Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum obtains chair from site of Lincoln's assassination

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) - The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum announced it has obtained a chair from the Ford Theatre that in use the night of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination.

ALPLM acquired an audience chair from the theater from a donor.

The chair will go on display this summer as part of an exhibit called "The Second American Revolution." The exhibit will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and explore how America changed as a result of the Civil War and emancipation of enslaved people.

Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865. He died the next morning.

Most of the audience at the theater sat in individual chairs instead of benches or rows. Nearly 1,000 chairs were removed after the federal government purchased the building in 1866. A National Park Service report said they were probably used for seating in government offices and then destroyed over the years when new furniture was purchased.

Retired Wake Forest University dean Gordon McCray and his wife, Coleen, chose to donate one of the remaining chairs to the ALPLM. McCray purchased the chair at a charity auction in the 1980s from a Baltimore family.

The museum contacted the Baltimore family and learned it had been in their family since shortly after the Civil War.