both gave speeches on September 22. Seward’s was aggressively anti-slavery (not just anti- Democrat). It was a pivotal meeting that informed Lincoln’s future thinking about the issue of slavery. They shared a hotel room in Worcester and according to Doris Kearns Goodwin, they talked most of the night. (Seward would become Lincoln’s Secretary of State – part of the “Team of Rivals” after he lost the Republican nomination for president to Lincoln in 1860.)

Seward had close ties with Thurlow Weed, editor of the “Albany Evening Journal” (a newspaper with a reach that extended far beyond Albany). Seward impressed upon Lincoln that on his trip back to Springfield, Ill. he had to visit Weed in Albany. (Weed was a political strategist and power broker of nationwide influence.) By 1848 he’d been a fixture in Albany for almost 30 years.

Since Lincoln would have to stop in Albany on his way home, Lincoln agreed. He and his family (Mary and their two children had accompanied him on his tour) would have made their way from the railroad station in Greenbush across the Hudson by ferry (there was no bridge in 1848) to Maiden Lane. It’s most probable that his family stayed at one of the two main hotels near the ferry landing – the Delavan House or Stanwix Hall. Both were located on Broadway – between State St. and Steuben St. and would have been suitable for children.

On his Lincoln’s way to visit Weed, if he looked south on Broadway, past State St., he would have seen the ruins of the Great Fire that had destroyed acres of Albany the previous month.

Lincoln appears to have found Weed in his newspaper office at 67 State St., just above James St. Weed then took him across the street to the State Hall (at the corner of State and Lodge) to meet Millard Fillmore (who was then NYS Comptroller). Fillmore was running as Taylor’s VP candidate, and would become President 2 years later upon Taylor’s death.

The meeting, by all accounts, was brief. But it gave all three men a chance to take each other’s measure. Weed and Fillmore were doing a favor for Seward – meeting a nothing burger Congressman from out west, but from a state that would become critical to the abolition movement. It gave Lincoln, a brilliant political strategist, an opportunity to meet two of the most prominent politicians of New York, a state that might be pivotal in any future endeavors. (Lincoln won NYS in 1860 by 50,000 votes – 7% – and it gave him about 20% of his electoral vote.)

Weed would become one of the founders of the Republican Party in the 1850s and a supporter of Seward in the 1860 election. He became a fixture in Washington and at the Lincoln White House, despite the fact that he and Mary Lincoln detested one another. Lincoln understood he had to stay in Weed’s good graces. (It was Weed and Seward who convinced Lincoln to donate a handwritten draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to be raffled at the Albany soldier’s relief bazaar in February 1864. That draft is in the permanent collection of the New York State Museum.)

Fillmore’s presidential policies in the 1850s contributed to the conflagration that became the Civil War. He continued to oppose Lincoln throughout his presidency and be critical of his War policies.

Fun Fillmore Factoid: In 1858, after his presidency, he would marry Caroline Macintosh, wealthy widow, in the parlor of the Schuyler Mansion (purchased by her first husband, a local railroad mogul, in the 1840s) .This was the same parlor in which Alexander Hamilton married Elizabeth Schuyler in 1780.

Copyright 2021 Julie O’Connor

LINCOLN’S ASSASSINATION AND THE ALBANY LEGACY

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln stunned the entire nation, but the events of that tragic night of April 14^th had particular meaning for Albany, with repercussions for decades. When Lincoln’s funeral train made its stop in Albany and his coffin was carried to the State Capitol on April 26, many Albany residents were also consumed by other horrific events still unfolding in Washington D.C. as a result of that horrific night.

THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF WILLIAM SEWARD

Often overlooked in history was the attempted assassination of William Seward, Secretary of State, that same April 14 evening when Lincoln was killed. Seward had deep connections in the Albany; he’d been a member of the NYS Assembly, 2 term NYS governor (he lived in the Kane Mansion  – the Schuyler Condos are located in that spot today), was elected U.S. Senator serving   over a decade until  he was appointed to Lincoln’s cabinet in 1861. Seward’s wife, Frances, attended the Troy Female Academy (Emma Willard) and had close ties with Albany Quakers and anti-slavery and women’s rights activists in Albany. His son Frederick attended high school in Albany and married Anna Wharton, daughter of a local druggist; for several years the couple live with the Wharton family on Hudson Ave in the 1850s while Frederick was the associate editor of the “Albany Evening Journal”.

