Kentucky museum attains documents at Lincoln auction
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CINCINNATI -- At her first auction, a young museum curator from Kentucky held her breath and shook just a bit as she bid $32,000 for three documents that show how Mary Todd Lincoln was found insane during a public trial in 1875 and committed to a private asylum in Batavia, Ill.
Kelly Williams, 26, bid successfully for the papers, which will be exhibited next spring at the Frazier International History Museum in Louisville.
"They're so historically significant. I'm really excited," said Ms. Williams. "Mary Todd Lincoln was a Kentuckian."
The museum plans to mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War with an exhibition called "My Brother, My Enemy" to examine the roles Kentuckians played during the Civil War.
"Kentucky was quite divided," Ms. Williams said.
Several relatives of Mary Todd Lincoln fought for the Confederacy and a White House visit by one of her sisters, a Confederate sympathizer, provoked controversy.
Ms. Williams, who has long dark hair and brown eyes, said her seventh-grade social studies teacher called her Mary Todd because he thought she looked so much like the young woman who attracted the attentions of several future U.S. senators in Illinois, including Lyman Trumbull, Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln.
Susan Meyn, an employee of Cowan's auction house, said she was immediately struck by Ms. Williams' resemblance to Mary Todd Lincoln, who had chestnut hair and blue eyes and dressed fashionably, dazzling suitors with witty conversation and her love of poetry.
The only item that sold for a higher price yesterday in a collection of Lincoln family memorabilia was a picture of Abraham Lincoln that was the president's favorite likeness of himself. Taken by Mathew Brady in 1864 and bearing Lincoln's signature, it brought $33,000. The last time an autographed photograph of Lincoln sold at an auction, it brought $150,000, said Wes Cowan, owner of the auction house.
First Published June 12, 2010 12:00 am
