Let's go back in time until 1850, a successful lawyer named Abraham Lincoln was looking for a new watch. He finds himself in Springfield, Illinois, where a jeweler, George Chatterton, offers him a gold pocket watch 18 carats ...
There was nothing remarkable in this timepiece , The mechanism was manufactured in Liverpool, England, while box was typical of the high quality expected in America at the time.
in November 1860, when Lincoln was elected 16th President of the United States, his watch needed to be repaired. The timepiece had been sent to Washington, D.C., where the watchmaker Jonathan Dillon had been responsible for repairing the gusset watch of the president, trying task for everything Jeweler !
working in M.W. Galt and Co, Dillon got to work on the pocket watch by Mr Lincoln and decided to remove the dial with a certain dose of inspiration. Taking a sharp tool, he started engraving a message to the president. Dillon then signed and dated the inscription and closed the dial , referring his timepiece to Abraham Lincoln.
Jonathan Dillon kept His secret until 1906 when he decided to reveal what he had done at NY Times at the age of 84.
The secret message of the pocket watch
"The first shot is gone. Slavery is finished. God thank you, we have a president who will at least try".
13-1861 April
Fort Washington
Jonathan Dillon
President Lincoln has never opened the dial , so he worn the Gousset watch Until his death without knowing the message there. The watch was placed at the Smithsonian Museum and remained intact until 2009 when a member of the Dillon family contacted the Institute to inform him of history and engraving.
Course in his life, Abraham Lincoln has owned several gusset watches , including a Waltham watch, but it's the modest gold pocket watch which occupies first place in history.