John Wilkes Booth originally wanted to kidnap Lincoln. Having found no opportunity to abduct the President, Booth assigned conspirators to assassinate Seward and VP Andrew Johnson on the same night he intending on killing Lincoln.   Lewis Powell was dispatched to kill Seward in his bed (he was recuperating from an accident). Powell entered the Seward home on the pretext of delivering medicine, but was stopped by Frederick Seward.  Powell tried to shoot Frederick, but the gun misfired and Powell beat him severely around the head with the weapon. Powell then burst into the bedroom, jumped on the bed, and repeatedly stabbed William Seward in the face and neck..  A soldier guarding Seward wrestled Powell, but he was able to escape. The scene of the attempt was awash in blood.

(The plot to kill Vice President Johnson was abandoned.)

In total 4 members of the Seward family were injured.  His son Augustus and daughter Fanny suffered minor wounds.  Seward himself revived, but was significantly unwell for many months; he never fully recovered.  Frederick was severely injured, unconscious for days and lingered on the brink for at least a month – his wife Anna was distraught.  William Seward’s wife, Frances, disposed towards ill-health, died 2 months later of a heart attack, consumed by anxiety from the tragedies of that night. In Frederick’s 1915 biography he indicates that the physical and emotional wounds never healed for his family.

CLARA HARRIS AND HENRY RATHBONE AND THE LINCOLN ASSASSINATION

On April 14, 1865 Major. Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris were in the presidential box in Ford’s Theatre when John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln. The Major grappled with Booth, who stabbed him with a knife and escaped.

Rathbone and Harris were both from Albany (step brother and stepsister). Rathbone’s father, Jared, an enormously wealthy businessman and former mayor of Albany, died in the mid-1840s.  (Jared built the estate Kenwood which became the site of the Convent of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart.).  Within a month, Louisa, the wife of Assemblyman, Ira Harris, died.    Harris courted Pauline Rathbone and they were married 3 years later.  The families blended and moved into the Harris home at 28 Eagle St, just south of State St.  In  1861 Harris was elected   U.S. Senator, succeeding William H. Seward.  Upon his arrival in Washington D.C.   Harris became the ultimate nudge. Lincoln biographer Benjamin Thomas wrote that Harris  was among Lincoln’s “most frequent evening visitors”   The President once claimed that he looked underneath his bed each night to check if Senator Harris was there, seeking another patronage favor.  Harris was often accompanied on these visits by his daughter Clara, who became a close friend of May Lincoln.  Mary also was also partial to Clara’s fiancée, Henry Rathbone (despite being step brother and sister, love had come their way.)

After he was shot Lincoln was carried across the street to Petersen’s boarding house. Harris and Rathbone escorted a distraught and dazed Mary Lincoln to the house.  While Rathbone went into the room in which Lincoln lay dying, Mary was kept outside, with Clara at her side.  Rathbone finally passed out from loss of blood from his wound; Harris held Rathbone’s head in her lap. A surgeon realized Rathbone’s wound was more serious than initially thought. And he was taken home while Harris remained with Mrs. Lincoln.  Harris later stated:

“Poor Mrs. Lincoln, all through that dreadful night would look at me with horror & scream, ‘oh! my husband’s blood, my dear husband’s blood’ ..It was Henry’s blood (on Clara’s dress) not the president’s, but explanations were pointless.”

Rathbone and Harris married two years later and had three children. But the events of April 14 had effected Rathbone in terrible ways for the rest of his life. He had contracted several illness during the War that left him sick for months at a time, and a “debilitated constitution”. He continued have mysterious illnesses, as well as emotional outbursts and horrific headaches after the marriage. Clara became increasing fearful for herself and her children.  In 1882 he took his family and sister-in-law Louise on a trip to Germany. In December 1883, he killed Clara; attacking her with a pistol and dagger and then slashed himself, just as Booth had done to Lincoln and Rathbone. Rathbone barely survived and afterward contended there had been an intruder.  He was committed to an insane asylum until his death in 1911.   The children returned to America to the care of their uncle, William Harris in the wake of the horrific event which made international tabloid headlines.

WHAT ABOUT THE DRESS?

At some point upon Clara’s return to Albany she took the blood soaked dress to her family’s summer house “Loudon Cottage” in Loudonville, an Albany suburb, and buried it in the back of her closet. But when was asleep at night she insisted Lincoln’s voice emanated from the closet. Anniversaries of Lincoln’s death supposedly triggered spectral events for both Clara and others.  Clara bricked up the closet, but people in later years still claimed to have heard gunshots, seen a blood soaked young woman standing with Lincoln, and manifestations of the paranormal.

In 1910 the eldest son of Henry and Clara, Henry Riggs Rathbone, had the bricks removed and the burned the dress an attempt to rid the family of what he perceived as the dreaded curse.

Copyright 2021 Julie O’Connor